Aspatrias-Voice

Age : 61 Joined : 30 Apr 2007 Posts : 64

The Council or another organisation cannot I am sure for legal reasons have in effect two sets of minutes, if they put on line a draft set then these are either approved or accepted at the next Meeting, however they stay as they are, what ever they vote. If they showed one set to the public but kept another set secret then that is not Democratic with diffrent proposal or resolutions then the whole system is open to abuse. It would be a case of telling the Public one thing and doing the opposite. Minutes of any Meeting, and you as a Councillor should know this Janice, are read at the next Meeting of that Committee or Council and are voted on as being accepted or not.

Subject: Re: Council Tax Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:38 pm

OK Reiver, whoever said Councils (or even MP's) are democratic?

Age : 44 Joined : 22 Apr 2007 Posts : 124

Reiver I believe that minutes should reflect as a true event of what happens at meetings. Draft copies are not signed as true records and I personally do not believe they should be online until they are accepted as a true record. Therefore people would have to wait for the true record to go online.

Drafts can be and are altered if the members dont accept them as a true record at meetings.

Subject: Re: Council Tax Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:53 pm

I would love it if someone from the council would answer the following question,
Why does the council spend hundreds of thousands of pounds (at least) of taxpayers money on Consultancy firms? Surely this work can be done by someone at the council. If not then create the post and hire someone to advise them. These firms are charging far too much for their services, they are only telling the council what is simply common sense. I could go on but won't, but I would love to hear an explanation.

Subject: Re: Council Tax Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:29 pm

Resident have you tried asking any of the Allerdale Councillors, I think they would be the best placed to find out the answer to these questions for you.

You are right in what you are saying, thousands of pounds are wasted on consultancy firms, I to have to agree it would be cheaper to employ someone with the relevant expertise on a fixed term contract.

Age : 37 Joined : 26 Apr 2007 Posts : 64

Yep, if they employed a person on a fixed term contract to do the work it would improve employment in the area and also cost less thus save money, but see thats common sense to you and me but not to the Allerdale Leadership it seems?

It does happen every where, and considering the costs involved is mind boggling to say the least, and i to would suggest asking the Allerdale Councillors to request an answer from their Leadership and ensure its on letter headed stationary.

Because at least when you contact out MP he does repsond, and thats because its polite to answer and reply to questions.

Let us know how you get on Resident, maybe the Admin on this forum could post a copy of Allerdales explaination?

Subject: Re: Council Tax Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:11 pm

Well, Cumbria CC has spent £32million on consultants. But they say it has actually save tax payers money!!! Just how do they work that one out? A lot of the consultants the councils use are ex employees, now running theier own businness. This work should be done in - house, then it would save us al ot of money, well enough for the councilors to get their noses deeper into the troughs.

Subject: Re: Council Tax Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:19 am

Resident it seems the in thing to get consultancy firms to do jobs that were usually once done in the building by employees.
Take todays news, 3 million learner driver details have gone missing in ohio?? or was it iowa? anyway what on earth were our UK learner driver details doing in the USA? I can only assume they were using some consultancy firm over there to collate the details, only they got lost in transit on the way back.
Wouldnt you think that they would have kept important documents such as these in this country! It just does not make sense to have them in the USA, someone needs a severe reprimand for even suggesting these details left our country. Heck whats next Russia doing the roll call for our army!
I quite frankly am disgusted that these details were allowed to leave this country, they should have stayed with the DVLA which is were all those details used to be kept.

Age : 44 Joined : 22 Apr 2007 Posts : 124

I have to agree with you Bex, I cannot understand why the Government would ship the details of UK residents by email to a firm in the USA.
The questions in my mind are why do we need our data going overseas like that?
What is wrong with this country, surely there must be firms in the UK that can do the same thing?
Ruth Kelly stated the data used to be sent down on disks by courrier, well even that is a heck of alot faster than sending it over seas and losing it altogether.

Subject: Re: Council Tax Wed Jan 09, 2008 12:43 am

I was reading earlier on a BBC news site that even data from schools is no longer safe. I read that teachers take pupils personal data home on disks and memory sticks.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7171740.stm

Age : 32 Joined : 04 Oct 2007 Posts : 22

I see that the RAF appear to have lost alot of data now too.

What I would like to know is how are they going to keep our identities safe if we all end up doing these identity cards that have been talked about.

Subject: Re: Council Tax Mon Jan 21, 2008 4:15 pm

I will go to prison before I get an identity card. At least I won't a gas and electric bills to pay and I'll get free food.

Admin Age : 40 Joined : 20 Apr 2007 Posts : 139

I have mixed views about Identity Cards so wont go there lol, as for minutes; its correct about them not been signed but in this case the word "Draft" could be used wrongly.

As far as i am aware your minutes are taken and reflect the meeting, they only appear at the next meeting to be accepted and if any thing is wrong it is said and minuted at that meeting, and its not to get the first set of minutes re-wrote. All that should appear is that it would say on the second set that some thing was raised.

So, your first set is never re-written, it stands as a "True and Accurate" account. When the word "draft" is included this may give people the chance to accutally re-write what was said; and that may be ilegal due to minutes been public documents for groupds such as Charities, Councils, Local Authorities etc.

So, i would be very suspect of any set of minutes having the words "draft" on them, but this is only my opinion; does any one else know more?

Subject: Re: Council Tax Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:07 am

My views are would our personal data be safe? I think not lol