How is Councillor Sanderson doing?

 

We don’t know, so how does he?

Councillor Glen Sanderson, the Leader of Northumberland County Council has no idea how well he and his Council are faring in the world of honest and fragrant Local Government.

His recent denial of his statement that he is going to slash £1M from his wages bill as soon as he was tackled on his plans by the Trade Union UNISON shows that he had no plan whatsoever to do it, therefore we believe it was all about sacking workers until his budget statement was reached.

Yet this man, although a rich farmer, has increased his wealth over the last thirty years by being a regional top bod for the Tory led Local government Association. Known as a regional Peer, ‘Lord’ Sanderson goes around and teaches other Councils how to ‘do it right’. At this juncture you may want to stop reading for a little while in case your laughter damages your PC or iPhone etc.

So as a ‘Regional Peer’ for the whole of the North of England you would think that ‘Lord’ Sanderson would have heard of PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT? Well apparently not! Although as a Peer it was his job to go around, at great cost to other Councils and rich reward to his own pocket and ensure that Councils were performing adequately by studying their performance management figures and telling them ‘how to do it’.

Prior to the arrival of the ‘Austerity Government’ in office at Westminster in 2010 Councils had to produce accurate readings and statistics for agreed items with the Government known as Key Performance Indicators. These indicators told everyone how well your council was doing in comparison with other Local Authorities and where improvement was either necessary or essential.

These indicators were backed up by reports known as ‘Local Performance Indicators’(LPI’s). Councillors received the reports and budgeted for change to take place where indicators showed weakness. They were released to the public annually in reports on progress and drove strategies for improvement e.g. How the Council's Leisure and Sport programs contributed to the Health of the area and information was built up to a level where competent ‘Core Strategy’ documents could be produced not only to look at future planning matters but to also drive change and keep an ever watchful eye through scrutiny panels on any slippage that would be detrimental to the public and the Councils workforce & staff.

At Northumberland County Council where Best value on the public's behalf hasn’t been delivered for six years some officers may collect and collate information but there is no democratic oversight of performance or what is needed to improve both the Council and society its only what the Leader of Council wants at that time and has been that way since May 2017 and in fear of murkily repeating ourselves Councillors do not get sight of the results and scrutiny chairpersons stop opposition Councillors asking questions about anything that may need figures to back up decision making.

Northumberland County Council has even become ever more secretive under Councillor Sanderson’s leadership as he knows that any scrutiny of his administration using performance as a measure would be ‘hot for his bot’ as he isn’t quite as thick as he looks but he and his former partner Councillor Jackson, he began the secret council plan, have ran scrutiny ineffective and possibly unlawfully as what's being scrutinised? Only decisions he has already taken and pushed through his one party cabinet on to his one party council. No wonder he has leveled the highest Council Tax rates in the North onto his voters this year as it's expensive to purchase covers for everything in sight.

Oh and by the way, back to his £1M cut in the wages bill, here is a picture of a ‘Sanderson bot’ cutting grass in Northumberland last week. UNISON is quite right to keep an eye on him!