Here is another example of one of the other ways we use to get messages out, a weekly column in the Tamworth Herald:
View From the Council
Cllr Thomas Jay
Wow, another week has gone by – time is flying at the moment, especially as we gear up to the local election period. When I was first elected I was told “once the election is finished, things will quieten down for a while” – it’s been 6 years and that quiet period still hasn’t arrived yet!
Last Thursday evening, we had a meeting of my Cabinet. This was a public meeting, where my Cabinet Members and I took key decisions. We approved the ‘Councils Allocations Policy’, to ensure the Councils Housing Register has the correct priorities and we made sure to include ‘members of the armed forces medically discharged from duty’ into the priorities. We, your Local Conservatives, appreciate the armed forces and they have our full support in our Town.
The weekend was spent talking to residents across Tamworth. That’s right, even in our spare time we end up doing something linked to local politics. These face-to-face conversations with residents on the doorsteps are worth their weight in gold. I find that we can sometimes get more valuable information from one doorstep conversation than perhaps a couple of hours in a committee meeting.
Residents don’t beat about the bush, and they know the very localised issues better than anyone, so thank you to everyone who had a conversation with my colleagues and I. The good news is that the items residents discuss are the areas we have already publicly listed as our priorities, so it shows we are focusing in the right areas.
On Tuesday night, at the time of writing this column, we have the last Full Council meeting of the municipal year. As well as having two items for a decision, it is also the last opportunity this year for questions to be asked directly to Cabinet members in a public meeting. It’s a real shame that the Labour opposition haven’t fully utilised this opportunity. If they genuinely had something to offer Tamworth, this was their opportunity to show everyone, but, unfortunately, we got nothing again.
In terms of decisions, there were two key items I was presenting for approval. At the point of writing, I have no idea if they were approved or not, other than I believe they will be. The first was the ‘Pay Policy’ for the Council and included the ‘Gender Pay Gap Report’. This highlights how the Council has reduced the gender pay gap to next to nothing over the years and how we are doing a much better job than many of our neighbours, a positive news story.
The second item was my report on the Tamworth Borough Council Front Desk Service. A few months ago we received a public petition, a welcome and fantastic part of our democracy, and it highlighted an area that we were already looking into. This was around the front desk service that used to be delivered from Marmion House.
In this report I call out that the data shows more and more people are using online services and that the Customer Service Desk at the Assembly Rooms is performing well. I do also call out, however, that it is our job as local politicians to do more than just use data. We must use feeling and public perception from our close relationships with residents and other stakeholders. If we just used data, then we probably wouldn’t need Councillors.
I therefore announced that we, the Local Tamworth Conservatives, have committed to having a public facing front desk service in the town centre. This is another shining example of what the public gets with our Conservative Group: strategic thinking, robust planning and listening to the public.
