Careers

[Username]

I've noticed a lot of remarks when referring to our councillors about how much they receive and how some treat it as a full time job.

I'm sure we all agree that police officers, fire and rescue officers, doctors, nurses, and civil servants are all essential to our way of life. There is also no issue with anyone pursuing a career in any of these services that I've noticed. Why then, is there such opposition to people choosing politics as a career? I don't just mean on this site, though it was here and facebook that made this so obvious, I mean in general.

We still have the oportunity to elect candidates and remove those we find wanting, so why is it an issue for people to give politics their full attention rather than as a part time addition or a retirement hobby?

[The Great Dictator]

   There are several who do this but generally those who cannot or don't want full time paid employment in an office/factory environment or similar.

   When i was on council duty i earned about £130 a week after tax for working up to 30 hours a week and as a cabinet member regularly travelled to Newcastle or Guisborough for meetings.

   As a consequence my business suffered and i had to pay around £170 a week for a part time person to cover my position at work so when my 4 year term ended i walked away.

   I don't have a problem with these councillors making a living from serving the town as long as what they do is above board, i'm sure if they tried they could find a job paying £25000 but thats for them to decide and their conscience.

   

[jeffh]

I've noticed a lot of remarks when referring to our councillors about how much they receive and how some treat it as a full time job.

I'm sure we all agree that police officers, fire and rescue officers, doctors, nurses, and civil servants are all essential to our way of life. There is also no issue with anyone pursuing a career in any of these services that I've noticed. Why then, is there such opposition to people choosing politics as a career? I don't just mean on this site, though it was here and facebook that made this so obvious, I mean in general.

We still have the oportunity to elect candidates and remove those we find wanting, so why is it an issue for people to give politics their full attention rather than as a part time addition or a retirement hobby?

The main difference between the Public Service careers you mention and the councillors is that the former are both qualified and go through a selection process for their respective positions and not just elected based on a personality they choose to give to the electorate.

The way the system is we have these elected officials carrying out duties which is may beyond their pay grade but are not held accountable for their actions - the most recent example being the Grenfell Tower tragedy - the councillors were ill equipped and probably incapable of carrying out their allocated duties in their Emergency Plan but as they probably didn't think anything like that was going to happen, it wasn't a problem.
It was only after nearly two weeks pressure did the leader of the council stand down.

Only when it happened did it become a problem.  Whilst we don't have that sort of tragedy here in Hartlepool, we do have a time bomb ticking in the way that our money is being spent and with the latest vanity project diverting money away from services, which as a Council Tax Payer I do not expect.  I would have though service budgets would have been protected from these hair brained schemes they keep coming up with.

I believe Martin-Wells once said sometimes councillors don't know what they are signing up to and the CEO said some stones are best left unturned.  Only if councillors were fully aware of what their responsibilities are and we don't leave any stones unturned can we have a council that is serving the community to the full.  Sadly we don't have that in Hartlepool and there's no need for me to go through the list of their shortcomings, but they may want to look at "The 7 principles of public life (Nolan)" then decide whether a career in politics is for them.

As a reminder the 7 principles are

Selflessness
Integrity
Objectivity
Accountability
Openness
Honesty
Leadership

If they started demonstrating those principles I would respect them for it, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Inspector Knacker]

I've noticed a lot of remarks when referring to our councillors about how much they receive and how some treat it as a full time job.
Why then, is there such opposition to people choosing politics as a career?

it's quite simple. If someone wishes to be a full time politician, they need to be qualified to fulfill the role. However, most councillors couldn't make a full time job of it, but if they did, there would have to have achieved a suitable qualification to justify their role..
The biggest problem isn't the job, or even the financial rewards, it's the quality of the candidates.

[Land Phil]

The officers are the qualified salaried professionals with contracted hours, legal accountability etc.

The councillors are the voice of public opinion.
I am not aware any Councillor holds a PhD in town planning, civil engineering etc.

Well they might but they don't make it apparent if they do.

[The Great Dictator]

   If you had a PhD in town planning you wouldn't be a councillor unless it paid £35000 a year.

[Username]

So the main issues are quality of candidate and qualifications. The Councillor role has no training program through which people can gain a qualification. There is no university course or apprenticeship for example so far as I'm aware. It's much the same in most of the roles I listed in the OP barring the medical profession and some very specialised areas of the others. It's all on the job training or a quick training program and then pick it up as you go. Much the same as I've observed for the Councillors.

So that brings us to the issue of quality of candidate. There are some glaringly obvious issues with some of our Councillors. Issues over honesty and integrity most of all as all other shortcomings can fall under those. The question I ask now is: how do we ensure we get appropriate people as candidates? We can only really make our decisions based upon the limited interactions we get before an election. Where we find the people we've trusted have let us down we can vote against them next time but then we're faced with other people we don't know outside of thw election run up.

[The Great Dictator]

   The only relevant qualification is common sense and not all councillors have that.

[fred c]

What kind of training program does a councillors have to undertake in order to condemn tens of thousands of pounds worth of carpets because they didn't like the colour...... only a graduate from the university of stupidity could come up with that.

[Inspector Knacker]

So the main issues are quality of candidate and qualifications. The Councillor role has no training program through which people can gain a qualification. There is no university course or apprenticeship for example so far as I'm aware. It's much the same in most of the roles I listed in the OP barring the medical profession and some very specialised areas of the others. It's all on the job training or a quick training program and then pick it up as you go. Much the same as I've observed for the Councillors.

So that brings us to the issue of quality of candidate. There are some glaringly obvious issues with some of our Councillors. Issues over honesty and integrity most of all as all other shortcomings can fall under those. The question I ask now is: how do we ensure we get appropriate people as candidates? We can only really make our decisions based upon the limited interactions we get before an election. Where we find the people we've trusted have let us down we can vote against them next time but then we're faced with other people we don't know outside of thw election run up.

A Defence for the status quo.
As long as there's party politics in local government we'll have party hacks and time servers elected. Puppeteers and puppets.

[The Great Dictator]

   The councillors don't select carpets or any other products, thats what the officers are paid for.

   Officers have delegated powers for these duties in most cases so don't even need permission.

   Councillors only rubber stamp the bigger decisions.

[steveL]

   The councillors don't select carpets or any other products, thats what the officers are paid for.

   Officers have delegated powers for these duties in most cases so don't even need permission.

   Councillors only rubber stamp the bigger decisions.

I think you're taking about a 'normal' council, not the current regime.

People were queuing up to tell us how CAB had thrown a wobbler at the colour of the carpets and insisting that they were changed.

[Username]

Fred what makes you think I'm a graduate?

How is it a defence of the status quo Stevie? I asked questions. Specifically how can we ensure we ensure we get appropriate candidates?

[mk1]

Fred what makes you think I'm a graduate?

How is it a defence of the status quo Stevie? I asked questions. Specifically how can we ensure we ensure we get appropriate candidates?

3 'questions' in one post. The desperate attempt  to ensnare and then lead the forum down your chosen path continues.
You can no more 'ensure we get appropriate candidates' than we can 'ensure we get appropriate contributors' on Hartlepool Post.

[Inspector Knacker]

You can pay a monkey £1 an hour to swing in a tree. Paying it £2 an hour will not make it swing any better, because that's what monkeys do. A better class of monkey? Possibly. But the party monkeys decide which monkeys swing in the trees and they'll always pick the party monkey regardless.

That's the trouble being a Councillor with something to offer, you have to join the cult of the party, where talent is no advantage but illiterate  sycophancy is. That's the problem.