We were going to wait until New Year’s Eve to make this award but in all honesty, this display of ineptitude coupled with a disdain for the concept of accountability towards us residents couldn’t be topped: They couldn’t…. – December 8, 2021. There’s this as supplementary supporting evidence: Calling truth to power – a look back at 2021 – December 5, 2021.

A combination of senior officers being unwilling to attend a vital scrutiny committee meeting in person, and yet another failure in remote communications technology resulting in those officers not being able to communicate with the councillors attending in person, led to abandonment of the proceedings. If you submitted this as a plot idea for a comedy series about local government it would be thrown out as implausible! The assumption being that these are the basics any competent local authority should be getting right as a matter of routine.

So yet again, the plonker(s) of the year award has been awarded to the officers at Thurrock Council who are responsible for this alongside the ruling group councillors who are unable to properly supervise those officers. We’re sure many residents across Thurrock will agree that the council richly deserve this…