Not impressed by faceless approach (From Barry And District News)

Not impressed by faceless approach

7:40am Thursday 6th September 2012 in Letters

WE have a new council website – but are we impressed?

Labour was elected on an ethos of openness and transparency. Shame this commendable thinking was not transferred to the newly elected top officers who seem to be faceless people who hide behind fathomless job titles – and this includes the replacement for the former chief executive.

I will leave it to you to discover who he/she is because believe me it is a mission. Click on ‘council’ and you get all the ins and outs of our councillors, but what about the top officers? Click on ‘legal notices’ and you are directed to a director of legal who left the council several weeks ago and whose job title no longer exists.

Interestingly on stage three of the ‘decision making process’ link you are linked to the ‘chief executive’ only to discover that he has ‘expired’ – well his web page has anyway.

The public want faces and direct contact details but of course we now have ‘Contact 1 Vale’. I have had reason to recently contact ‘contact one’ with various queries and I get responses to the effect that my query has been sent to the ‘relevant department’.

I gather from that, that as well as ‘faceless’ and ‘nameless’ officers we also have various council departments that are all named ‘relevant’. Therefore if you have an important issue to take up with the council then address it to Whatever Person to Whatever Department - Whatever.

But be warned if you directly challenge an officer as to their ‘identity’ - be he or she a junior officer, senior officer or something in the middle, you could be directed to the Freedom of Information Department to establish their job title and professional qualifications.

I have given up (for now) – but good luck to those of you who don’t.

Karen Gallimore

Barry