Tory council forced into shutdown because of incompetence

The Tory council in Barnet has come to a standstill, as it’s emerged that the political balance on each of the council’s committees might be wrong. The council is currently seeking legal advice over the matter but this means that no committee decisions can be made until after the next council meeting on 15th July. This is the first of many mistakes made by the Conservative-controlled council this year alone. At the council’s Annual Meeting earlier this month 11 councillors were appointed to a committee that only has 10 seats and on two other committees, items submitted by members within the specified deadline were declared invalid. Leader of the Barnet Labour Group, Cllr Alison Moore has expressed her exasperation over the matter:

“This is a real constitutional crisis now as it looks like no decisions can be made for another 3 weeks. The Barnet Tories have presided over one constitutional cock-up after another – and we’re just three weeks into the municipal year – they really need to get a grip because Barnet is fast becoming a laughing stock, and people will begin to lose whatever confidence they had in the decision-making process.”

These sentiments are echoed by Labour Cllr Pauline Coakley Webb, who has explained the wider ramifications this hold-up will have on the area:

“The catalogue of chaos at Tory run Barnet council now goes far beyond anything I have ever seen before as a Barnet councillor. From emails that disappear to all manner of council phone numbers which come up as ‘number unobtainable’ if there are too many incoming calls, we now find that all the committees are ‘illegal’ and no decisions can be taken until after the council meeting on 15th July. Decisions will be delayed, committee schedules are now behind, and there will be a domino effect on all the future work plans. The time and money wasted in meeting deadlines for committees from which no decisions have been made is breathtakingly incompetent, unprofessional, and an obvious example of how not to run a council.”