Every month councillors are required to submit a timesheet detailing the work they claim they’ve been doing to collect their allowances and special responsibility allowances from the public purse.
Well, let me clarify that: they’re meant to submit them and they collect their allowances regardless of the work they actually do; the timesheets and their pay are not in any way related.
So in some ways, these timesheets are meaningless.
However, they are somewhat illuminating because they shine a we light on a councillor’s character. Some take them very seriously and submit them as regularly as clockwork. Some are also completely honest about what they state on them.
For example, Labour’s excellent Bow East councillor, Marc Francis, falls into both categories. His timesheets are pretty much up to date and you can read his latest one for January 2014 here:
In fact, this probably understates the work he does.
In contrast, let’s have a look at the latest Tower Hamlets turncoat, the newly Independent Anwar Khan, who will now stand against his own sister-in-law in Bow West.
The last timesheet he appears to have submitted (and hey, as a management consultant he knows full well the importance of well kept timesheets) was in September 2011. In fact, in the 46 months since he was elected as a councillor, the council only displays records for nine months.
And in that time since he’s been a chief whip for the Labour group, one of whose duties was to ensure colleagues kept up with their timesheets.
Perhaps he was just too busy to submit them. I mean, he’s a really busy man, it seems.
Have a look at his timesheet for September 2010, the month before Lutfur was elected mayor and when he would have presumably been spending an awful lot of time on party, not council, business.
Wow. A hugely impressive 144 hours on councillor business that month. That’s 36 hours a week–a full time job in itself. How he managed to combine that with raising a young family and a high-powered job in the City, I’ll never know. He must have understanding employers.
I wonder whether his timesheets for them include such guff as 15 hours on “community events”. In fact, he states 15 hours per month on every sheet he’s submitted. It’s a lovely catch-all phrase is ‘community events’.
But out of the various councillor records I’ve looked at, his isn’t the worst. His latest enemy and fellow Bow West councillor Ann Jackson takes that prize: she hasn’t submitted once since January 2010.
Councillors may think these timesheets futile but they are among the few scraps that their voters have to examine what they’re doing.
Here’s a little table of the records for Respect and the independents:
I’ve put a N/A by the name of Gulam Robbani (who has had some previous difficulties with his timesheets, remember) because the council’s website has none next to his name. Shurely some mistake?
I don’t have time to go through all the other councillors, so maybe someone else can help.
However, among the group leaders, we see this:
Labour’s Sirajul Islam – Dec 2013
Tories’ Peter Golds – Sep 2013
Lib Dem Stephanie Eaton – Sep 2013.
And unless I’ve missed it, I can’t see any timesheet section for Mayor Lutfur Rahman himself. Maybe he just uses a tachometer.
Trial by Jeory 
Hi Ted. This is no any thing new. I left the Council in 2006. Then hardly anyone filled them in. Though if mine are still avaiable you can see what I done every month. Ray Gipson.
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2014 10:21:04 +0000 To: ray.gipson@hotmail.co.uk
There wouldn’t have been enough space to put all the voluntary work you did and still do, Ray
Ted’s clearly never been a councillor otherwise he would know the TH Timesheets are prone to forgery and not all that useful in practical terms.
Whilst some may devoutly complete them with accuracy, others do not – at best its a guestimate – at worse its a deliberately dishonest submission.
Helping residents (casework) totals would be better. Each one takes a different amount of time. Just how can anyone accurately keep records of exactly how much time was spent helping residents ? Phone calls, emails, someone turning-up on the front door, visiting residents, being stopped in the street by residents wanting to have a moan about the council, research, communicating with the council – all takes time which can never, ever, be accurately quantified.
Some committee meetings can achieve little and can be an unproductive use of a councillor’s finite time. It always depends on how much say the committee member has and whether the others are going to ignore expressed concerns. Often there is a need for a House of Commons style enquiry into the activities of senior council staff – can TH committee members actually do this ?
Councillors surgery times can be misleading. No account taken for a councillor holding a surgery for 3 hours and few, if any, turn-up. Other councillors may get a queue and be working non-stop during that same period.
What is really needed is an annual voters satisfaction survey. Invite the residents and businesses to rate their ward councillors. Remember folks, you first read about this brilliant idea (C) on the Trial-by-Jeory website: Royalties can be sent to my numbered Swiss bank account. 🙂
Council staff, especially over-paid seniors dismissively regard councillors as transient irritants – here today and gone tomorrow.
Local Government needs overdue reform. It is not going to happen in TH.
Curious Cat.
Sorry to say, but CC is pretty much on the money there. These timesheets are pretty pointless things, and the fact that some people have been slow in filling them in is no great loss to anyone.
(This is not to defend the regular clutch of dishonest and lazy councillors, simply to say that this is not a task that benefits anyone in particular.)
CC – Local Government reform certainly won’t start in LBTH. Will it ever start anywhere? I doubt it, but that’s a separate discussion.
Tim.
=> Tim
Please don’t be apologetic. I’m usually right (although I wasn’t about the doorstep canvassing … forgotten the precise details).
