Quote by awayman
However, all councillors are required to treat people with respect - it's part of the standards regime introduced by the last government, which this government wants to abolish. Wonder why that is?
Because it quite simply oppresses the freedom of individuals who wish to serve their communities. It created a whole new layer of unaccountable faceless individuals hell bent on Councillor bashing putting them in fear of having to go on a course to learn respect when engaged in heated debate with fellow councillors trying to negotiate the best deal for the community.
It also meant signing your life away; Local Councillors had a much more rigid regime than MP's did and there was little if any right to appeal.
Many Councillors I knew, including myself, resigned on the introduction of these draconian measures. It was a typical knee jerk reaction sledge hammer to crack a very tiny nut. The majority of local Councillors were dedicated people, never claimed a penny in expenses and did it simply for the love of the their community, as I did.
Guess who paid for these draconian measures?
The local tax payer, every time and it did no more than encourage many of those Councillors who remained (and those elected since) to bleed the system for every penny they can get to compensate them for the imposition.
I haven't read such tosh for years.
Standards panels on councils, who do the bulk of the work under the Standards code, aren't faceless; they're made up of council members!
The idea that council members should be free to be racist, violent or offensive is simply nonsense; councils had failed to regulate themselves, so along came the Standards Board.
I'm sorry you resigned as a councillor rather than live under the Standards regime, but, frankly, your misunderstanding and misrepsentation of it isn't much of an advert for your skills.
