This Tuesday will be a landmark occasion for Tory Councillor Virginia Von Celsing. The Compton Councillor has yet to ask a question at full council or executive, and prior to being elected in May was never seen in the council chamber.

So, the member for Compton will be asking a hugely important question. Will it be to do with the future of her local secondary school and fears about it seeking academy status? Will it be regarding a percieved increase in rural crime in the villages she looks after? Will it concern speeding issues on the rural back roads or the state of road surfaces? Problems with ditches and drainage maybe?

No. The burning issue raised by Cllr Von Celsing is something a lot more important to the residents of her Compton Ward. The question to be asked on Tuesday evening will be "Since December last year, how many questions have been asked by Mr Garvie?". I here her electorate are sitting on the edge of their seats awaiting the answer.

I will be interested what the actual answer is, I know it's roughly five per meeting. But maybe Cllr Von Celsing and her chums should be asking more relevant questions about issues that impact their ward residents. For a councillor with attendance less than 70% and who has never asked a question at a full council or executive meeting previously to behave in this way is a little shoddy. What do people care how many questions I ask? All of my questions are relevant to the people of this district and issues that effect them (maybe that's why they don't like the questions).

In terms of value for money, Cllr Von Celsing has cost the taxpayer aroun £330 for each of the meetings that she has attended. In that time, she hasn't asked any questions at all. I've asked tons of questions and I didn't cost the taxpayer anything. Who offers best value?

PS. Cllr Von Celsing is also Deputy Chair (Berkshire) for the Conservative Party.

Good to know that our elected representatives are getting their priorities right. Why on earth are they wasting time on this? Love him or hate him, at least Richard is asking some good questions, unlike the Useless Libdems.

Any progress on the 'Have you looked at the savings which could be made by merging with other councils and reducing the number of councillors?' or 'Are we absolutely sure there's no one out there who is capable of doing the CEO's job for a lot less than the cost of the current one?' questions yet? I'm sure we'd all like to see the answers to these.

Now, I wonder who has put her up to that question, could it be that they, West Berks Council (Conservatives), want to debate the Garvie thing and it is a subtle waynot so subtle way of getting him excluded as a political agitator. We must remind her of course, if that is the case, Emily Pankhurst was known as a political agitator.

Did you note on this agenda that one of the councillors was miffed because his question of local transport links was not allowed on a previous agenda.

You're right, there can be little doubt that Van Helsing as been put up to this. She is obviously one of the more ineffectual Councillors so they're happy to hide behind her.

Funny how rattled they get when they have to be answerable in public to the public. The last thing this cosy little group want is to be put under any scrutiny. Who knows, they might have to start actually doing something.

Shoot the messenger, yeah, that's the way forward.


Threep.

Actually, if this it to be taken at face value and they are going to try and go down the 'taking too much time' route, then here's a way RG can help them:

You (Richard) must have a record of the questions you asked. Why not add them up and disclose this total at the meeting? Thus Van Helsing needn't ask her question and a bit of time can be saved. If you've already given the answer, then it's her that would then be wasting their time.


Threep.

Richard, make one of your questions: Since being elected, how may questions has Cllr Virginia Von Celsing posed?  

Ahhh, but the deadline for asking questions is seven WORKING days before a meeting, so even if I'd like to ask another question it simply isn't possible. Cllr Von Celsing has an attendance record of less than 70% and this will be her first question since being elected.

Since the May elections, there have been 7 council and exec meetings, and the following questions have been submitted:

Me: 15
Cllr Adrian Edwards: 1
Keith Woodhams: 6
Alan Macro: 4
Julian Swift Hook: 3
David Rendel: 4
Tony Vickers: 4

Prior to May, I had asked only seven questions in 6 available meetings, so not as many as I had thought. 22 questions in 13 meetings works out at less than 2 per meetings on average, so much for me preventing others from having the opportunity!!!

What is worrying is that only six elected members have used the allocated time for members questions to actually do so. That means 46 councillors have yet to ask a members question.

Quoted from richard.garvie

What is worrying is that only six elected members have used the allocated time for members questions to actually do so. That means 46 councillors have yet to ask a members question.

Only one of those questions came from a Conservative councillor.

Obviously Conservative councillors don't need to ask questions, which is probably why they are surprised that you need to ask so many.

You could tell that there was a certain amount of annoyance on the part of one or two members with RG. Councillor Jones however when replying to Councillor Von Celsing's question made it quite clear that members of the public should be shown the due courtesy of a hearing as the council is run to be open and transparent. He came up with a cost of RG's questions which I thought to be a little over the top.
Anyway, I'm still not sure why the question was aked, it will be interesting to see if the NWN runs the story. I believe that is the reason the question was asked, to get some figures in the public domain. We shall see tomorrow.

Quoted from brian

You could tell that there was a certain amount of annoyance on the part of one or two members with RG. Councillor Jones however when replying to Councillor Von Celsing's question made it quite clear that members of the public should be shown the due courtesy of a hearing as the council is run to be open and transparent. He came up with a cost of RG's questions which I thought to be a little over the top.
Anyway, I'm still not sure why the question was aked, it will be interesting to see if the NWN runs the story. I believe that is the reason the question was asked, to get some figures in the public domain. We shall see tomorrow.

What was the cost?

Quoted from user23.3

What was the cost?

We'll see if it'ss in the paper tomorrow, if not, you should be able to read it in the minutes unless RG wants to tell you. I know why you want to know though, it's so that you can attempt to make some capitral out of it.

Quoted from BrianB

Obviously Conservative councillors don't need to ask questions,

Why should they? They're told all they need to know by the officers thank you very much.

Van Helsing should be ashamed of herself for being used as a tool. But then again, her attendance record and question asking record shows she either has little shame or certainly no fear of being voted out.

