Councillor Induction

This week is quite a busy one for the newly elected City Councillor. On Thursday there is the Annual meeting of the Council - members of the public are welcome to attend from 11am at the Guildhall.

The first part is mostly ceremonial, when the new mayor for the coming year is appointed (barring fireworks on the day this is due to be the current deputy mayor Mike Dixon).

The second part is the more political bunfight where Executive Councillors and committee chairs are selected - these are the key people with Executive power and responsibility for City Council Services (It can safely be assumed these will all be Liberal Democrat), and the Group Leaders will make an annual statement about their priorities for the year ahead. I am not a group, being only one, but hope to have a chance in the ensuing debate to start setting out the Conservative agenda for Cambridge. And a bit like Prime Ministers questions, I get the chance to ask a couple of oral questions (in advance), and follow up with a supplementary question on the day. Hopefully these can pin down the ruling group on some of their more ambiguous policy positions.

I've also had a meeting with Member Services yesterday, and handed over the rest of a huge list of issues from around the ward for various Council officers to follow up - its going to take a while to get action on all of these, and today I've met the Housing officer for Coleridge ward at City Homes South, to discuss various issues facing Council tenants that I picked up on the doorsteps during the election campaign.

All in all, a busy week, but hopefully making some progress.