Thanet District Council does not have Officers with the skill, time or insight to do the job according to a source inside the council.

Thanet District Council has spent nearly £1 million on consultants in just three years, Finance boss Martin Wise has told thisiskent.co.uk because the council does not know how to deal with the tasks set before it.

According to ... Finance boss Martin Wise said that Thanet's council needs consultants to help it understand new legislation being introduced by the central Government and the authority not having officers with the skills to deal with it.

Let's stop and recap in case we missed that. Mr Wise says that the current officers of Thanet District Council lack the skills to do the job.

Is it me or did that come dangerously close for political speak for "not fit for office"?

Ignoring, for a moment that we have a Conservative council saying its all the fault of the Labour Government as normal (log, eye, own), let's think about that.

If the 50 plus councillors that stood at the last election have insufficient skills to do the job then what, in all fairness, did they think they were doing standing in the first place?

Mr Wise is also quoted as saying of the consultants hired: We use these people to unravel the legislation and how to proceed with it. They do the donkey work. These are huge pieces of work that take a lot of time and all our officers have a day job to do and we don’t have the people to do the work.

Is it really that the entire council is made up of people lacking the skills to get the job done or is it that it lacks in-favour-conservatives to get the job done? It seems to me that our council, according to Mr Wise, is controlled by people unqualified for the power and responsibility that they hold.

According to the article Council "leader" Sandy Ezekiel argues that central government should let local authorities get on with the job rather than bogging them down with unnecessary spending. (Such as overpaying for property in Margate, Sandy?)

It's no good blaming the government, blaming the press, blaming everyone involved when it long ago became clear to everyone that the problem was a lack of responsibility. Rather than spending every ounce of energy fighting the other party maybe someone would like to actually get something done for once? Then we'd not need to try and kick up dust to cover the fact that no one is doing their job and they are getting paid very nicely for it too.

If Sandy and co are unable to complete the work the council must undertake they should step down today and call for a new election to find someone who can do the job.

Maybe it's time that Sandy's gang put pride aside and looked to the whole of the council to find the skills and time that they need. I happen to know that at least one Labour Councillor is currently unemployed and would probably jump at the chance to show his Tory counter-parts how it all works.

Alternatively maybe Mr Wise and Cllr Ezekiel might consider the inaugural Kent Poker Cup a poker tournament at Thanet's G Casino as this holds as much hope of a good return on investment as any other we seem to have been shown by Thanet District Council of late.

If I have to become a councillor to see that this lack of skill and ability is sorted out I shall be very cross indeed.