Letter: A question of voting for the councillor, not the party line
When the UK government is negotiating a new treaty or trade agreement, a team of UK civil servants from the relevant department conduct all the negotiations on behalf of the government prior to the meeting of the appropriate minister or the Prime Minister.
These civil servants are not empowered to sign or finalise any agreement that they negotiate. They are required to present to the Prime Minister or the government minister involved a detailed report with their recommendations ready for the final decision and any signing to be done by the elected representative.
Telford & Wrekin Council work in the completely opposite way. The elected councillors under a previous Labour administration decided to delegate to the council officers for each department the authority to make decisions without any reference back to the elected officials to whom the electorate had delegated the decision making authority on their behalf.
This means that decisions are being made by council officials to whom the electorate had not given authority and thus allowing them to pursue their own departmental pet projects using council taxpayers money.
There are 54 elected Telford councillors each of which receives an annual allowance of just under £8,000 each for being a councillor, elected by the public of Telford & Wrekin to make decisions on their behalf.
In addition to this basic allowance for every meeting that a councillor attends they receive an attendance allowance of minimum four hours irrespective of whether or not the meeting lasts for less than one hour or up to the four hours.
Should any meeting last above four hours then they automatically receive a higher attendance allowance for the whole time at the meeting. Should any councillor be appointed to be a committee chair or deputy then they receive a additional 'responsibility' allowance just as do the cabinet members.
When a councillor is elected they all claim to represent the wishes of those in their ward. What they actually do is to obey the party bosses irrespective if it is what the electors they represent wish or not.
At the next local election you the electorate will have the chance to elect new councillors to represent their views. The question is do you elect a councillors who act like sheep and just do as they are told claiming the maximum from the public purse, or do you elect a person who will truly represent your views and wishes irrespective of party policy.
It's your choice.
R Knight
Hollinswood
