It was a surprise and shame to hear that Brading, St Helens and Bembridge county councillor, Jonathan Bacon has resigned as chair and member of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Unfortunately Jonathan found that the role will compete too heavily with other commitments over the next six months.
His work commitments between now and next May would have meant that he’d only be able to attend three of the next seven Committee meetings, so felt it appropriate to hand the baton over to someone else.
He told VB this afternoon, “I found the role to be challenging as it is an important function in a properly functioning Council. I had taken steps to try and increase the role and effectiveness of the Scrutiny Committee, particularly in relation to the Budget process and I was hoping to take further steps to promote the role of the Scrutiny Committee and Panels more generally and to try and improve the way they operate.
“It is unfortunate that the effectiveness of Scrutiny is currently inhibited by an insistence by the leading group on maintaining a voting majority on the Committee and all Panels, and compounding this by having members of the leading group Chair all the Panels.
“With the best will in the world, this can only undermine the potential effectiveness of the Scrutiny process and at worst it can make it a rubber stamp for the actions and policies of the leading group. It also does not ‘look good’ and could potentially be taken as indicating that the ruling group are not willing to have an effective scrutiny process to review their policies and decisions.”
We felt Cllr Bacon was a great addition to the committee, so sad to see him leave.
A new chair for the committee will be considered at next week’s full council meeting.
