By Carole Dennett
As previously reported, the Isle of Wight Council spent a whole year wrangling over a new committee system – before finally adopting it in May with great fanfare. The ink had barely dried on their new constitution when, in June, the government announced it would outlaw the system our councillors had lovingly cobbled together. It was labelled ‘duplicative, wasteful and unclear’. No wonder our council voted for it.
Councils will return to a leader and cabinet system – the one ours just junked – by next May.
Naturally, we asked how much this experiment cost. The council said just £29,000, and described it as ‘cost neutral’, because it used existing staff and funding already ‘earmarked’. It didn’t occur to them that time and money could have been spent on more useful things – perhaps improving our education system or handing our hard-working coroner a pay rise.
We thought it most unlikely council officers had been working for free – so we asked for the true cost including officer time. We were told that the £25,000 of ‘specialist governance officer support’ and the estimated £4,000 for ‘technical training’, was joined by £27,870 on legal fees, including ‘urgent drafting of key documents’. Why it was urgent who knows – they had 12 months to organise it.
And how many hours did officers spend on it? No idea. None were recorded. But to give you a clue – they drew up five different ‘scenarios’ – and chose the most expensive. They told us they then worked ‘collaboratively’ with weekly working groups, monthly board reviews, regular committee engagement, officer forums and councillor briefing sessions. It sounds like enough collaboration to deliver world peace.
They’ve confirmed they don’t have a clue how much it all cost, but admitted it was ‘a significant undertaking’. We’re frightened to ask how much the significantly undertaken U-turn will cost.
