Committee Chairs

[steveL]

If you've read the Wynyard Deal story on the main page you'll have read how George Morris knocked back Brash's idea to keep the local plan but separate the two controversial issues, the south west extension and the traveller site, so that they could be dealt with without throwing £1.5m down the pan.

Morris' answer that the Tories wouldn't support anything that didn't include the Wynyard Development going ahead amounts to a clear case of pre-determination given that he and other Tories would go on to sit on the Planning Committee in April which passed the application.

The matter is currently under investigation but it's worth remembering what happens to the report on the matter when it is eventually issued. It will go to the Audit and Governance Committee for consideration. This is the committee that Keith Fisher used to Chair and the Chairmanship comes with the largest allowance of all the committees.

If you wanted to control the outcome of the investigation into Morris' comments then the best way is to control who gets the Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee and there's no better way of doing that than giving it to the Leader of the Conservative Group, Ray Wells.

So that's exactly what they've done.

The Tories have 3 councillors and have been given 2 Chairs of Committees. PHF, UKIP and Independents make up one-third of councillors and have been given no Chairs whatsoever.

http://www.hartlepoolpost.co.uk/wynyard%20deal.htm

[for fawkes sake]

They re sailing so close to the wind on this. The constitution says that the Chair of the Audit and Governance Committee MUST NOT be someone from the ruling group. With everyone accepting that the Tories are in coalition with Labour, including by all accounts the Chief Solicitor, then how exactly have they got away with this?

[DRiddle]

See my comment below the article. The Mail have either misquoted our council leader, or he's lied. I assume it's the former.

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/local/hartlepool-council-leader-defends-committee-selections-after-criticism-1-6654512

[craig finton]

This man has no shame. He's an habitual liar who whenever faced with a tricky situation is prepared to say absolutely anything to get out of it. We heard this during his recent telephone interview on BBC Tees over the Local Plan and now we read it in the Hartlepool Mail.

I don't think there has ever been a time when our council was in such a sorry state having reached the point when no one can believe a word this man says.

[DRiddle]

The Mail have pulled all the comments which refer to CABs statement in the paper.

[mk1]

The Mail have pulled all the comments which refer to CABs statement in the paper.

Not quickly enough though.............






Now I  bet they will justify it on the grounds the word 'lie' was used  but read Lilley's comment. There is nothing in it that gives any grounds for removal other than protecting a 'mate'

[mk1]

These are the  other posts  removed from the  Mail comments page in operation  'clean Sweep' at 12:50 today.

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

And here's the 'wriggle room'! 

'EDITOR'S NOTE:

Committee meeting clarified

THE Mail would like to clarify an article in Thursday's paper about concerns over selecting councillors for the posts of chairmen or women for various committees.

The article stated that Hartlepool Council leader, councillor Christopher Akers-Belcher, had said that no independent or UKIP councillors had attended the recent round table meetings ahead of full council, despite being invited.

This was not correct. Coun Akers-Belcher had only referred to the round table meeting on Tuesday, June 3, which was not attended by independent and UKIP councillors, and not to an earlier round table meeting at the end of May, which was attended by independent and UKIP councillors.'

[Mican]

In a bit of a pickle here, the round table was on Tuesday the 3rd, the story appeared on Thursday the 5th,  Given that the Mail is now printed in Sheffield and is on sale early morning, I can only assume it was printed on Wednesday the 4th, I wonder when exactly the Mail received the story?

[Lord Elpus]

No matter how HBC Public Relations department and the 'Mail' try to spin this, here is what he is reported as saying.

'Councillor Akers-Belcher said at the recent round table meetings, ahead of full council, no independent members or UKIP members attended despite being invited'.
He used the term 'meetings' in the plural which gave the clear impression that UKIP and Independent Councillors had failed to take any part in the process, which is not the case.

At best the original statement was misleading, at worst it's as close to telling a lie as one can get.

At least four Councillors contacted the organisers of this meeting asking for a different starting time to make it possible for them to attend, CAB failed to respond to their requests or answer their emails on the subject.

[DRiddle]

I think i'm right in saying that the percentage total of people on the electoral roll in Hartlepool who voted Conservative on May 22nd was........ 3.5%.

96.5% of the people in the town who had a vote did NOT use it to vote Conservative.

Granted, none of the parties come out particularly well when you breakdown the statistics in that way, but come on. Does that sound like justification to be given 2 committee chairs? Especially given that one of those chairs is very important in a 'checks and balances' sense.

[DRiddle]

Well, short and sweet meeting tonight to determine the committee chairs.

Nothing unexpected in terms of the carve up. All Labour barring the two which people knew predicted would be allocated to the Tories as discussed last week.

Interesting vote for the Chair of Audit and Governance.

There were two choices. Councillor Wells or myself.

Me, the self confessed 'aspirational socialist', public sector worker (to all intents and purposes), with political values to the left of centre. I offered to do the Chairmanship for free and refused the special responsibility allowance attached to the role. I offered for the money to instead be allocated to the financial pot being set aside for apprentices, with the aim of it taking a young person off the dole.   

The other option put forward to our Labour controlled council was the leader of the local 'Conservatives' (I feel inverted commas are necessary when using that word in Hartlepool). The party politically juxtaposed to Labour, the party most associated with privatisation, public sector cuts, the 'bedroom tax', Thatcherism and so forth.

Those were to two options offered up to Labour tonight.

No prizes for guessing which way they voted.

Only in Hartlepool...