Better News for 2012?

Some good and some not so good news from the last meeting of Bolsover Council in 2011. The good news first:

A presentation was given on the Council’s excellent apprenticeship scheme, which as the Leader pointed out, is particularly impressive because it last for 18 months and offers placement to people who do not have many, or indeed any, qualifications, a particular issue in Bolsover.

Second piece of good news was the Council’s decision to continue to investigate the installation of photo-voltaic cells on the Council’s housing stock even though the reduction in the feed-in tariffs reduces the financial returns. Credit to Bolsover for persisting when other Councils have pulled the plug. Yes it would have been even better if the Council had moved earlier but I blame the Government not Bolsover for this. Their U-turn leaves the claim of being the “greenest government ever” in tatters and threatens to destory our solar industry which includes companies employing people here in Bolsover.

On the debit side the Council received a very bleak report from District Auditor. You can choose your own adjective to describe it and the circumstances that led to it: “critical, damning, a good hiding and abysmal” were all terms used at the meeting. Either way the Auditor told the Council that this was the worse audit letter she had written this year. Gloomy though it is it does at show that the Labour group are now starting to realise the severity of the situation and that is the first step on the road to improvement. You can call me an optimist but I think some Councillors now “get it” and with a new Director we should be able to take some steps towards recovering public confidence. The nagging voice is of course that the Council said all this last year and instead of getting better it got worse.