TH is the manifestation of two failures.
(1) TH councillors failing to hold their local authority to full and robust public account for its actions including failures, omissions and policies. This glaring deficiency could be addressed by having a new Scrutiny Committee (4 main scrutiny committees are allowed by law) tasked with investigating the Officers. It should operate on House of Commons committee mode (PAC under Margaret Hodge is a splendid inspiring example).
(2) The failure of the Labour Party to genuinely live-up to the once very high standards of its forefathers. The local (in broad terms) LP is now ruled/controlled by a collection of aggressive, spiteful, arrogant, uncaring persons. Members that deeply care can’t or won’t confront their LP bosses and demand proper high standards.
The Tory Party is far from perfect – but that is another story because of their insignificance at TH.
Central government is to blame for the absence of universal (meaning England) local authority organisation, software systems, pay rates, public accountability.
All the bollocks about having to pay local authority officials at least £40K or more than the UK’s prime minister, or even more than double the PM’s money, inevitably results in over-priced crap giving the powerless public sub-standard .
The first overdue improvement is an Independent Regulator for Local Government and the scrapping of the grossly ineffective LGO. We have
OFWAT
OFGEN
OFCOM
but no OF local government – so anarchy rules in local councils while the paying public continues to suffer.
Tim is correct, NO improvements will begin within the LBTH. Labour really lack the will. But genuine improvements will emerge with the introduction of a strong and determined Local Government Regulator. Eric Pickles from Brentwood are you listening ?
Curious Cat.
Corrupt thieving bastards, and it comes out of my pocket.
It’s plainly a cultural thing. Rushanara Ali has. in her lucrative time as MP, never once responded to my emails, and I assure you they are on serious issues, not crank mail.
I’ve complained to the Council and to the House of Commons and no one is interested.
An alien culture indeed.
Glad to know you’re feeling generous You know the entire system is fully accountable to the public who pay all the bills. Its called British democracy.
http://www.rushanaraali.org/
Its a very busy life trying to gain popularity within the Labour Party whilst trying to promote one’s political ambitions. Consequently there is limited time left for the voters, except immediately before a General Election.
You mentioned culture. It was Labour who introduced the concept into the UK to replace British culture.
On Facebook, it appears – wonder how many are actual TH voters.
Curious Cat.
Ted,
maybe you should take a look at Newham. No timesheets but there is performance monitoring (introduced when I was a councillor). However, performance info is not for public consumption.
During the current 4 year term full council has met for less than 11 hours total. And not one mayoral decision has been subjected to scrutiny.
2018 Hrs GMT
At last!
A really useful route of democratic audit on your blog, after such a long wait!
We agree with most of what has been said by the sceptical posters.
We shall be observing with interest what other information you can share on your blog.
What has any Councillor done to hold the dozens of very highly paid post-holders in the Council to transparent account?
How is the rate and the actual post of an “adviser” decided?
What scrutiny is there for such a post?
Who is answerable for measuring “any” relevance of an adviser to the delivery of democratic services to the people of Tower Hamlets?
Under the previous, collective system, the Council’s Leader didn’t have any adviser.
Not that we can recall a comparable paid and promoted one.
So what aspect of the Council’s remits changed in 2010 that has meant the engagement of so many advisers and such like?
Is any of the “Candidates” going to scrap the advisers?
Admirable questions Khoo.
But you really post such weird questions as:-
Do be reasonable. This is TH after all. Not some wonderful democratic and fit for purpose local authority 🙂
Keep-up the good work.
Curious Cat.
Yes. Labour’s budget proposals (supported by John Biggs) which were vetoed by Mayor Rahman and his cronies, included scrapping the Mayor’s highly paid advisers and chauffeur driven limo.
Which party were you Mike?
I was a Labour Party member for twenty odd years. I became a Newham councillor on a Labour ticket. In my last year as a councillor I crossed the floor to the Conservatives (which, of itself, is something of a long story).
The one positive thing I can say about having left Labour for the Tories (albeit briefly) is that the scales fell from my eyes very quickly with regard to the nature of party politics.
For easy time tracking and time management, I like Replicon’s hassle free cloud based timesheet. It is completely cloud based time tracking software – http://www.replicon.com/time-tracking-softwares.aspx that can be accessed from anywhere.
I wonder why it’s OK to expect Council officers to have to account for their time at work and what they do but not Councillors?
The notion that there should be some accountability around the Advisers seems like a jolly good idea. Perhaps a report from the Mayor on the performance of his advisers and how he has satisfied himself they are a proper use of public money?
Maybe Councillors’ allowances ought to dependent on properly completed timesheets and performance reporting in the same way that accounting has to be made for the expenditure of other public funds?
At least the timesheets completed tell us something about those who can’t even be bothered to record where they were and what they did – or maybe they’re too concerned they’d be found out as liars?
=> You couldn’t make it up! = YES you can. Its TH after all !
Since when has any LBTH officer been accountable to the public ????
Curious Cat