Walsall’s Labour Cabinet met last night. There were twenty items on the Agenda. The meeting started at 6 pm and was all over by 6.45 pm. That included important items such as:

• Labour’s Emerging Corporate Plan 2015/19  optimistically entitled “Shaping a Fairer Future”
• The Council Tax Reduction Scheme
• Council Tax Empty Property Discounts
• The Draft Revenue Budget

Is it any wonder that people feel that it doesn’t matter what they think politicians go ahead and do what they want to do anyway.

We’ve said it numerous times before, the Cabinet/Scrutiny process imposed under the Labour Government in the Local Government Act 2000, has done more than anything else to create and perpetuate an us and them feeling.

This system is made worse by the fact that here in Walsall the Council has been finely balanced for a number of years. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s all part of the democratic process, what is wrong is that when things are so finely balanced, one political party should not be able to run roughshod over the rest including the electorate.

As Liberal Democrats we have argued for some time for a return to the Committee process which would allow for a more open debate on the important issues of the day, giving the public, the press to see and have a greater understanding of why certain decisions have to be made. It also prevents power being concentrated in the hands of a few and important decisions being made behind closed doors.