Oakham Town Council is 'dysfunctional'

I am told by Martin Brookes that Oakham Town Council have been found to be dysfunctional - well it certainly took long enough. The penny does seem to have finally dropped. I am on my way to the Council Offices to find out if I can get a copy of the findings. However Martin Brookes has published the following paragraph on his blog:

"This case taken together with other assessed cases involving many members of Oakham Town Council indicates an inter-relatonship of cases so serious or complex that they could not be handled locally; investigating the complaints requires substantial amounts of evidence beyond that available from the authority's documents, its members or officers; There is substantial governance dysfunction in the authority."

I'll just repeat that:

"There is substantial governance dysfunction in the authority."

Hooray - it took a long time to come to the right conclusion. Perhaps with the justice of Bloody Sunday finally being brought into some sort of transparent light we are undergoing a sea change in the democratic processes in this country. Yes that was worth M£192 and the 41 complaints that Helen Briggs complained that the Standards Committee had received about Oakham Town Council are at last reaping results. Army dysfunctions and Oakham Parish Council dysfunctions do not come cheap when they happen, but they are worth the expenditure expended to investigate them and bring the sorry failures to light.

I, along with Fiona Arold, Linda Grey and Tor Clarke are attending a meeting at Oakham Town Council tonight. They are interviewing four people to be co-opted to two places on the Town Council. I don't have a cat in hell's chance of being selected, but this finding will make the interview process a great deal easier - at last parish Councillors on the Town Council may be in a position to understand why they should be encouraged to question their own behaviour.

Oddly the meeting will be public at 7.45 whilst they discuss which of the four candidates to choose. Should be fun!