Lead member for what? Part II
So, Salford Community Leisure (SCL) want to run a city-wide programme of summer sporting activities. The Lead Member of Culture and Sport describes this programme as ‘vital’, but states that has not budgeted for it and expects it to be funded from devolved community committee funding. The programme is run, and apparently instigated by SCL (SCL are ‘a membership organisation owned and controlled by the people of Salford’ set up by the council to run its sporting and leisure facilities to open up greater avenues to seek grants and loans) – although I’m currently seeking clarification as to whether the council asked it to run the programme whilst simultaneously refusing to fund it.
Yet another major programme of sporting events which the Lead Member for Culture and Sports affirms is run by someone other than him.
I have requested the Lead Member’s personal work programme so that I can get an indication of what it is exactly that he does do (or doesn’t do as the current evidence indicates), but so far have received nothing. Perhaps it doesn’t exist?
One wonders whether cabinet posts are assigned by Labour in Salford on the basis of competence or as either reward for loyalty or means of keeping internal factional interests happy? Certainly Cllr. Warmisham is proof positive that a cabinet position isn’t always an indication of competence (two directorates he has been put in charge of so far have gone from 3 star to 2 star ratings under his ‘leadership’ and one got so bad that the government came within a whisker of taking control of it away from the council).