I have just received a list of the county council's appointments
- 135 of them - to public bodies.
These range from the worthy but parochial (Solva Harbour Authority
- Cllr Leslie Raymond) to the pretentious (Welsh Centre for International
Affairs - Cllr Myles Pepper).
Mostly it wouldn't matter if the county council's cat was appointed,
but who gets what gives Kremlin-watchers like Old Grumpy a window
into the thinking of our supreme Leader in whose gift these various
positions lie.
When the county council's revised constitution was adopted in
2002, the responsibility for these appointments was delegated
to the Cabinet, but, at its first ever meeting, the Cabinet decided
to hand these powers to the Leader.
Whether this arrangement is strictly legal - being in apparent
conflict with the principle that a delegate cannot further delegate
(delegatus non potest delegare to give it its Latin tag)
- is a moot point.
These positions fall into two categories - those where political
balance is required (Police Authority, Fire Authority and National
Park) where the Leader only gets to appoint the representatives
from his own party and the rest where he holds complete sway.
By happy coincidence, the first category carry an allowance (Police
Authority £6,500, Fire Authority £2,000 and Nat Park
£2,000) while the rest do not.
All of which is part of the vast system of patronage through which
the Leader maintains his iron grip on power.
In all, the Leader controls, directly or indirectly, the destination
of some 34 allowances: nine cabinet posts; chairman and vice-chairman
of council; chairmen and vice chairmen of scrutiny committees
(8); chairman and vice chairman of planning; chairman and vice
chairmen (4) of licensing; Police Authority (2) Fire Authority
(2) and National Park (8).
I have long argued that such a level of patronage has no place
in a democracy but, given the number of members in receipt of
the leader's largesse, you will not be surprised to learn that
my efforts to bring about reform have met with only limited support.
The one democratic safeguard against abuse of this system is to
be found in Para 8(a) of the Code of Conduct which requires that,
when making decisions including appointments to public bodies,
members, including the leader, must always act in the public interest.
So, we must assume that the Leader's decision to appoint himself
to the £6,500-a-year post on the Police Authority (in addition
to the nearly forty grand he gets for being a a member and Leader)
was because he thought he was the best man for the job.
Though, as these processes go in inside Cllr Davies' head, we
are not privy to the criteria used to arrive at this conclusion.
Does he have some specialist knowledge of policing matters that
he has been keeping from the rest of us.
Even more surprising is the appointment of the invisible Cllr
David Neale to the Police Authority, which, I am told, has not
not gone down at all well with some of the Leader's senior colleagues.
The main political parties are coalescing around the view that
police authorities should be directly elected.
The sooner the better because I doubt Cllr Neale would come in
the first 5,000 if the people he is supposed to represent had
any say in the matter.
But I digress.
So, employing this equivalent of observing the Soviet Union's
May Day parade in order to see who was standing next to who on
the top of Lenin's tomb, who is in and who is out.
Well, if I was Cllr John Allen-Mirehouse, I would be watching
my back.
Recently demoted from sole deputy Leader to joint deputy leader
(with Cllr Jamie Adams) Squirehouse, as he is affectionately known
to readers of this column, has lost his place on both the Welsh
Local Government Association (replacement Cllr J Adams) the Local
Government Association and has been replaced on the Fire Authority
by Danny 'Quango' Fellows (of whom more later) .
He has also been taken off the committee of the Reserve Forces
and Cadets Association of Wales in favour of Cllr David Wildman
On the plus side he has retained his place on the National Park
and the Court of Governors of Swansea University together with
his power-base on the South West Wales Regional Waste Management
Committee.
Another who has been demoted is Cllr David Simpson whose seat
on the governors of Pembrokeshire College has been handed to Cllr
Myles Pepper.
However, as with any system of patronage, the utilitarian principle
of the greatest happiness for the greatest number has prevailed
and the winners easily outscore the losers.
Among those on the up and up is Cllr Fellows (already chairman
of some scrutiny committee or another) who has added the Welsh
Joint Education Committee, the Fire Authority and the Murco Liaison
committee to his already impressive list of quangos.
Cllr Pepper also appears to be running hot with a place on the
Court of Coleg Harlech to go with his two previously mentioned
appointments.
Ken Rowlands has been suitably rewarded for deserting Labour's
sinking ship with seats on Environment Agency SW area and the
South West Wales Regional Waste Management Committee.
But the real rising stars are the aforementioned Cllr Jamie Adams
and Cllr Huw George who finds himself on the Court of both Aberystwyth
and Lampeter Universities and the boards of PLANED, Dyfed Alcohol
Advisory Council (PRISM), Narberth Education Charity and Cwmni
Laith Cyf.
The only surprise, I suppose, is that he wasn't appointed to the
Police Authority because, as a former Fishguard bobby, that would
seem more his field.
One surprising inclusion in the list of those on the upward path
is Cllr Brian Hall who the Leader has appointed to the South Wales
Fisheries Committee, Association of Port Health Authorities, Chevron
Liaison Committee and Interreg 111 A (whatever that is).
All these meetings in far-flung places will give him ample opportunity
to rekindle his passion for taxpayer-funded travel because, I
notice, his promise not to claim travelling expenses only extended
to the life of the last council.(Resignation
statement)
I have a feeling in my water that Cllr Hall is being groomed for
a Cabinet comeback and I think I know who is keeping his seat
warm in the meantime.
It is difficult to gauge the extent to which the above appointments
bear out Robert Louis Stevenson's observation that "Politics
is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought
necessary" but we can be assured that they were all made
in the public interest because the Code of Conduct says so.
Two readers have been in touch following my comments on the
Western Telegraph's advertising rates (Quantity
discount).
Firstly, someone emailed to point out that Newsquest, the Telegraph's
parent company, is in turn owned by the US based and appropriately
named Gannett Corporation.
A brief scan of Gannett's latest annual report shows the importance
of advertising, which accounts for four times as much income as
newspaper sales.
My other correspondent has sent me some information on the actual
charges for adverts.
It seems that what the council pays rather depends on what is
being advertised.
A 10 x 2 cols ad for farmers markets cost £102.32 (£5.11
per column centimetre) while a 34 x 6 public notice for road closures
cost £2640 (£12.94 p c cm).
And job adverts are even more expensive again with a 3 x 4 ad
for a systems manager setting the taxpayer back £207.14
(£17.26 p c cm).
It also worth noting that the word 'column' is something of a
movable feast.
For someone who has been in the business, the structure of a newspaper
is almost as interesting as its content.
So I can't help but notice that the news pages of the Telegraph
have six columns, while those generating advertising revenue have
nine.
I seem to remember that at one time the ads pages ran to seven
columns and instead of raising rates they just increased the number
of columns.
To give an idea of what a lucrative business this public advertising
can be the 34 x 6 advert mentioned above amounts to two-thirds
of a page, which, as the mathematicians among you will already
have worked out, means the whole page would cost 40 quid short
of four grand.
And a full page of job adverts will set the taxpayer back £5,281.
So, if you find nothing of interest in the Telegraph's news pages,
as Old Grumpy finds is all too frequently the case, all you need
is a tape measure and calculator and you can amuse yourself for
hours working out how much of your council tax has gone down the
Gannett's gullet.
Beats Sudoku every time.