Cornwall Council staff monitor Twitter for critical comments about council leader

Alex Folkes has been blogging about goings on in Cornwall, where close tabs are being kept on social media messages:

At a cabinet meeting a couple of months ago, Cllr Robertson read out a number of twitter posts critical of his decision to be absent from a cabinet discussion on child safeguarding in favour of lobbying a local government magazine which had shortlisted Cornwall Council for an award. He then attempted to ban the use of twitter in meetings.

The Council issued a statement saying that the tweets were “brought to the attention of the leader” so I asked who had done so. Finally – two months later and at 6pm on a Friday evening – the Council has admitted that a relatively junior officer in the Cabinet Office was tasked with following what was being said about the Leader.

Why is this important? Well, it seems to speak to the increasing level of paranoia that has invaded the top floor bunker at County Hall. That they should be using officers who have other jobs to do simply to find out what is being said about the Leader seems like a waste of taxpayers’ money. This wasn’t someone from the communications team who might be expected to keep an eye on what is said about the council as a whole, but someone whose usual job is as the cabinet’s office manager – organising their diaries and managing their correspondence.

You can read his blog post about Alec Robertson in full here.