KCC - prize-winningly rotten

Kent County Council managed to scoop two titles in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs Awards 2011.

The column, which lists authorities' municipal wrongdoing, named council leader Paul Carter as Mr Toad of the Year and former managing director Katherine Kerswell as Goldenballs of the Year.

Click to read more ...

Paul Carter crows and bleats

It simply beggars belief that Paul Carter should round on the local press and suggest that they are responsible for the falling staff morale at KCC. We will find out in June, if not before, how much Katherine Kerswell was paid leave quietly. What is clear now, and has been for some time, is that her recruitment and departure revealed serious shortcomings at the very top of KCC. Poor staff morale at the Council is more likely to be a result of working for rubbish bosses than simply reading about them.

It's also pretty rich for Paul Carter to criticise the press for not playing a "straight bat" after the stream of misleading and mealy-mouthed press releases that accompanied the confused and confusing departure of the Council's MD.

Paul Carter's request for sponsorship from his staff was quite simply breath-takingly crass.

Click to read more ...

Journalist bites councillor

Once again, Paul Francis hits the nail on the head, this time in a riposte to Paul Carter's New Year's gobshite.

---

KCC leader fires salvo at local press for 'biased' reporting: a response

Politicians often think we are out to get them and are working to some kind of hidden agenda. And the word that sometimes gets bandied about is that we are 'biased'. It is a word that KCC leader Paul Carter used when he fired off a New Year salvo at the local media in general just before departing for a month long break to participate in a vintage car rally to South Africa.

In a piece, which for the most part was a look back over the year, he ended with a short section 'looking forward'. It began with a pledge that he wished to "improve our relationship with the local press." This laudable aim was then rather undermined by a series of comments that together amounted to an attack on those that he wished to foster improved relationships with.

Click to read more ...

Why KCC will have to come clean over Kerswell

Not for the first time, Kent County Council has shown that when it comes to transparency, its view of what the public has a right to know depends rather on what the circumstances are. It will not, we are told, be disclosing the details of the severance package it has agreed with its departing managing director Katherine Kerswell because it is bound by a confidentiality agreement. Ah, the good old confidentiality clause.

Click to read more ...

KCC staff are furious

Disgruntled county council staff have given vent to their anger over a reported six-figure payoff being handed to the authority's managing director in an extraordinary series of comments criticising the way it has been handled. And they have also taken aim at the county council leader over his decision to be away from his desk throughout January to take part in a vintage car rally in South Africa.

The comments – leaked to the KM Group – were posted by staff on the council's own intranet under an initiative known as 'Talk To The Top', where senior managers respond to questions from employees. Dozens took the chance to express their dismay at events surrounding the abrupt departure of managing director Katherine Kerswell.

County councillors voted to scrap the post of managing director yesterday amid a furious political row. Conservative leader Paul Carter was accused of acting like a dictator by the opposition parties. But recent events triggered a hostile response from many staff, although a number were subsequently deleted by senior managers.

Click to read more ...

Kerswell out of it

Cllr Carter will wear a toga of Imperial purple on all public engagements, and feast on roast peacocks daily. We, on the other hand, will be fed to the lions. There will be no circuses. There will be no bread. Does anyone remember voting for this?

---

Kent County Council have finally decided that Katherine Kerswell is not in fact managing director. This is the latest instalment in a story that has been running since November 16th, when the rumours first emerged that Katherine would be leaving her post for reasons for reasons unknown.

At the time she was 16 months in to her four-year contract, and appeared to have ruffled the feathers of the Conservative backbenchers with her program of change and improvement within the Council. Initially there was confusion as to whether she had actually left or not. Even when Kent County Council put out a statement that Katherine "is and remains" managing director, some confusion remained given that there was no sign of Katherine at the KCC offices.

Click to read more ...

KCC pay and perks

Pay and perks go online in council's "revolution"

KCC opens it books to the public

Details of how millions of pounds of tax payers' money is spent - including the pay and perks of senior officers - are to go online as part of what is being hailed as a transparency revolution at County Hall. Kent County Council is to embark on a radical programme of opening its books to public inspection under a series of measures it believes will improve trust and understanding among residents.

Click to read more ...