Pointless provost and politicians

Tuesday's post about the predictable but pointless intervention of Dundee's lord provost in the debate on the recent spate of suicides involving young men in the city was perhaps vindicated by a Courier report a couple of days later.

It should be recalled that the LP asked Dundee City Council to report on how its various departments were working to prevent such tragedies. Cue the predictable official spiel about a "well established approach", supporting a "national strategy" and "working with a wide range of organisations" etc. Even more predictable was the LP's response that he was "fully satisfied" with the council's position.

But a couple of days later and it was reported that "a task group has been set up in the wake of a spate of suicides to help families and identify others at risk of taking their own lives". The "multi-agency group" comprises representation from the council, Tayside Police, the health service and a number of voluntary sector agencies.

So it seems that what the LP was "fully satisfied" with was quickly deemed inadequate and, for example, the "working with a wide range of organisations" had to be tightened up slightly with the multi-agency task group.

Of course, that's not to say that the council was in any way at fault regarding what has happened, even considering the need for the new approach, but the slight change in direction merely underlines the pointlessness of the LP's intervention, which smacks more of political grandstanding than anything of great substance. And this merely underlines what I've said previously about government by officialdom, with elected representatives existing largely to portray a facade of scrutiny and accountability, but with the real power lying elsewhere.