Local authority 'expenditure'

With the news today regarding the salaries, pensions and 'redundancy' payments to council chiefs in Somerset, my attention has also been brought to this story, in the Derby Telegrah, involving Derbyshire County Council.

Not having heard of Global Action Plan, I then went to their website, which tells us when accessing the link "Meet the team", that the CEO Trewin Restorick, is a key commentator on environmental issues. He has co-chaired Defra’s Compact Group and currently sits on Defra’s Third Sector Board. Trewin is also one of Al Gore's Climate Ambassadors, a group of individuals who can educate, encourage, and promote dialogue about climate crisis as well as potential solutions and policy reform.

Now it is almost obligatory when seeing the words "environmental projects", "DEFRA" and "Al Gore" to delve further, which necessitates a visit to Companies House for a peek at their annual report and accounts. From the section "Financial Review and Results" it can be seen that Global Action Plan is a registered charity and received almost £500,000 from DEFRA and that it is also their stated aim,  to continue tendering for further government and European Union funding.

What we have here is a Conservative council commissioning yet another  'busybody' authoritarian scheme to enforce the requirements of an unproven science, at a time when councils are being asked to cut back on 'unnecessary expenditure' and concentrate said expenditure on 'front line' services.