Letter: Councillors Must Be Rigorous in Their Scrutiny

Published on: 9 Aug, 2024
Updated on: 9 Aug, 2024

From Mark Stamp

In response to: Cultural Change at GBC – Still ‘Work in Progress’

Mr Wrobel may have the best intentions and changing the culture of the officers will be a tough task. I hope he is successful.

What he has less control over, however, are the elected councillors who must take responsibility for the problems that keep coming out. The residents of Guildford have been badly served by their elected officials of all parties for many years.

We need to fundamentally look at our system to get a better calibre of councillor and pay them sufficiently to enable them to spend their time scrutinising the decisions being taken. Many councillors have full-time jobs in addition to their responsibilities which often makes me question how the backbenchers manage it, let alone the Executive.

At the hustings last year before the council elections, all candidates agreed that as councillors they had very little power primarily due to the reduction in funding from central government.

As true as that may be, their power, which we entrust them to have, is to be rigorous in questioning how the council is using our money to make the borough a better place to live.