Who is prepared to take the blame? (From Western Telegraph)

Who is prepared to take the blame?

11:52am Wednesday 2nd January 2013 in Letters

I HAVE read with incredulity the decision of the county council members not to support Mike Stoddart’s notice of motion and of the numerous county councillors who abstained from the vote.

It was known that the latest report on the state of the county’s education/safeguarding service had been reported to senior officers and to very senior cabinet members, but its publication was not to be until the Monday following the council meeting. Did it not occur to anyone in authority to defer the council meeting until that day or was it a deliberate ploy to keep the report under wraps until the notice of motion had been debated?

We know now that machinations within the county council are being deplored at the Cardiff level and our education service is having to rely on help from Carmarthenshire County Council.

Is this the beginning of a trek back to Dyfed and the beginning of the end of Pembrokeshire county council?

So who is to blame and who is prepared to take the blame?

Is it the electorate who did not ask searching questions of the candidates during the election or those who could not be prepared to vote? Is it each and every one of our county councillors who has a corporate responsibility to care for our children? Or is it one of the two cabinet members with overall responsibility for childrens services?

Three very senior officers have taken early retirement, one scrutiny chairman had the grace and honour to stand down.

It all goes to show that progress at County Hall is predictably, glacially and imperceptibly, slow despite all claims to the contary.

Only 15 county councillors believed something was wrong – what were the other 45 doing?

Perhaps now is the time for someone to resign gracefully and restore our trust in the democratic principle at County Hall before it is too late.

I am reminded of a Confucian saying ‘A slender reed which bends with the wind is stronger than a mighty oak which crashes in the storm’.

JOHN COLE Westhill Avenue Milford Haven