Richard Baum

Tonight is another meeting of Bury Council - the last one of 2009.

it’s a public meeting, which you’re all welcome to come along to. It kicks off at 7pm in the Council Chamber at Bury Town Hall. I hope it will be over by 8pm, because that’s when Spurs v City kicks off at White Hart Lane. But there are 51 Councillors in a room together, each one’s ego bigger than the last, and so there’s more chance of the meeting finishing in an hour as there is of the match ending in anything other than City’s 43rd draw on the bounce.

It’s not a particularly heavy agenda tonight. There are no motions for debate, which is something of a relief after the debates last time descended into chaos amidst tied votes, arcane constitutional rules, and a gaggle of people not really sure what to do next.

What we do have is a proposal to change the way the Council is led, which has been forced on us by the government. It says that we have to elect the Council Leader for four year terms now, as opposed to a single year as now. The idea is to give Councils a “strong leader,” although in reality all it will do is mean that the same weak leaders are kept in post longer. Strong leaders aren’t created by tinkering with job descriptions, they’re made by strong leaders being elected to lead Councils. Unfortunately the government think differently.

Not only does the “strong leader” idea not work in principle, it also won’t work in practice for a Council like our’s which has elections most years - in effect it means electing a Leader for four years despite that Leader’s party not being guaranteed a majority, and despite the Leader himself probably being up for election during his term.

Thankfully, as well as being silly and pointless, the legislation is about as solid as a jelly skyscraper, and so it’s easily circumvented. We agree to elect a Leader for four years, but say that he can be removed after a Council resolution at any time. So if his party loses control, he can be got rid of.

Which is much as it is now, only after lots of time and money wasted drafting and having to adopt pointless legislation.

It’s a good job the country is awash with cash or else that would have been a colossal waste of mon… Oh.

Rick