Friday 10 February 2012

Labour U-Turn on Runaways

The minutes for the Cabinet meeting last week have finally been published (a week’s wait?). Everything got passed as expected, except one.

You might remember from previous posts about Labour making a push on runaways, getting a motion passed at Full Council back in December asking Cabinet to set up a Members Working Group to look into this. Well, the result: Labour changed it's mind and went with the Officer's recommendation to attend the Local Children's Trust Board and confirm it is the best thing to work though.

Having been at the Full Council meeting that passed that original motion, I remember Cllr Chris Wells making it very clear that duplicating already existing work was a bad idea. The same advice would have been given at that Cabinet meeting. Given Cllr Iris Johnston is both Cabinet Member and the Member who put the original motion, it begs the question of why she put the motion in the first place. She was determined to push with this in December...


That said, better late than never.

1 comment:

Chris Wells said...

As I explained to her at Cabinet, Cllr Mrs Johnston is now a member of the Local Childrens Trust Board courtesy of her role as Community Services Cabinet Member for TDC. Indeed I believe the formal invitation has been issued.

That said, Cllr Mrs Johnston inferred if she could not get her own way she would set up her own group anyway.

There is also KCC Officer for Missing Children who should at least be consulted and involved.

As Cllr Mrs Johnston constantly measures her 'success' by her attendance at things rather than wether that attendance is effective, I have grave forebodings for a return to the duplication futility threatened previously.