tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post3558361079692851629..comments2024-01-07T12:13:21.793+00:00Comments on Craig Dearden-Phillips: On Suffolk's SituationUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post-26214169250434906362011-05-01T19:34:09.662+01:002011-05-01T19:34:09.662+01:00Craig it’s an important point you made about polit...Craig it’s an important point you made about politicians’ routine dependence on their council’s officers to advise on policy – and at times to even initiate policy making.<br /><br />I would extend this to the national political level where, in my experience, there have been Ministers with the same lack of policy competence that you attribute to local authority councillors. <br /><br />In Scotland we have had a whole trainload of civil servants in the devolved administration who have been advising on policy on, for example, what passed for community empowerment. My judgement is that at times those civil servants have possibly even driven or dominated some policy development. I think this is at least part of the reason for the dislocation in policy on community empowerment and why community empowerment has failed to work up any significant traction in Scotland – and may now be a bit of a dead letter.<br /><br />The civil servants have come and gone through the revolving door and, meantime, notions of transparency and accountability in parts of the policy-making process seem to have become very muddy and unclear indeed.<br /><br />It seems axiomatic that this situation applies also at the local authority level, but I do not sense that these are matters that the public-at-large have much comprehension of.Edward Harkinshttp://uk.linkedin.com/pub/edward-harkins/15/40/635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post-25095424803435641682011-04-30T08:25:51.516+01:002011-04-30T08:25:51.516+01:00Peter, Few local politicians come up with strategy...Peter, Few local politicians come up with strategy and policies without significant officer support. They find the officers they believe can help them in their overall vision. Most local pols don't know enough about enough to come up with policy on their own, I find. Occasionally it happens but exception not rule.Craig Dearden-Phillipshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09481684928301536483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post-77550849361718889622011-04-29T22:28:31.775+01:002011-04-29T22:28:31.775+01:00When did it become the Chief Execs role to come up...When did it become the Chief Execs role to come up with policies and convince politicians to support them. All of us voting next Thursday naively thought it was the other way aroundPeter Savagehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11876171116368199738noreply@blogger.com