One of the big failings of a council - any council, is ignorance, naivity and the appalling sight of councillors voting on issues that they have not got the slightest grasp of.Early CPZs is one example where Councillors were presented with documents bigger than the bible. Most voting had clearly never opened the pages let alone read the whole thing. After listening to both councillors and officers it was pretty clear that neither had a full grasp of the issues being discussed.One older Councillor dozed all the way through the debate and voted 'for' even though she said she would not.Now we have councillors who hide behind a lot of spin and are putting the party politics of spite into the mix.The end result is a poor deal - except for those who have preyed on their ideology and naivity.Cllr Mahfouz likes to come across as clever and articulate, but he is gullible and too full of his own ego. More smart**s than smart. He has consequently screwed up more than once and that alone should be enough to be sacked. He ought to do the honorable thing and resign. Go and take a long look at hiimself, and learn from his own ineptitude. In fact like several other councillors, take a portfolio that does not have major ramifications, handle it well and learn . Then maybe one is fit to deal with bigger issues.I use this as an example as it was one of the less party political issues, but it does underline the problem.Some council officers are useless. Some council officers are ambitious, some council officers are political and some council officers are excellent.As in many British organisations, those who are genuinely good at their job get suppressed and those with sharp elbows and spend more time networking and usually little else, somehow get to the top. And even more perversely, feted and rewarded. Councillors are supposed to vote based on the information, facts and guidance of officers, but all too often this is very poor and outside forces seem to come in and influence officers. It's not easy doing these contracts, tendering is secret to the degree that the best potential contractor may not even get invited to tender. It gets muddied by lawyers and the big companies know this is to their advantage.But the contracts are often too weak. They are in the favour of the operator who will sieze on these chinks in the armour at any opportunity.Hounslow ( which is worse than Ealing for ineptitude and political games) Has managed to get it's parks contract wrong not once, but twice.The first one failed to specify to it's contractors CiP, that they had to sweep the paths in the Boroughs parks and greens. So when things got a bit tight for CiP they stopped. Then they found that they were not contractally bound to maintain other things so they stopped that too.Now the current company John Laing, have a contract that allows them to charge what THEY like to use the boroughs parks, choose what they want in the parks and subsequently have smashed items in parks in conservation areas replacing them with cheap modern stock items, and the council is powerless.At a recent planning meeting again, the officers made monkeys out of councillors but in a more political way. They only told councillors what they wanted to hear, twisting the key facts to the point that they actually altered a map ommiting a sub-station. Whilst the attending residents noticed, they were prevented from speaking and councillors buried their heads in the sand.So the responsibility is even and both the councillors concerned should resign their positions and the officers be removed from those duties and demoted.The maybe we will get a better service all round. And those excellent officers who do exist might get a chance.
Michael Brandt ● 5075d