Praise and Bouquets. Plus a plea.

After seeing council tax in Craven rise in excess of inflation year after year, it's very good indeed to see that Craven district council (CDC) are not increasing tax to householders at all for the next year.
Sadly this is not echoed by North Yorkshire county council, or by the ever greedy North Yorkshire police authority, both of whom think that increases of twice inflation are reasonable!

This makes Craven's stance all the more commendable, as it would be all too easy to follow in the footsteps of these other profligate and spendthrift organisations, especially the police authority, which is rapidly becoming a byword for financial incompetence - See Chapter 4 of 'Incompetence or Worse?

And there's yet more good news!

CDC have refused to allow the Settle festival.
Now Paakwa is not going to go into the merits or otherwise of this festival, but one thing did stand out about it, that officers of CDC were strongly backing it.
Not alas! With their money, but with ours.

Two senior officers had apparently approved, and given, a large grant to the festival organisers.
How large?
Well larger than the combined totals of that reserved for all sport and all art combined in Craven!

This was done without councillors' permission, and without taking the request to them seeking such permission, until after the money had been given to the festival organisers.

If we had so much money to give in grants, should not councillors have been asked whether they would prefer to double the grants for sports and arts in Craven, or to give it to the organisers of what appeared to be a rock festival before they had even achieved consent for that festival?
And now the application to hold that festival has fallen, meaning that the money granted has been totally wasted.

It is the job of councillors to award grant money, not officers, and most certainly not to the extent done on this occasion.

It is to be hoped that councillors will now have something to say on that score, especially to the officers concerned,* but meanwhile three councillors are to be commended for taking a stance for what they believed, rather than following the leads of CDC's employees, the council officers.

At the risk of bringing down the wrath of some of their more pusillanimous council brethren on their necks, Paakwa hands bouquets to councillors Heseltine, Ireton, and Quinn for reminding council officers that theirs is a supportive role, and not a commanding one.

* The licensing committee rejected the application on all 4 licensing objectives as follows:

1. The Committee have decided to reject the application.

2. The Committee considered that it was necessary to reject the application for the premises licence so as to promote the four licensing objectives under the Act –

1) The prevention of crime and disorder

2) The prevention of public nuisance

3) Public safety

4) The protection of children from harm

Bearing in mind that the application fell on all four points, Paakwa asks the following questions:

Why have council officers, in breach of agreement, granted these festival organisers a larger grant than that available for the whole of sports and arts in Craven?

As officers have now shown their standard of judgement when allocating taxpayers' funds, will councillors now consider whether to rescind the latest agreement, that allowing officers to grant up to £10,000 in individual cases backed only by one councillor, a tenfold increase on the previous agreement?