Last July, the council identified the need to investigate how the impact of government cuts to local councils would impact upon the user's of local services. The intention was to devise ways in which the Council could be re-structured to lessen the impact on front line services. To meet this objective, the "Shaping Our Council" committee was formed. This was a cross party committee, consisting of 4 Labour councillors and 2 Conservatives. The committee decided that it would take a top down approach to restructuring the council, and by starting at the would top reduced the number of directorial and then assistant directorial posts resulting in the least direct impact on front line services. Other measures such as natural wastage and none replacement of none essential rolls were also included in this methodology. A schedule of meetings was set up, 6 in total, commencing in July 2010 and ending on the 9th of February 2010 shortly before the council Budget Meeting on the 23rd. Following on from the analysis we did earlier in the week on attendance figures, we decided to take a look at what is arguably one of the most important committees in the council considering the cuts being made within the last few months. We were appalled when we went through the minutes and analysed the attendance of these meetings to find that on only one occasion out of six councillors, were all the members present. We were even more shocked to find that the two Conservative councillors only attended one single meeting on the 15th November 2010. Now it could be argued that they did not attend the other meetings because they were in some way philosophically opposed to the methodology or felt the approach was inappropriate; even so didn't they have a moral responsibility to attend these meetings and vote against proposals? But let's be honest, cutting back on the bosses and keeping the worker's does go against the grain a bit if you are a Tory. However, what is most shocking about this is that the two Tory's who did finally bother to turn up choose to do so for the third meeting only. They could not even use the excuse that they turned up for the first one, thought it was a waste of time and didn't bother coming again. Certainly when we looked at expenses a few days ago the Tories were clearly identified in the statistics as being the ones claiming most from us tax payers and doing least in return. When we looked at general attendance at council they were at the bottom of the league. Today, when we look at the attendance of special committees formed specifically to tackle issues directly affecting the people of North Lincolnshire found they were no longer scraping the bottom of the barrel, they are through it!

Attendance figures for Shaping the Council meetings

L Foster (Labour) - Attended all meetings - 100% J Briggs (Conservative) - attended just 1 meeting - 16% Davison (Labour) - Missed 1 meeting but substituted by Cllr Collinson - 83% Mrs Redfern (Conservative) - attended just 1 meeting - 16% Swift (Labour) - Attended all meetings - 100% Put in simple terms, there were 6 meetings, with 6 "seats" at each meeting. This gives a total of 36 seats over the year, 24 allocated to the Labour group, 12 to the Conservatives. The Labour group occupied all 24 of their seats. The Conservatives occupied only 2. We will use this metric as we analyse the make-up and attendance of other committees over the forthcoming weeks, as it shows clearly the level of or lack of commitment from Councillors in a very clear and indisputable way. These findings show a lack of commitment from our Conservative representatives who have a moral obligation to attend meetings such as these to represent us, their voters. Even if they are fundamentally opposed to the paradigm being proposed by Labour, they should at least have had the decency to attend the meetings and vote against. When you see people protesting all across the middle east at the lack of democracy, and we then have democratically elected representatives in this country who can not be bothered to turn up to meetings, then they should seriously look at why they are standing. Keep an eye on Visit Scunthorpe tomorrow, as we will be revealing how your council tax is being spent based on some very interesting information we've received via an FOI request.