THE main claims for setting up the new experimental cabinet-style council were the need to cut red tape and provide a more 'streamlined accountable system'.
To this end a number of council committees have been abolished.
It was claimed that councillors would have more time to 'represent their local committees' rather than attending numerous committee meetings at Guildhall.
However, 23 new ward committees have been established, and their role, according to the council booklet Modernising City of York Council, is to 'spend a bigger allocated local budget', and 'move decision-making to local level'.
Having attended a recent ward committee meeting it seems clear that, apart from allocating their own budget, which appeared to be the main reason for public attendance at the meeting, ward committees are a totally unnecessary and costly additional layer of bureaucracy.
They duplicate the work of parish councils and confuse areas of responsibility at local level.
The greater involvement of ward councillors at local level can simply be achieved by their mandatory attendance at parish council meetings. The ward budget, plus savings achieved by abolition of ward committees, can be allocated by using a similar, but fair, voting system with, perhaps, one public meeting to finalise allocation to local groups.
R A Starks,
The Green,
Elvington, York.
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