Tax Payers Alliance

Just found this interesting post on the always interesting tax payers alliance website.

It makes a very important point that the setting of Policy should be done by the Councillors - and not by officers.

However, it's worth noting that Councillors are not full time employees of the council (in fact they're not technically employed at all - which is why we get an allowance and not a salary) - and don't always have the time to research policy in minute detail.

So it seems there is a requirement for this position - but perhaps it should form part of Member Services (ie, it's a resource for Councillors to develop policy and not for Officers to develop policy) and should report directly into the leader.

I've written to him to suggest this.