Kostas, a scrutiny officer I know, was telling me about what he thought was a funny moment before a meeting the other week. He said it was ok to share, so, as long as you keep it to yourself, here it is.

The chair of the committee that Kostas supports was talking to him about how to get the committee members out of their obvious cliques.

Every meeting they all sit together in their political groups, which means that, for one thing, scrutiny doesn’t feel as cross-party as it should. For another, there are a lot of side conversations and notes being passed. This really annoys the chair - but his appeals for people to stop have made little difference.

So, before the last meeting, the chair suggested that Kostas laid out the name plates, before everyone arrived, in a way that mixed them all up, which he did.

Thing was, Councillor Bob who, as you know, doesn’t go to the pre meetings (which are held in a different room) got to the committee room first, as usual, and moved all the name plates to where he thought they should go - back to the political groups of course!

Bob then sat himself down, in his usual seat, arms crossed defiantly, waiting for the rest of the committee to arrive in the meeting room.

When they did come in, the chair spotted what had happened straight away but, as people were already in the public gallery, what could he do? Apart from give Bob a thin smile and a shake of the head, of course.

Yes, Kostas could see the funny side and told me he will be using superglue for the name plates next time!

He doesn’t think the Chair found it funny though.

Vice chair Jo, who is on the same committee, will simply add it to Councillor Bob’s charge sheet, I guess.

What next?

Well, they are planning to have a chat with Bob before the next meeting to tell him why they think this is important and ask him if he will help. I wonder if this might be a better strategy. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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You can see this post on LinkedIn here in case you want to see / add any comments.