Quoted from Old Goat

That's true of every other field of endevour as well!  If we followed this we'd get rid of the elected councillors - perhaps an advantage.  However, lets be very careful of 'experts'  certain highly qualified experts seemed to be rather too free with their advice to a certain shipbuilder in the early part of the last century with regard to lifeboats...

Well, that's not quite the case. The Board of Trade issued the safety regulations designating the number of lifeboats that should be carried. The shipping line worked within those guidelines and instructed the shipbuilder what they required and would pay for. The shipping line were at fault mainly because of their arrogance in deciding that the ship was unsinkable.

So we can use that analogy perhaps, the Board of Trade (HM Government) set the criteria, the shipping line (permanent staff) follow those guidelines and the shipbuilders (elected councillors) take the flack when it goes wrong. We could manage with far fewer councillors if they were more qualified and stopped the us and them bickering. I dread the thought of a third party joining the cabinet though, just another level of inter party bickering to put up with distracting the whole process.

Quoted from richard.garvie

That is the number of councils who publish through that site. I know of other councils who actively publish the information on their own website. Other councils like Corby in Northamptonshire and South Holland in Lincolnshire have the database in operation, but I don't know exactly where you can access it. As far as I know, West Berks are only just starting to compile the information.

Nope, that's all of them that publish it at the moment. 26 out of 434 is hardly a majority.

No one publishes it through that website, it's an independent monitor on council transparency.

Quoted from richard.garvie

But the officers technically work for the elected members, who are supposed to lead the council and control policy. Officers are there to advise and carry out work on behalf of the members. At West Berks, the officers dictate their own policy and railroad it through, and often the members are unaware of what is happen hence them appearing out of touch and misinformed.

And I thought they were there to work for the public who pay their wages - how wrong I was