Jacob Williams https://jacobwilliams.com

The results of my recent online readers’ poll are quite decisive. It was posted shortly after Cllr. Sue Perkins left the Labour group to join the IPPG. In doing so, maintaining her £15k cabinet post for safeguarding.

Until this point, Cllr. Perkins had served as a Labour councillor for the Pembroke Dock Llanion ward since 1997, and the poll asked whether you thought the done thing in such situations – when changing parties – was for a councillor to resign their seat and then re-stand under their new political colours. In this case, it would mean swapping Labour red for IPPG grey. (I always fancy that the IPPG’s party colours should be a dull shade of grey, don’t ask me why.)

The message is quite clear – a combined 86% say a councillor should resign their seat and go back to their electorate, with only 14% disagreeing.

You never know, if Cllr. Perkins did cause a by-election and re-stood as an official IPPG candidate, she might actually win! Just a stone’s throw across the Cleddau, in the Burton ward, Rob Summons managed to win over the voters no problem as the first open candidate in the IPPG’s history, so I don’t really see what there is to lose. It’s a no-brainer!

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Cabinet maker

Speaking of vacant cabinet members, speculation as to who the council leader might appoint to his unfilled cabinet seat has been practically non-existent of late.

The top post, responsible for ‘Adult Services and Care,’ has been left unfilled for a suspiciously long time now – ever since David Wildman quit the council at the end of February, which, on a pro-rata basis, I calculate amounts to some £3,807 of undisbursed Special Responsibility Allowance cash.

It remains to be seen why it’s been left unfilled for so long, but the top title contender was thought to be Cllr. Keith Lewis. However, it’s perfectly plausible that, with financial belt-tightening going on throughout the authority, our cash-conscious leader Cllr. Adams has decided to abolish the position and save an annual £15k of taxpayers’ money on the requisite SRA.

There is a precedent for this sort of thing, I kid you not. In 2010, the then leader Cllr. John Davies cut two cabinet posts, making Pembrokeshire the first authority in Wales to take such action in the name of saving money.

It is also true, however, that immediately after becoming leader in 2012, Cllr. Adams resurrected both of these posts. I don’t think there’s any coincidence that, around the same time, he found himself struggling to encourage enough councillors to sign-up to his ballot-box-bruised independent party. This added in the region of £30k back onto the annual municipal allowances, so I’m not going to allow myself to get too carried away.