Audit Commission Report and Central Government Intervention
In January 2010 the Audit Commission initiated a corporate governance inspection of Doncaster Council. This followed the sudden resignation of the Chief Executive leading to a conflict between the mayor and council over the appointment of a successor. The Commission felt that this, along with evidence that the council had not been well run for 15 years, was leading to a loss of public confidence.
The Commission's report was issued in April 2010. It found that Doncaster was a dysfunctional authority and that there were three factors preventing the council from providing good governance:
- The councillors' attempts to undermine the authority of the mayor and cabinet. There was evidence that councillors had never accepted the mayoral system and tried to use their overview and scrutiny powers to frustrate the mayor's policy objectives. In February 2010 the council had rejected the mayor's budget and voted in favour of their own proposals.
- The lack of effective leadership shown by the mayor and cabinet. The mayor was described as "not averse to provocative and inflammatory statements" and it was felt that he "does not always act in a way which demonstrates the need for an elected mayor to lead his authority and represent all the people in Doncaster".
- The failure of chief officers to deliver effectively services. Some senior officers were found to acquiesce in the councillors' misuse of scrutiny powers. There was also a lack of trust and impartiality.
On the recommendations of the commission, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, John Denham, used powers to appoint an acting chief executive and an advisory board to oversee the council. A Doncaster Recovery Board, comprising four appointed commissioners and seven other members including the mayor and chief executive held its first quarterly meeting on 10 September 2010.
Read more about this topic: Metropolitan Borough Of Doncaster
Famous quotes containing the words commission, report, central, government and/or intervention:
“Children cannot eat rhetoric and they cannot be sheltered by commissions. I don’t want to see another commission that studies the needs of kids. We need to help them.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (b. 1939)
“[In response to this question from an interviewer: “U. S. News and World Report described you this way: ‘She’s intolerant, preachy, judgmental and overbearing. She’s bright, articulate, passionate and kind.’ Is that an accurate description?”:]
It’s ... pretty good [ellipsis in original].”
—Joycelyn Elders (b. 1933)
“The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Nor the tame will, nor timid brain,
Nor heavy knitting of the brow
Bred that fierce tooth and cleanly limb
And threw him up to laugh on the bough;
No government appointed him.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“All of the assumptions once made about a parent’s role have been undercut by the specialists. The psychiatric specialists, the psychological specialists, the educational specialists, all have mystified child development. They have fostered the idea that understanding children and promoting their intellectual well-being is too complex for mothers and requires the intervention of experts.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)