Search This Blog

Sunday, 1 May 2011

Local Executives and the Committee System

The extraordinary Council meeting on libraries a few weeks ago reminds us how strange the structure of local government is.  Effectively, full Council does very little.  Once a year it passesa budget, which is binding.  It occasionally gets other votes, such as on planning issues like the Local Development Framework, but essentially it is a relic of the "Committee System" that went out in 2000.

Some are still nostaglic for the old Committees, although most of the people I have spoken to who actually remember it are less fond. As I see it the two ways forward are:

1) An improved role for scrutiny, particularly for challenging bodies other than the Council: e.g. the NHS, Network Rail, the Police, RSLs;  There is no shortage of potential candidates.
2) Some further development of the ward working agenda to get councillors to be more responsive to local needs.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So why don't you lead by example and be more responsive to local needs by saving Kensal Rise Library?

Post a Comment