Sunday, January 06, 2008

Is this value for money?

The Crawley News reports that the Tory leader of Crawley Borough Council went on a 3 day training course in South Africa, partly funded out of the Council budget.

Obviously, Lanzer will justify the cost of the trip, as he learnt a lot and was fired up on his return. The CBC payment only amounted to about £675, which is not a huge amount. The rest was from grants, which may or may not be funded by the national taxpayer.

The course involved looking at 'law and order' issues. The thing about this is that the Borough Council doesn't have a great deal of responsiblity for these. The Police Authority is a seperate body, with delegates from local authorities, but from West Sussex, not Crawley. So Bob Lanzer isn't on it. He might be on Police Liaison, but that's not really a 'leadership' position.

Of course, councillors do need to be trained up, and they should be exposed to external practices, otherwise they risk being too ingrained in parochialism. However, it appears that there will be some raised eyebrows at this particular item. Especially as the News has put it on their front page this week.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was five days, not three, but I don't think that detracts from your point.

The borough council does have some responsibility for community safety of course, and liaises with the Police and WSCC in the LSP, but...

...I hope our crime problems are a bit different to SA. Things might have changed since then, but this article from 2002 says that about 5000 murders a year are committed in the Gauteng province.

Crawley might have a bit of a reputation sometimes but nobody is suggesting its that bad!

Actually... things are better than that now. This story is all about how there is a 'positive downward trend in Gauteng crime" inthe first 6 months of 2007.

It was achieved by the simple tactics of 7750 roadblocks, 6029 cordon and search operations and a lot of patrols.

We will know if Bob learned anything if we start seeing roadblocks going up everywhere.

Anonymous said...

Actually I don't know how many days it was. Looking at your link the Crawley News says:

"The trip to Gauteng Province took place from November 12-16"

and then says later:

"One element of that course involved a three-day visit to South Africa"

So sombody can't count and I know it isn't me!

Danivon said...

I think after the 11-hour flights, it could come down to being three full days in SA, possible with a 4 night stay.

It would be good if the News had found out the total cost per delegate, and how the grants covering the rest of the money are funded.

But hey, they got the scoop.

Now, as for your own post on the Crawley News among others...

Anonymous said...

I know... makes it look like I've got it in for them, which isn't the case, but if it wasn't printed I wouldn't be reacting to it would I?