Craig Browne, Independent councillor for the Alderley Edge Ward has proposed a motion to motion to be debated at tomorrow's meeting of the full council calling on Cheshire East to allocate all Chairs of Overview & Scrutiny Committees to opposition members as soon as possible.
Councillor Browne said "In 2014, CEC commissioned an independent analysis by De Montfort University. The subsequent report recommended that the Chairs of Scrutiny Committees should be allocated to all groups as a matter of good practise. We are now over four years later on and nothing has changed; all Scrutiny Committee Chairs continue to be filled exclusively by Councillors from the ruling Conservative Group. These Councillors are hand-picked by the Leader of the Council and they receive an additional financial allowance of £7,353 for the job of chairing committees which meet once every two months.
"The role of whichever group has a majority on the Council (currently the Conservatives) is to make policy decisions; and the role of opposition groups (currently Labour, Independents & LibDems) is to scrutinise them. As the representation of Councillors on each Scrutiny Committee is proportionate to the make up of the Council, it follows that the Conservative Group has a majority in the Council Chamber and on each Scrutiny Committee; having the Chairs of those committees from the same majority group, means that this group also has full control over the agendas of the committees.
"This effectively amounts to self-scrutiny and an undue control over the scrutiny process by the same Councillors who are making the decisions in the first place. My hope is that highlighting this issue will help residents to understand how some of the well-publicised issues at Cheshire East have been allowed to arise (police investigations, officer suspensions, air quality data etc) and perhaps why the scrutiny process failed to pick up on them at an earlier stage."
As reported on alderleyedge.com yesterday, this is one of three motions being tabled by Independent members of Cheshire East Council for discussion at a meeting of Full Council on Thursday, 13th December. The first motion calls for for a comparative analysis to be published for a special meeting of the Council (to be held early in the new year) to determine whether the current cabinet system should be replaced by a committee system. Whilst the third requests that all remaining Committee Chairs are allocated across the political groups in line with the number of members they each have at Cheshire East Council.
Comments
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Of course it is so much easier for the Leader to ensure her and her party's priorities are enacted by her cabal of inner yes men/women. It is suspected that those who strongly disagree with her set course will soon be out of favour, out of the inner circle & maybe even deselected next election round. So no pressure there!
Reverting to the time tested committee system, with a mix of other parties' input, will make life not quite as certain for the Leader but at least the electorate, the ones who vote the yes people in, will get a better crack of the whip.
The Independent group are to be commended and supported for this initiative to restore a clearer democratic process to the dictatorship we unfortunately know.
Please make sure you add your and your family's & friends' signatures to to the petition ChangeCheshireEast.co.uk Also write to your CEC councillor expressing your distaste and concerns with the CEC dictatorship and support for the change with the way CEC is run.
The independent group in adjoining Wilmslow (Residents of Wilmslow) is fully behind the independent councillors at CE in their bid to return open & full democracy to this benighted council.
Please support and vote for local democracy.
What is being suggested is a practical solution to the current failed system that in itself smells fishy .. because it is fishy and rotten to the core.. CEC should have been put in special measures months ago… but that was never going to happen under this Govt due to the further embarrassment it would cause. Ironically the most disenfranchised residents here though from my experience are the Tory voters who have been hoodwinked by all the evidenced CEC shenannigins. Is it any wonder Tory Cllrs are jumping ship to become independent ? Well give them the chance ! as they obviously couldn’t do the right when hoodwinked and hamstrung by the party whip mentality. Interestingly Cheshire West don’t have these same issues. Merge ASAP. Meanwhile thank goodness for the transparency and integrity of our independent Cllrs.