Council cancelling vital meetings

9.33.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 29th Jun 2009

Cllr Middleton is calling on the council to scrutinise important decisions.

Councillor Howard Middleton has taken issue with the Council over the cancellation of vital meetings.

He said,

" On the day I stood down as Lord Mayor (19 May) at the Council AGM I was appointed along with other councillors to the Corporate improvement & Scrutiny Committee. The Chair of the committee was also elected.

The Committee has not yet met this municipal year, not even informally. The members were sent a letter on 17 June telling them the June Committee on 24 June was cancelled.

The letter went on to say the first meeting of the Committee will not be until Wednesday 22 July. This is more than two months after the 2009/10 municipal year has started!

There are important issues going through Executive from the Corporate Portfolio holder and the committee also has key overall role over scrutiny in general, yet the Committee is not even meeting.

We should be holding the the portfolio holder to account on behalf of the citizens of the district but are failing to do so."