A change of title for County Hall employees could see them referred to as ‘staff’ rather than ‘officers’.
The reason behind the change, the new ruling Alliance group says, is in the interest of public understanding of the difference between employees and councillors. But the plan has drawn criticism from the leader of the Tory group, Councillor Steve Hastings, who said he failed to see the rationale for a substantial change that went against what other authorities did.
In a letter to council leader, Councillor Lora Peacey-Wilcox, he said:
“I consider this to be a highly questionable proposal with no discernible merit.”
The Alliance Group has put together 15 new proposals to amend the way the council operates, including:
- Changing the times and lengths of meetings
- Timeframes for written motions
- The way planning applications are called before the planning committee, removing the step to consult the strategic manager for planning
- Allowing questions asked by the Youth Council
- A further minute for public speakers, increasing to 6 minutes.
- Voting rights restored to a co-opted member of the Isle of Wight Association of Local Councils on planning and corporate scrutiny committees
Another proposed change is to not have a leader’s annual update report at the yearly general meeting if they are not re-elected.
It follows the first full Isle of Wight Council meeting in May earlier this year which saw the previous leader Dave Stewart submit his report after losing his seat to Councillor Claire Critchison. At the time, the newly appointed chair Councillor Geoff Brodie noted the report but did not allow Mr Stewart to speak on it.
The report that proposes the changes is titled ‘reintroducing democracy to the council’s constitution, something Cllr Hastings has called misleading and falsely implies the current constitution does not provide democracy. He said it was also insulting to those who worked on the current version of the document and he will be talking to the monitoring office about it.
The changes will be discussed and voted on at the full council meeting on Wednesday.
As always the new councillors are focussing on internal, pointless name changes and meeting times, whilst allowing the island, its infrastructure, green lands and society to disintegrate further.
Bacon- instead of wasting time on such pointless drivel, get on with the job of protecting greenlands, protecting the environment, reducing CO2, increasing policing, cutting council tax, cutting waste, cutting council bloat and generally doing what you were voted in to do. Stop wasting our time and money rearranging the deck chairs on your soon to be titanic.
Perfect comment but it will fall on deaf ears sadly
Too true !
Bless, hastings throwing his toys out of the pram, grow up you fool.
Glad to see they’re cracking on with the important stuff…
its because most of the planning department are moonlighting on the tills at Tesco`s
I agree – calling them officers makes them sound more important than they really are.
At the end of the day they are just pen pushers with no authority.
Well said, Pippin.
Agree with that !!
they should be called staff and councillors called prats
How utterly pathetic – and how typical of tree-hugging lefties – focussing on trivia instead of fixing what they were elected to do.
Personally, I wish to congratulate all concerned with bringing this through. These people are NOT officers, just as they are NOT ‘Civil Servants’, they are staff employed by the council, and paid by us all.
I am sure the good people of the Island could propose many different titles and names for those that work inside County Hall and also many other names for the voted in Councillors.
The issue is any mention of them would be deleted from this thread and they would all be ignored by those in authority as much as they ignore any valid planning application objections.
Dictionary reads officer 1 person holding position of authority by commission in the armed forces 2 a policeman 3 captain or any of the mates of a nonnaval ship 4 anyone holding a position of authority in a government business society,etc