Well it is four months since I was elected as a Councillor. That’s almost 10% percent of my allotted span in the job!
I have felt as though I have been kept pretty busy but looking back at the blog it is hard to see whether I have actually been doing anything! This is despite the fact that I find myself on four separate committees, and am actually the Chair of a very small (but financially and operationally quite important) one.
It is actually all rather strange. One goes to Hadleigh and sits in meetings. Things are discussed. There is a feeling that ‘out there’ in the real world things are happening, and we can feel happy about that. The Council is getting on with all sorts of excellent work such as ensuring that affordable houses are built, repairing social housing, running holiday sports events for kids etc. etc. In addition phone calls from anguished constituents prove that the Council is having an impact on their lives.
However in the meetings held within the four walls of the council chamber and the adjacent committee rooms there is little sense of rush or urgency. A matter is raised, perhaps at one of the Members Seminars. When will it see the light of day again? Who knows? One of the task groups discusses a matter. Maybe then it is scrutinised by one of the Overview and Scrutiny Committees. Finally it gets to the Strategy Committee or if important enough finds its way to discussion by the full Council. So far with the exception of planning and licensing decisions, which are obliged by law to be made at speed, nothing that has been initiated since May 3rd has actually come to fruition.
Councillors speak. They speak again. Hang on? Wasn’t that what they said last week? I speak (yes! I do). I feel moved to speak again…but hang on! Wasn’t that what I said last week? Should I bother to say it again? Is there a mounting sense of frustration? Well perhaps….
Contemplation of the process is not helped by the feeling that in four years’ time everyone may have to pack up and start again…but strangely this thought doesn’t seem to fill anyone with a sense of urgency.
Of course this all probably misses the point. What we are doing is grinding very slowly through the very long term decision making process that is called ‘making policy’. It can take years to get anything done or decided! In addition one is hedged about on all sides by restrictions, whether they are the force of decisions already made, or decisions made by a higher force.
The message must be that if one wants to bring about change, one has to be patient and think in terms of the long term. Meanwhile one has to live with decisions and policies made by others, often of a different political persuasion and opinion.
A simple example of this has arisen this week. A controversial planning application has been lodged in respect of 93 homes at the Piggeries site at Great Waldingfield. The rules and policies under which this will be resolved took years of pencil chewing and teeth sucking to gestate and create. In addition to Council policies there are the (constantly changing) diktats of Central Government to take into account. (They do not seem to have as much problem changing their ideas when it suits them!)
One has very little room to manoeuvre when trying to bring about a sensible decision here, because the parameters were established years ago. The time for real debate was then, not now. The message is actually pretty clear. If you want to make a difference in the community START EARLY and STICK WITH IT.
