Yesterday in the local press we saw that our council tax is set to rise by 3.99%; the announcement also included a consideration to invite us to also make voluntary contributions, someone is apparently having a laugh, or are they?
Below is the latest from Graham Smith highlighting yet more controversy involving the Chief Executive that is brewing at Lys Kernow. This follows the John Betty saga which still remains somewhat of a mystery.
The question is:
“Is the kitchen getting too hot?”
This latest fiasco involving a proposed new appointment and obvious cost that has raised its ugly head so near the council tax increase speaks volumes.
County Hall will have to wait for a deputy Chief Executive,
29th September 2018, by Graham Smith
Cornwall Council has shelved plans to appoint a deputy Chief Executive, following a chaotic restructure of the agenda for a meeting next week.
The ambition of chief executive Kate Kennally to provide for herself “additional strategic capacity” was to have been rubber-stamped by the Chief Officers' Employment committee.
Elected councillors knew nothing about the plan and Cornwall Reports could not find any members of the ruling cabinet who had been consulted.
But a frantic 24 hours at County Hall saw the original recommendation withdrawn and replaced with a less controversial measure – instead, simply confirming the need to start the recruitment process for a replacement Chief Operating Officer, following Cath Robinson’s confirmation in the role after six months as group managing director of Corserv.
It seems likely that the proposal for a deputy Chief Executive – with Paul Masters widely tipped for the role, alongside his current responsibilities as the Strategic Director for Neighbourhoods – will return within a month or two.
Meanwhile questions remain about the circumstances surrounding the departure of John Betty from the role of Strategic Director for Economic Growth and Development. On 5th September Cornwall Reports detailed his move to a new post of “Strategic Commercial Growth Advisor,” on full pay, answering directly to Ms Kennally.
The original recommendation to next week's committee meeting, revealing the plan to appoint a deputy Chief Executive. Below: the hurriedly-substituted recommendation, with no mention of the new role.
Too little too late?
"A NEW HOUSING OMBUDSMAN
Following a consultation earlier this year on consumer redress in the housing market, we are announcing the creation of New Homes Ombudsman. This will help ensure consumers buying new homes will have an independent and legally backed route of redress against developers who do not deliver what they promise.
• We want to protect consumers and ensure everyone has a great place to live and raise a family, currently there is no statutory process to bring redress.
• We are creating a New Homes Ombudsman to protect consumers and give them confidence that when things are not right in their new home they have a route of redress. This will also discourage developers from cutting corners and putting unfinished homes on the market.
• Our plans will help to ensure that new-home owners have better rights and everyone has a great place to live and raise a family.
Background
• According the Home Builder’s Federation and the NHBC, 98 per cent of new-home buyers report snags or bigger defects after moving in[2]. Developers have been found to put homes on the market which are incomplete, with issues such as wet paint, poorly fitted doors and other defects.
• Whilst most developers do resolve issues there is no standard order of priority, meaning a consumer does not know if it will take one day or three months to resolve a problem, irrespective of how serious it is. Having paid a significant sum of money to buy your home it can be stressful and deeply frustrating to deal with issues which most people would assume have been resolved through the building process.
Our solution
• We are creating a new statutory ombudsman specifically for new homes to address these concerns."
Meanwhile, Wain Homes are in the news again:
Wain Homes seem to have bought Halgavor Moor and Cornwall County Council has said there will be no loss of habitat! Tell that to these Otters who was filmed as recent as 25/09/2018 by Kathryn Pattinson member of Safe Halgavor Moor Group. Anyone who wishes to come to this meeting and also object to the destruction of Halgavor Moor by Wain Home please join our group. Objection have to be submitted by 22 October 2018