Sunday 7 December 2014

My week ahead, 8 - 14 December 2014

Monday 8 December, 7pm – Culture and Leisure Working Group

Wednesday 10 December, 6pm – East Ipswich Housing group

Thursday 11 December, 6pm – Area Committee Chair meeting

Saturday 13 December, 11am – Tree planting at community allotment, Inverness Rd with Northgate pupils


Christmas is getting closer but the fast pace of life continues and it is still meeting after meeting as this is the time of year when we become focused on setting next year’s budget.

I hope the opposition groups decided to become involved in the budget setting procedure; we have offered them the opportunity to contribute over the last three years with differing results. Some working groups have seen the two opposition groups fully contribute but other budget setting meetings have seen little contribution.

We were never offered the opportunity to contribute when the Tories/Lib Dems were in power but we felt from the start that it was important to involve all councillors.

Which make the comments from the Tories about secret deals and behind closed door meetings so unbelievable. From talking to a number of Tories, when they were in power their own group were not even informed of what was going on, all the power sat in the laps of a only three councillors.

We also have an East Housing Panel meeting this week and it has been noticeable that in the last 18 months the opposition groups have started to attend. Maybe they were given a hint that attending maybe a good idea after their former Housing spokesman made a comment at Full Council that indicated he did not even know that certain Tory councillors were members of the Housing panels.

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