And the Chocolate Teapot Award Goes To...

Another day, another Freedom of Information request.

This time I wanted to know which NCC officers had been formally delegated powers to act on behalf of the council on their own initiative, referred to in the Constitution as 'A Delegated Powers' (see p27 of Appendix 6(d)).

I now have a response, including the list of delegated powers here. Have a look and see if you can work out what's wrong with it. The clue's on the front cover. At the bottom, small writing. Got it?

"Issue Date: October 1998"

So the document they have sent me is 12 years out of date. Clearly it was prepared when NCC got unitary status and hasn't been looked at since. Hardly any of the committees and departments even exist any more and within that time frame NCC has given itself an entirely new constitution. For all I know, some of the functions listed may not even be the responsibility of NCC anymore. And, most importantly, what of delegations that have been made since? Or been modified or removed and placed back with a committee or the Executive? How does anybody at NCC know who's supposed to do what?

This is really rather shabby and of course I've requested a review. However I wonder if they will be able to provide anything else? It really wouldn't surprise me if they haven't kept it up to date. I shall let you know what happens.