It is terribly sad when an experienced political leader gets completely carried away.

Next week Mrs Jill Shortland is thus transported. Her annual report to the full council meeting on Wednesday 14th May was meant to contain an extraordinary attack on me.

Read it for yourself. She released the text in advance and then failed to deliver the words on the day!

She implies in her text that I have been unduly cruel to Alan Jones, the Chief Executive. She forgets that it was he who pushed so hard for the changes that have now led to SouthWest One. He was hard at it long before she was elevated to Council Leader. Mr Jones, in fact, is well paid and well able to defend himself. Mrs Shortland implies that I should be attacking her. What's the point? I doubt if Mrs Shortland has ever had sight of the detailed contract signed last September between Somerset County Council. Taunton Deane and IBM. Not a single councillor on the Scrutiny Committeee has ever been shown the complete contract. Which means there is very little point complaining to the politicians and very good reason to attack the man who has been yanking the strings all along. But, for what its worth, read Mrs Shortland's bizarre little outburst:

Annual Report by the Leader of Council

Author: Jill Shortland, Leader of Council

Contact Details:01823 355014

2.11.  I pause and reflect upon the very difficult times in this last year, particularly these last few months brought about by the long and personal

campaign of absolute contempt against our Chief Executive by an individual who is outside the control of this Authority. The wild and spurious accusations have also now been levied against the South West One team.   It seems to me incredibly unfair that members of this Council are bound by a Code of Conduct that is rightfully strict and in some cases, particularly when it comes to a Chief
Officer - be it a Parish or Town Clerk in a parish or town council or the Chief Executive of the County Council, the code is extremely severe.   Yet our M.Ps who are called “honourable gentlemen” are not bound by similar codes.   The time and money that has been spent in dealing with these scurrilous accusations, particularly the ones against our Chief Executive, could have been far better spent, not only within this Council but, indeed, by the offending “honourable gentleman”.   This Council’s Chief Executive is not a politician and not in a position to defend himself or to answer back. I have written to the Party Leader of this MP again to ask him to intervene and await the Whip’s response. I have also asked our own Leader of the Opposition to intervene, but only received a “wall of silence”. The treatment our Chief Executive has received is undeserved, and this Council, which is nationally recognised as being Excellent, has achieved this because we have an Excellent Chief Executive and an excellent officer team. Only in this forthcoming year will we know the damage that this has caused to the economy of Somerset.

Dear Mrs Shortland,

 

Alan Jones richly deserves every ounce of criticism. And he wouldn't be the recipient of a single bit of it from me if he hadn't consistently kept everyone in the dark about SouthWest One. He has even denied that he had any direct involvement in the process. So, to bury that lie, here are a couple of extracts from Mr Jones' regular bullish bulletins to staff - circa 2005:  

Briefing 86: “Deeds not Words” February 2005

From London I went on to join a team of SCC staff in Ipswich. Our purpose

was to meet with senior managers at Suffolk County Council to discuss their
Joint Venture with BT in customer service delivery. I don't want to spend
too much time on this now and will return to it in the next few weeks. Suffice it
to say that we were all impressed at rapid and fundamental transformation
that they are making to their County Council. I had discussed this with their
Chief Executive, Mike More, last summer and some of you will recall that I
have mentioned it before in these bulletins. The visit confirmed my earlier
impressions that Somerset County Council should adopt the same approach.
We have a choice. We can carry on the way we are as a relatively traditional
County Council, cheeseparing the budget each year and dying of a thousand
cuts, while hoping that something will turn up. Or we can seize the future and
sign up to a new and radical approach to service delivery which will transform
the way we do business, produce unprecedented investment in best of breed
technologies and enhance our services for less cost. Where's the catch? I
haven't found one yet and I am not going to waste my time looking. You know
the old adage. There are three types of people in local government: those that
make things happen, those that expend all their energy worrying about what
might happen and those that look back and say - 'What happened?'
Get ready for this; we are going to be in the first group.

“Strange Fruit”: February 2005

Later that day I had lunch with Sue Barnes, the former Director of Resources
from Suffolk County Council, who has moved to the South West with her
husband, Colin, the new Chief Constable for Avon and Somerset.   I am
hoping that Sue, who led the Suffolk Joint Venture project with BT, will be
helping us consider the next steps in our quest for business transformation.

 

 ............the rest, of course, is history. Sue Barnes did indeed come to Somerset. But what really happened to Sue B? Watch this site for more details

 

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