We, May 17, 2006The dream team
Steve Bullock announced his Cabinet and with it he also makes a bold statement.Now we're all "customers".
Yes, that's what you are, a customer, and if you have any complaint you'll have to speak with the "Customer Services" led by Cllr Susan Wise.
Oh no, sorry, we misread, it seems that after all there are also other people allegedly in charge of other things and "Customer Services" is only a new fancy name for "Housing".
Somebody's feeling disoriented?
Well, surely some of these 7 cabinet members must be.
There used to be 9 of them but now the number has been reduced and oddly, those that we thought were already too busy are now getting even more jobs.
The previous deputy Mayor for example was also in charge of regeneration.
Now Cllr Heidi Alexander that gets the job of Deputy Mayor will also follow regeneration, but as if that wasn't enough, she'll also be in charge of Environment.
Poor girl, she'll have to give up on sleeping and eating for the next 4 years or she won't be able to follow all that's going around in her multiple portfolio of portfolios.
There used to be a Cabinet member for Adult Care and Health. That job is no more.
Helth seems to have been completely dropped, Adult Care gets a slight renaming and will instead be brought forward by Cllr Chris Best that as member for Community Services will follow adult social services, libraries, arts and leisure services.
Do you need to speak to her? Hurry up and book an appointment now. With a job like that there's probably another 1000 people that need to speak to her too.
Then there are the straightfoward jobs as one would expect them to be.
There is a new post of Champion for Older People that goes to Cllr Peggy Fitzsimmons.
Cllr Helen Klier is in charge of Resources. Cllr Robert Massey is member for Children and Young People, Cllr Crada Onuegbu remains in charge of Community Safety (feeling relieved by this last bit of news?).
As for the previous cabinet none of them get to vote for the Council's decisions.
This is a "Directly Elected Executive Mayor" borough and there's no voting or other funny business here, Steve knows all that's best for you.
That's why he needs only 7 people to help him keeping track of all that the Council does.
It also frees up another couple of Councillors that can go and attend Overview and Scrutiny and defend his decisions from eventual opposition's criticisms.
With a group of only 26 Councillors Labour can't afford to have too many of them disqualified from O&S because members of a non-voting cabinet. ...read more...