Openness and Transparency. Yeah.

“A culture of Trust and Openness”. Does anyone remember those words. It was five years ago and much has happened since, but this seems to be yet another of Mayor Fiaz’s promises that bit the dust.

The Audit Committee, that interesting body which was perhaps the only council body to criticise in any way the activity of the supreme leader, has been reformed. The Chair of the committee joins the council as a newly elected Labour Councillor, (and freshly appointed Deputy Cabinet Member). The number of councillors are reduced. And now that there is an opposition to Labour in the shape of two Greens, they are given precisely NO seats. That’s it, zero. Zilch. Nada.

Much the same is true of the allocation of places on a range of committees. It seems that the mayor’s commitment to openness and transparency exists in inverse proportion to the scrutiny she may be put under.