Until now.



Threep.

Quoted from brian

We'll see if it'ss in the paper tomorrow, if not, you should be able to read it in the minutes unless RG wants to tell you. I know why you want to know though, it's so that you can attempt to make some capitral out of it.

Why the avoidance of the question, was the figure particularity high?

Quoted from user23.3

Why the avoidance of the question, was the figure particularity high?

What would be high?  I understand it averaged 2 per session, but I can't remember the figure.  It is about somewhere.

Quoted from Greenham Common

What would be high?  I understand it averaged 2 per session, but I can't remember the figure.  It is about somewhere.

It's the only reason I can think of for not revealing the figure of the cost to taxpayers.

Richard said about 5 questions per session.

Quoted from user23.3

It's the only reason I can think of for not revealing the figure of the cost to taxpayers.

Richard said about 5 questions per session.

How does it cost tax payers?

Quoted from user23.3

Why the avoidance of the question, was the figure particularity high?

See what I mean, you've already started down the line.

Quoted from Threepwood

certainly no fear of being voted out. Until now.

Voted out? A rural Tory councillor in West Berkshire? They could put up a tub of lard and it would be elected. Worth trying - would save us £600K a year if we replaced all district councillors with tubs of lard.

Quoted from noobree

Voted out? A rural Tory councillor in West Berkshire? They could put up a tub of lard and it would be elected. Worth trying - would save us £600K a year if we replaced all district councillors with tubs of lard.

Compton was a Lib Dem ward until 2005. (In 2010, she got 830 votes to 320 for the Lib Dems).

Of the meetings she's missed, one was a planning meeting with 3 applications to discuss. One of those was in her ward. Shoddy

How much has User and his website cost us?

Then we can also evaluate whether that was value for money or not!!

I thought it was about five per session, but turns out it is less than two per session. No accurate cost was provided, they simply said the figure "could run into thousands of pounds".

It sounds like the price of democracy to me.  If they really want to save money then they could ban the public from all council meetings.

To be honest, I'm not sure why RG asks questions of the council anyway. The questions he asked were available in advance to the councillors and they were read out quite clearly. The answers however were a little difficult to comprehend and I thought that most of the answers didn't do justice to the questions. Councillors mumbling their answers as they read them from their crib sheet. One very pompous councillor, answering a question as if was beneath him to provide a lucid answer and so on.

Now, I really don't understand how the cost of the questions is calculated let alone 'running into thosands'. I don't think so. My first premise is that the questions are asked in advance, by a member of the public, of our elected councillors. Secondly these councillors to whom the question is directed, are paid extra to be portfolio holders. In other words, they should personally have the answers at their fingertips, that is why they are councillors and why they are paid for the extra responsibility. They should not need to get the council full time employees to research their answers and write their crib sheet for them. So, if they were to answer the questions that are put to them themselves, the cost overhead is nil.

I can understand that FoI questions may need answering by an unelected employee as quite often they require specialist answers and the council may need to research legal aspects of the questions but that person is salaried and there is no cost overhead if he/she answers ten questions or fifteen questions.

There seems to be an offloading of responsibility by councillors. I asked, by email, some questions of one of our councillors on the subject of which she is the portfolio holder. My questions were not answered by her but by the FoI person to whom she punted my question.

There is a meeting of the council executive on Thursday.
Nine questions from Mr Garvie on the agenda. Doesn't seem to have made any difference after the last meeting. I wonder how high the annoyance level will be this time...

http://decisionmaking.westberks.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=117&MId=1452&Ver=4

Interesting, after the questions and for part ll  of the meeting there are nine agenda items where the press and public are excluded. One item is about local high speed broadband. Can't imagine why that is sensitive.

This one is interesting. Another car park for a pound perhaps

24. Market Street Redevelopment - Draft Conditional Development
Agreement (EX2352)
371 - 468
(Paragraph 4 – information relating to terms proposed in negotiations)
(CPP1/CPT2, 3)
Purpose: To advise and update Members regarding recent progress in
connection with the Market Street Development and to seek approval of
various agreements which have been in discussion between the parties
seeking to bring the scheme forward.

And of course, interesting to see if Mr Mooney turns up. He's an Executive member even in absentia.

Quoted from brian

There is a meeting of the council executive on Thursday.
Nine questions from Mr Garvie on the agenda. Doesn't seem to have made any difference after the last meeting. I wonder how high the annoyance level will be this time...

Richard, come on chap. what happened. ?

Quoted from brian

Richard, come on chap. what happened. ?

Did any of our usually absent councillors actualy turn up?  

More importantly did you actually get any answers to your questions for a change?  

The council meeting was moved forward thirty minutes and I was unable to get there in time!!! As far as I remember, a meeting start time had to be notified within a set period of time, anyone know what the current constitution of the council states? They change it that often these days,m it's hard to keep up!!!

Quoted from richard.garvie

The council meeting was moved forward thirty minutes and I was unable to get there in time!!! As far as I remember, a meeting start time had to be notified within a set period of time, anyone know what the current constitution of the council states? They change it that often these days,m it's hard to keep up!!!

How often is the constitution changed?

Quoted from user23.3

How often is the constitution changed?

Quite often by the looks of the constitution last changed dates. Oldest change date is May 2011, newest is December 2011.

As far as I can see, there should be 5 days notice unless the date/time is changed as a matter of urgency (whatever that means).

Quoted from Bartholomew

Quite often by the looks of the constitution last changed dates. Oldest change date is May 2011, newest is December 2011.

As far as I can see, there should be 5 days notice unless the date/time is changed as a matter of urgency (whatever that means).

Like if the urgency is if anyone asks a question that makes any of their mates look dumb!