Tory Dominance Under Attack

3.37.05pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 11th May 2006

The Liberal Democrats, along with the other opposition parties on Oxfordshire County Council, will be continuing their fight for a fair share of places on committees. Until last May, the County Council shared out chairs of scrutiny committees proportionally to the size of the political groups, because scrutiny is supposed to be non-party political and acting as a "critical friend" to the party or parties wielding executive power at County. After May, the Tories took all the chairs and vice chairs.

As the committees come up to their annual vote on who will chair them next year, the opposition parties will again be suggesting that they should have their proportional share. This means Liberal Democrats proposed that Cllr Larry Sanders (Green) be elected as Vice Chair at the Social and Community Services Scrutiny Committee this Thursday (4th May). This was supported by the Labour representative, but the Tory members voted in one of their own.

"Scrutiny is not supposed to be dominated by party politics," said Cllr Zoé Patrick, Leader of the Opposition. "And no one group has a monopoly on talent and expertise. So how can the Tories justify holding all the chairs? It makes it hard to believe that they will genuinely criticise their Tory friends in the Cabinet should a scrutiny review show something going wrong with Council services."