Thursday, June 07, 2007
Scrutinising
Last night was the first meeting of the Resource and Performance scrutiny commission, of which I am a member. There was a very informative presentation and report on the state of Adult Disability Services, followed by reports on complaints handling and the cost of housing provision. It was my job as part of the commission to scrutinise the work of the officers, ask the probing questions and get to the heart of the issues.
Obviously none of us are experts in all of the things reported on, but at the heart of all the work that the Council does is a commitment to service improvement and excellence - and I think all the Members and the officers share that. The whole meeting was held in a spirit of constructive criticism and a shared desire to improve - which perhaps wasn't what I was expecting from aroom full of politicians from across the party spectrum, and potentuially nervous officers!
I learned a lot, and felt that I contributed my fair shaare as well. And that's my first meeting over with!
As ever there was time enough for me to embarrass myself as well. At one point I was called upon to ask a question, and in the act of putting down my hand I snapped my fingers into a fist shape, causing a noise that sounded like I was clicking my fingers towards the Chair. The room fell to silence and the Chair enquired (jokily) as to whether or not I was indeed snapping my fingers in his direction! As I put the sound down to my "noisy bones" and said that I probably wouldn't be invited back in future, thankfully there was laughter and not tutting and finger pointing!
I may leave that until; the next full Council...
Rick
Obviously none of us are experts in all of the things reported on, but at the heart of all the work that the Council does is a commitment to service improvement and excellence - and I think all the Members and the officers share that. The whole meeting was held in a spirit of constructive criticism and a shared desire to improve - which perhaps wasn't what I was expecting from aroom full of politicians from across the party spectrum, and potentuially nervous officers!
I learned a lot, and felt that I contributed my fair shaare as well. And that's my first meeting over with!
As ever there was time enough for me to embarrass myself as well. At one point I was called upon to ask a question, and in the act of putting down my hand I snapped my fingers into a fist shape, causing a noise that sounded like I was clicking my fingers towards the Chair. The room fell to silence and the Chair enquired (jokily) as to whether or not I was indeed snapping my fingers in his direction! As I put the sound down to my "noisy bones" and said that I probably wouldn't be invited back in future, thankfully there was laughter and not tutting and finger pointing!
I may leave that until; the next full Council...
Rick
# posted by Richard Baum @ 13:08 
