...at our Scrutiny meeting. I have only now recovered sufficiently from the surprise to write about it!The opposition Labour and LibDem members were uncharacteristically well-behaved. Indeed, they suddenly seemed to have become our Best Buddies for the evening. One cannot help wondering what they were really after! Admittedly, there were no journalists or members of the public present, and that always affects how at least some opposition members behave.
Whatever it was on this occasion, we had a successful meeting, and had come up with a plan to deal better with the ever-tightening situation that squeezes our budget scrutiny timetable more every year, owing to later and later announcements of our final financial settlement. I am very pleased with that initiative, which the committee's chairman proposed, and which the opposition spokesmen accepted and pledged to co-operate with us to achieve.
I managed to ask the Portfolio Holder for Finance (which includes a number of other subjects as well) two of my three questions, but supposedly "brief" questions from some of the opposition were typically anything but (one claimed to be "very brief" took three-and-a-half minutes to ask!) so we ran out of time for me to ask my third. Both those that I did manage to ask were concerned with aspects of our forthcoming budget-setting: one on the "floor damping" I have mentioned here before, and what if any legal challenge to it might be possible; and the other about the budget scrutiny process itself.
Good questions, with answers too lengthy to more than briefly summarise here, as: (a) we are very unlikely to be able to successfully challenge the floor damping fiddle; and (b) some ideas came out that should help next year's budget scrutiny (it is too late to implement them this year) and this came from all sides, which was very helpful. I am so pleased to have been the catalyst for this, having devised a finely-crafted and comprehensive question (though it still took me less than half a minute to ask it, note!) and elicited an even better result than I had dared hope for.
Overall, it was a surprisingly positive and useful meeting, and for me embodied the best of what Scrutiny can be when handled well. We are getting much better at this business, and that can only be good for everyone involved or affected by what we do at Scrutiny. Everybody wins!
3 comments:
Indeed - it *could* be argued that this shows the virtues of having Scrutiny meetings in closed sittings, however that is not something I'm massively in favour of.
I have noticed at meetings I have viewed that Labour (and to some extend Lib Dem) members do whatever they can to "score points" in front of people such as myself.
In reality it is just embarassing, and destroys the important, genuine debate.
Incidentally - I am hoping to watch the Council meeting on Thursday, I have been preparing my pen hand for the Special meeting (is that open to the public?) and any other important issues that may arise from the main meeting.
I too would not wish to hold any meetings in closed session, apart from those (or parts of) that have to be, such as where individual staff or other personal matters are being discussed (which is rare) or contract tenders.
We just have to put up with the Opposition's behaviour -- and your assessment is spot-on. Labour are the worst in the Chamber by a large margin.
The special Council meeting will indeed be open to the public to attend. See you there! If you stick it out to the end, feel free to hang around the main stairs outside the Chamber, and I'll catch you there. It usually takes me about three minutes to pack up, and another minute or two to find a way past the milling throngs and out!
I will do just that - and that should get me enough time to escape the public gallery!
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