The decision to bar former chairs and vice-chairs of Lichfield District Council from a task group looking at the future of the civic function has been questioned.
Cllr David Salter, Conservative member for Shenstone, raised concerns over the lack of formal input former post-holders would have in the process.
He told a meeting of Lichfield District Council that those have held chair or vice-chair roles should be included.
“Surely the role of any task group includes and involves gathering information from outside experts or at least from persons with experience?
“As far as I’m aware no past chair or vice-chair have been asked for comment or input towards the task group meeting.
“Given the subject matter, outside consultation should – and could perhaps – also include those more recent chairs who are now themselves ex-councillors.
“This investigation is not about chairmanship skills or politics, it is about the civic function and most importantly the public face of this council. How therefore can a group who people who have had no experience in this district council’s civic role presume to make an educated and rational decision?
“This could appear to be heading towards a classic example of group thinking.”
Cllr David Salter
Cllr Steve Norman, chair of the overview and scrutiny committee, said views could still be given by those not on the task group.
“You have to be very careful about saying you’ve got no experience in something as that would mean you can never scrutinise anything of which you’ve no experience.
“The skill of scrutiny is asking the right questions, doing the research and inviting witnesses. There’s nothing to stop an unsolicited piece of paper going to the task group, so to get those views across and I would urge ex chairs to do that.
“Hopefully Cllr Salter will make his views known.”
Cllr Steve Norman
Former Chairs of Council, David Salter and Joe Powell, have now sent their views to the Task Group members I’m pleased to say.