DUBIOUS DABBLING...

Yesterday Kent County Council`s quarterly `free magazine` landed on my doormat along with a deluge of junk mail and the odd bill. Today we learn that Kent County Council`s £50million investment in some Icelandic bank is in peril. Two contrasting days in the public face of this giant organisation, which has an annual budget in excess of £2billion.

Now, I should perhaps declare an interest when talking about Kent County Council. I worked there once - getting on for 50 years ago - for about 18 months, 13 of which I was actively seeking employment elsewhere. What disenchanted me about working there was the stifling bureaucracy, the supression of initiative and the remoteness of the Council from those who paid for it and who were supposed to be served by it. It was a rigid, confined, inward looking organisation and I was glad to see the back of it. Pastures new have rarely beckoned so invitingly.

These days, it seems quite the opposite. It is forever coming up with new initiatives, it is adept at finding bandwagons on which to jump and it has seduced itself into believing that everything it does will be welcomed and appreciated by those who pay for it and are supposed to be served by it. Kent County Council has become a dabbler in things that it should leave to others. Its dabbling has impressed those in charge and they in turn are keen to impress the rest of us with the fruits of their dabbling. Hence the need for its `free` magazine, `Around Kent,` which arrives every few months.

Today, we have discovered the enormous amount of council taxpayers` money squirrelled away in investment banks and the potential loss of the £50million to Iceland brings with it the threat that the long suffering taxpayers will either have to fork out yet more in council tax to make up the difference or face the loss of services which the council provides.

So is this the time for the county council to have a think about what it is doing for us? Should it, for example, have a look at what services it is in business to provide - education, highways, social services, that kind of thing - and think again about dabbling in things like its own tv station, the Turner gallery in Margate, the involvement with the 2012 Olympics and maybe, just maybe, self-publicising, quasi-political, backslapping `initiatives` like `Around Kent,` which gets produced and delivered `free` to 600,000 homes in the county at a cost which is anything other than `free.`

A gloomy outlook

The editor of `Around Kent` - one Shelley Whittaker - has said in her opening column that she would `love to know what you think of Around Kent - write in and let me know.` Well, Shelley, I hope you realise just how tempting that may be. For in the times in which we live, we might just be able to manage to do without it. And maybe in the process take a small step along the road towards cutting out the dubious dabbling and recouping a bit of the missing £50million.