The week that ended....19 July 2015

What a week. Earlier in the week we had full Council. This is where ever 8 weeks the full council meets. The agenda is set out and been worked like that for years. I believe it is law to have it laid out this way. Why am I talking about an agenda? Well yet again Wigan Council have changed the rules to suit them. Now the Council has changed the rules to allow the Chief Executive to add or remove items from the agenda. They say it will streamline meetings. Given that some only last 5 mins how much more do they want to streamline? Call me a cynic but this is so Labour can get their CE to remove items that they don't want to discuss - things like Don't Blame the Council! Then in it's place they will put something else in it;'s place and when we say Labour are doing this, they will cry, " O no it's the unbiased CE." Or is it a case of the tail wagging the dog? I say this because Full Council meetings are there to discuss the mandatory items and then Cllrs can put forward items that they consider important, i.e things like Mere oaks, Ashfield and Don't Blame the Council. With regards Mere Oaks as an example Labour must be kicking themselves that they didn't change the rules back then. That way they could have done the Chinese version of tiananmen square and then said, "O no it never happened, parents are lying."

On Don't Blame the Council TV programme, the council, i.e Chief Executive and Leader have said they are carrying out an internal review and they are looking at emails to see how it was aired in that way? For me wrong set of questions. First of all I don't believe for one minute the Chief Executive or the Leader didn't know about it. I would guess they signed it off. Now the council has suspended another officer of the council. Some are saying scapegoats. The leader and Chief Executive must be included in any investigation otherwise if they are not and were to blame they will simply cover up their failings and accuse others.

Secondly, it is important that the people of the borough find out the truth and some mickey mouse white wash is not allowed to be carried out.

Finally, what is equally important is that the Council find out not how it was aired in this way but why the Council has been allowed to become like this? It is the leaders fault - the people at the top, not the normal work force.

If an independent investigation is not ordered then the Leader and Chief Executive must go. It is a disgrace that they have run the council in this manner!