STC councillors attendance in 2022
This year’s Shirebrook247 editorial series begins with a summary of STC councillor attendance at ‘scheduled meetings’ in 2022. This is my blog’s third article about attendance (2020 and 2021 at the bottom of the article). This version is the most developed yet. I think I improved it over the last two years: check and compare for yourself.
THE THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM!
In each of the previous articles in this series, I summarised the attendance of all meetings without separating councillors from their respective committees. But in reality, Councillors are only obliged to be at some meetings. Therefore, this year I have decided to tabulate more data. To be more precise. However, I will start with a spreadsheet I have prepared in previous versions. All councillors and all scheduled meetings are on one chart.Â
LETS DIVE DEEPER INTO DATA
A separate table will illustrate the attendance of councillors at ‘their’ committee meetings. Another table will show attendance at ‘full’ meetings. Finally, last table will provide a breakdown of ‘full’ and ‘committee’ meetings.
I will only discuss two committees in detail as they are the only ones scheduled to meet: Leisure and Operations. I will not present data from Finance & Growth as it only meets once a year (to this committee I was denied membership).
I also want to end my introduction by pointing out that attendance at STC meetings alone is not the best indicator of the quality of a councillor. The best confirmation of how illusory an indicator of the quality of a councillor’s work is the attendance of Cllr Terry Chapman. Well, this Councillor has 100 per cent attendance, but if I compiled all his speeches from the last two years into one audio file, it would show that the audio recording is not even a two-minute long. This Councillor is like a cursed stone- always silent.
He rarely speaks, never asks questions, and never proposes anything. Is this the quality that voters should be looking for? The worst part is that this behaviour is typical of STC. If I find the time, I will describe my subjective assessment of the quality of councillors in a separate article. Today we will deal with the numbers, not my personal opinions.
LEISURE COMMITTEE
A committee concerned solely with matters of entertainment, celebrations, shows, anniversary parties, trips and the town’s leisure offerings for the residents. I am trying to understand why this committee exists. Help me! Tell me that at info@shirebrook247.com
Still, I have been present at every scheduled meeting of this committee and can sum it up like this: a waste of time. At least until the 12 million debt proposal came up at the meeting. At that point, things got interesting for some Labour Party councillors. Money, money, money. Your money- remember?
Rarely did any of these meetings last longer than 40 minutes, with the Leisure Centre supervisor’s report sometimes taking up most of it. From my point of view (I keep banging about it since 2019), this committee should be disbanded and its remit incorporated into the Operations Committee. The time freed up could be spent on more frequent full-type meetings, or there should be a “Crime and ASB prevention committee”- as this is a significant problem in our town. Crime is a problem that could be reduced with time and resources dedicated at the grass-root level (I have been advocating for 20% of funding to be moved from ‘leisure’ to ‘crime prevention’; I have been ignored on this issue for years).
OPERATIONS COMMITTEE
The committee deals with the day-to-day affairs of the STC. For example, this committee debated the technical specifications and gave its opinion on quotes for the CCTV system to the full Council. This committee also deals with purchasing new equipment, ordering repairs, etc. Meetings of this committee usually last about an hour.
I have been present at every meeting of this committee, and I have noticed with regret recently that not all STC operational activities are discussed there. For example- the felling of trees in Market Square was raised at this meeting, but requirements and quotes from companies interested in this contract were never presented or discussed. I know- rule is that quotes must be obtained from “a certain amount up”, but this OPERATION was a bit more than just felling the tree.
How and who selected the company to deliver this contract? I don’t know. STC was forced to show me some documents because of EXEMPT and EXEMP. As a person with vast private sector/business experience, I must say- the first page of EXEMPT is about how Labour lost the last shreds of respect in my eyes. Someday these documents will be made public- you will know what I meant. So, how did the operation turn out? EXEMPT!!!Â
FULL COUNCIL
The most important Council meetings. They occur every two months, so I want to emphasise once again: Full Council meeting every two months is too infrequent to discuss properly each issue. Many of these meetings have had to be prolonged, even though they usually last two hours. The record-breaking one lasted 2 hours and 34 minutes.Â
If you add the time I spend preparing for these meetings and the time I have to get there and back, and then write a report after it- a day with the Full Council turns into almost part-time charity work for me. But, of course, I’m not complaining – Full Councils are my favourite meetings because the most interesting things happen there.
100% OR BUST??? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!
If you think that a two-hour meeting doesn’t strain a person physically and mentally, you should come to one such meeting and stay 100% focused for 100% of the time. Remember that the burden of such a meeting for a councillor is much more significant than for a spectator. Maintaining your attention in meetings like this takes practice, experience and passion for this kind of work (and the place you live in). You will only know if you feel in Chamber like fish in the water once you visit the Full Council meeting.
I am a young/inexperienced councillor, but anyone who has observed me in the Chamber can attest to this- I try to maintain 100% focus. I engage in any discussion where I have some scope of knowledge. When something I don’t know is being discussed- I ask questions, listen attentively, and take notes on things I want to check after the meeting.
FULL MEETING – NOT SO FULL IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DON’T WANT IT TO BE FULL
On several occasions, certain items on the ‘full council’ agenda were postponed to subsequent meetings or wholly ignored. For example, the discussion of the government’s “Levelling Up agenda paper” was skipped twice and then abandoned entirely by Labour Party operatives in STC. Unfortunately, this is why STC missed the opportunity to obtain funding to construct the new Leisure Centre. Cllr Chris Kane decided to postpone this discussion twice and then removed it entirely from the agenda. The opportunity was taken by Old Bolsover Town Council, which did not disdain the millions offered by the Conservatives government.
Nevertheless- from the table at the beginning of the “FULL COUNCIL” paragraph, it is clear that councillors take “full” meetings much more seriously than committee meetings. As a result, attendance is high, with only one Councillor falling in the ‘red’.
ONE MORE CHART AND WE ARE DONE!
The last table shows the average attendance at meetings a councillor should attend: full and committee. This table best captures the level of attendance of individual councillors at meetings they absolutely should be at.
ONE LAST BUT IMPORTANT NOTE
The attendance list for all scheduled does not include AGM. Although it was held months ago, there are still no minutes published from that meeting. I forgot to mark attendance in my spreadsheets at the meeting itself, but since then, I’ve been doing it “live” on the day of the STC meeting. I started doing this because STC, since I started watching them- always publish minutes with huge delay or only when I remind them. I have written articles about this in the past. Nowadays, I don’t need their minutes to note attendance.
I’m editing this article on 30 December 2022. I decided to add a list of minutes missing on the Town Website:
18 May 2022- ATM- minutes missing
14 Sep 2022- Operations Committee- minutes missing
12 Oct 2022- Full Council- minutes missing
2 Nov 2022- Leisure Committee- minutes missing
16 Nov 2022- Operations Committee- minutes missing
14 Dec 2022- Full Council- minutes missing
Missing minutes? No big deal, you could think. Well, think again. Years of my professional career taught me that attention to detail is key to any operation’s success or failure.
IS THIS A GOOD ARTICLE TO START THE YEAR WITH?
Not sure. I have a whole pile of important articles to publish, so the start of the year will be energetic! Below I present links to archived editions of councillor attendance summaries at STC meetings. Next week… actually, I am still deciding which article I will publish next week, so you’ll have to check it out for yourself- see you the following Monday at 6 am.
Attendance in 2021:
Attendance in 2020:
