Thoughts on an incident during the nomination process
Nominations for candidates to stand in this year's local and council elections closed at 4pm today.
In Copeland the lists of nominated candidates will be published tomorrow: the elections office was checking nomination papers as they came in if candidates made an appointment to have them checked (which was strongly encouraged, and a damned good idea because you never know what sort of silly thing might have gone wrong with them).
Most of our nominations were in and approved before Easter, but Stephen had to dash down to Millom today and I had to take an unscheduled trip to Moresby, as we corrected some minor issues with our last two Copeland council nominations.
Most of the candidates just had to worry about paperwork, but those of us who were standing for Parliament or Mayor also had to pay a £500 deposit which had to be not just submitted but cleared before 4pm today.
We were warned that cheques can take a week to clear, and that with two bank holidays in the week before nominations closed (because of Easter) this might be risky. And here my tale which says something about the culture of CBC begins.
The notice of poll outside the Copeland Centre lists a comprehensive set of ways an election deposit can be paid, legal tender, debit card, credit card.
Not if your bank uses MasterCard, it can't!
When I handed in my nomination last week the returning officers' assistant agreed that it might be sensible to sort out the deposit first, so we went round to the cashiers.
And spent a very frustrating fifteen minutes attempting to pay. First they had to get the necessary input codes to pay the money into the right account. I can actually understand that one - councils do need to account for public money properly.
Then it turned out that Copeland BC does not take MasterCard. I made a joke, not in a nasty way, about this being an item for the manifesto under "Improving Customer Service." The result was interesting. A person associated with CBC (I have no wish to get individuals into trouble so don't ask me whether it was a councillor or staff member) said something along the lines of "yes but it all costs money."
Oh, please.
All successful businesses of any size and well-run public sector bodies with a significant turnover, know that if you want to collect on the money you are owned, maintain your cash flow, and have good financial stability, one of the first things you do is MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO PAY YOU.
This is not rocket science, it is plain common sense. Certainly an indication of one of the things to be tackled as part of building a better culture for the council should I be elected.
In Copeland the lists of nominated candidates will be published tomorrow: the elections office was checking nomination papers as they came in if candidates made an appointment to have them checked (which was strongly encouraged, and a damned good idea because you never know what sort of silly thing might have gone wrong with them).
Most of our nominations were in and approved before Easter, but Stephen had to dash down to Millom today and I had to take an unscheduled trip to Moresby, as we corrected some minor issues with our last two Copeland council nominations.
Most of the candidates just had to worry about paperwork, but those of us who were standing for Parliament or Mayor also had to pay a £500 deposit which had to be not just submitted but cleared before 4pm today.
We were warned that cheques can take a week to clear, and that with two bank holidays in the week before nominations closed (because of Easter) this might be risky. And here my tale which says something about the culture of CBC begins.
The notice of poll outside the Copeland Centre lists a comprehensive set of ways an election deposit can be paid, legal tender, debit card, credit card.
Not if your bank uses MasterCard, it can't!
When I handed in my nomination last week the returning officers' assistant agreed that it might be sensible to sort out the deposit first, so we went round to the cashiers.
And spent a very frustrating fifteen minutes attempting to pay. First they had to get the necessary input codes to pay the money into the right account. I can actually understand that one - councils do need to account for public money properly.
Then it turned out that Copeland BC does not take MasterCard. I made a joke, not in a nasty way, about this being an item for the manifesto under "Improving Customer Service." The result was interesting. A person associated with CBC (I have no wish to get individuals into trouble so don't ask me whether it was a councillor or staff member) said something along the lines of "yes but it all costs money."
Oh, please.
All successful businesses of any size and well-run public sector bodies with a significant turnover, know that if you want to collect on the money you are owned, maintain your cash flow, and have good financial stability, one of the first things you do is MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR PEOPLE TO PAY YOU.
This is not rocket science, it is plain common sense. Certainly an indication of one of the things to be tackled as part of building a better culture for the council should I be elected.
Comments
well there would not be many pennies dropping into their accounts until that particular penny did.