Lack of Opposition on Brent Council

Martin Francis complains here of the lack of real scrutiny by Brent Council.  Whereas I disagree with much of what he says most of the time (including in this post), he is quite right to say:

"Overview and Scrutiny Committees are ineffective and used mainly for grandstanding by the opposition rather than meticulous scrutiny and informed debate."

I am constantly struck by the way in which public debates get sidelined by minor aspects of the subject and people (including elected councillors sometimes) appear not to read proposals before pronouncing on them.  Hence the lack of "informed debate".  Both the Tory and Liberal Democrat groups on Brent Council seem to have little interest in the issues.  Although the Liberal Democrats in particular often "call in" reports, many of those who sign the calls in fail to attend the subsequent discussion. It makes one wonder why they wanted to stand for election.

My own solution to this is to track the proposals that the likes of Sarah Teather and Paul Lorber make, and then compare them to their current positions.  This often shows them to have promised one thing but actually done another.  However, this is only an effective deterrent if the voters take note and punish the Liberal Democrats, or whoever, for hypocrisy.  In Brent, the weakness of the local press often means that startling u-turns and blatent insincerity go unnoticed.