You have a plan.  But it isn’t working.  Your carbon emissions are going UP, not down.

The short report where that was admitted is not even in the papers for the meeting.  And the council’s carbon emissions are not on the agenda.

It’s looking pretty desperate.  But wait, there is hope!  There is a procedure in place for just this sort of eventuality.  The first item on every scrutiny committee meeting is “Urgent Business”, where councillors – who are elected and paid to scrutinise – can “consider any items which the Chair has agreed to have submitted as urgent.”

And at 2pm on Tuesday 16th December 2015, in the Scrutiny Room of Manchester Town Hall, did any of the assembled councillors, who had been lobbied to do so by members of the public, think that climate change matters? Did any of them want to point out that for all its very many fine words, their council is failing?

You know the answer to that one.

The system isn’t “broken”.  The system is being broken, everyday, by councillors who keep schtum, by officers who claim to have done broad consultations about strategies  but have “consulted” the person who they’re paying to write the strategy, when he is wearing a different hat.  (More on this soon).

If you have a spare 20 minutes, and you want to watch an official meeting descend into failure so complete that the words “catastrophic,” “farcical” and “humiliating” don’t really cover it, then watch the discussions that took place after other “urgent business” (inspired by an MEN beat-up about taxi drivers).

The link is here. Have a sick-bag ready.

And, no, climate change didn’t come up in the Overview Report at the end of the meeting.  And the report on how “Carbon Literacy” is coming along is not scheduled either.  Good thing a Freedom of Information Act request went in, isn’t it?