No prizes for anyone who correctly guessed that changes to planning procedures at Swansea Council have absolutely nothing to do with improved efficiency.
Chris Holley is so used to getting away with telling porkies to the gullible local press that he no longer puts any real effort into it, but the truth is that he had a lot of unhappy bunnies in his ranks when new rules scrapped the eligibility of vice chairman to claim a salary. His solution was to create a handful of new committees – and chairmanships – so that the gravy could be spread around as before.
Among the “new” bodies which have appeared are two additional planning sub-committees which means the council now has four of these meeting every three weeks.
Yet, back in 2002, Welsh Assembly auditors recommended a number of measures to reduce bureaucracy in the development control process and speed up applications. Among these was the call to cut the number of planning sub-committees from 4 to 2 and re-jig the main planning committee to deal with strategic applications. These were all implemented without objection.
There have been no reports to cabinet or any performance monitoring body since then that this arrangement has become any less efficient. There was even a press release issued a few years back by the [sometimes] Lib Dem spokesman Rob Speht who claimed ‘enhanced planning procedures’ were helping to boost the local economy.
But perhaps what is most remarkable about this latest scam is not so much that the Lib Dems and Independents have pulled yet another stroke designed to line their pockets but that senior directors with a statutory duty to protect the public purse have allowed them to get away with it.
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