Holding to Account

I mentioned a few days ago that Medway's Scrutiny Committees a currently going through our customary "end of term" exercise of holding the Executive to account, as it's termed. I was at Children's Services Scrutiny last night, and the latest Cabinet "victim" to sit in our equivalent of the Mastermind chair and be questioned was the portfolio holder for children's social care -- Councillor David Wildey.

Now, his is a fairly recently created position, and has existed for just eight months, so I felt he needed to justify this additional Cabinet post.

I had (as always) done my homework, and found that someone looking at the official information available from the council's website wouldn't give an impression of much being done by him. Indeed, there have been only four reports to Cabinet that have concerned his portfolio, and all four of those also included the (statutory) "Lead Member" for Children's Services, so do we really need a second portfolio?

I was first off the blocks, so put all of this to him, though not in precisely these terms: asking questions is of course done differently from reporting the sense and import here. David answered fairly well (although, as he will be the first to admit, he isn't the best person in the world at expressing himself clearly in situations such as this), as he did through his forty-minute stint.

By the end of this session, he had justified his job quite well, though it is of course still early days and next year's such event should be much more conclusive. I have a strong feeling that by then his position will have become rock solid. David's a good fellow, his heart is definitely in the right place, and he has that determination to make a success of what he is doing.

Something a little strange happened when the next questioner -- the Labour spokesman on the committee -- first commented (as he likes to do) on what I had asked. He referred to my "ringing endorsement" of the portfolio holder, in his typical sarcastic manner.

Later I came back to remark on that, and to explain that it was not my job to endorse Cabinet members. It was my job to challenge and scrutinise, though I wondered what some other members of this committee "sitting elsewhere in this room" (i.e. not my own side -- we know our jobs!) thought there were here to do. I informed the meeting that I already have something of a track record of challenging our portfolio holders at these events on other committees, so it wasn't something new or strange.

Well, it has always been obvious that the Labour Group have only one end in mind, and one purpose, and that is to try to make us look bad so that (they hope, rather forlornly I suspect) we shall lose support and lose our overall majority on the Council one day. Not much chance of that! Their's is the group in terminal decline...

Thus their policy is to disregard their own Government's requirement that Scrutiny be essentially non-party political. They have never, since Day One of Scrutiny in Medway (more than six years ago) stopped being as party political as they can get away with, especially when there are members of the public and/or journalists or other media present.

We have learned to live with it, and are generally sharp enough to deal effectively with their worst excesses when necessary. It doesn't really matter, though, as they merely show themselves up most of the time. I have had lifelong Labour supporters tell me in private just how appalled they have been at Labour Councillors' behaviour they have witnessed, especially (but not exclusively) at Scrutiny meetings. It is little wonder that the Labour Group shrinks in numbers at every local election here, and even between elections.

As for my colleagues and me: we definitely know our job, and play it cleanly every time. I think the Medway public appreciates that far more than the Labour Group realise. Yes, sometimes we have to take the opposition's blows right on the chin, but we're big and able enough to do so and come bouncing back every time. We'll do what we do properly, because in the final analysis that is the best way to serve the people of Medway. Labour do what they do because it is the best way for them to serve their own ends and thus themselves, which seems to be what their Party is all about, as recent months have shown (cf. Peter Hain et al).

I definitely prefer our way!