So, we got hold of this below, an email sent to various worthies by Manchester City Council. We’ve high-lighted the relevant bit. Polish your CVs folks, those long-promised (and then disavowed/denied) elections may only be weeks (or months, or years) away…
“As you may be aware the MACF Steering Group is currently supported by Groundwork who provide secretarial and project support. This support is procured and funded on behalf of the Steering Group by the City Council, for the period 1st July to 30th June.
The current contract comes to an end on 30th June 2013 and we will shortly be issuing an invitation to tender for the period 1st July 2013 to 30th June 2014. The ITT will be issued to the Green Leaders only so this email is to a) let you know that the formal invitation will be sent to you next week, b) if you are interested you will need to register on the CHEST (instructions to follow), and c) to let you know that a briefing session will be arranged before the tender deadline, date TBC.
The roles and responsibilities for the position will include:
- Clerking Steering Group meetings (5 per year),
- Producing the 2013/14 Forward Plan of meetings,
- Providing support to the Governance and Funding, and Communications sub groups,
- Organising the MACF Annual Conference in March 2014 (including securing funding/sponsorship),
- Managing the 2013/14 Steering Group election process
- Maintain and update the MACF website
- Maintain the events and conferences forward plan
- Secure funding to support the activities of the Steering Group,
- Maintain and develop the MACF mailing list.
manchester climate monthly 
Sounds like a positive step. Well done MCM for possibly helping make sure this happened.
I wish we could take some credit?!! Maybe we can, I don’t know… But the elections *haven’t even been scheduled yet* and may never happen…
Marc
And here’s a comment full of *very important and relevant* questions that we should have asked earlier –
Given how abysmally the Steering Group has been managed/facilitated to date, and how those roles and responsibilities haven’t been carried out in full, what about the invitation to tender from last time around? FoIA request it?
And also FoIA request information about monitoring/evaluating performance? Was there a similar requirement to maintain and update the MACF website?
Was this requirement broken down into targets or benchmarks (or other equivalent terminology), for example number of articles/blogs per week or month?
How much content was to be provided? How often was the website to be updated?
Was there a similar requirement to raise funding/sponsorship for the conference, if so, was there a target, and if there was, was that target met?
Was there a similar requirement to secure funding for the activities of the Steering Group? Was a target set? Was it met? Was payment made automatically? Was it dependent upon certain criteria being met? If so, what were those criteria, and were they met? Was there any provision for withholding part of the consideration in the event that some of the roles and/or responsibilities weren’t fulfilled, or were only partially fulfilled?
Was there any provision for penalties in the event that some of the roles and/or responsibilities weren’t fulfilled, or were only partially fulfilled? Given the failures of current ‘legal person’ to fulfill the roles and responsibilities, will Groundwork be precluded from participating in the tender process this time round? I think I could think up some more…