Proposing Anne Purse as Chairman of Council

Speech by Cllr Zoe Patrick delivered to County Council on Tue 16th Jun 2009

I should like to propose Cllr Anne Purse to be Chairman of the Council.

Anne has been Vice Chairman over the past year and has carried out her duties with the utmost integrity. If appointed Chairman, I am confident that she will do an excellent job. She has thoroughly enjoyed her last year and would continue to fulfil this role to the best of her ability.

Anne has lived in Oxfordshire for nearly 40 years, first living in Witney, then in Oxford and has had links with the County Council for almost all of that time. She has had 4 daughters all educated in Oxfordshire's schools and having worked for the NHS as a speech and language therapist she has spent much of her time visiting schools and working in Special Schools all over the County. She has also worked with adults with disabilities. All this means that Cllr. Purse has been in contact with many aspects of this Council's work.

Cllr Purse was elected to represent Wheatley in 1993 and has always seen it as a great privilege to be councillor during the old committee system. However, she also enjoyed four years spent on the Executive during the joint administration in the Sustainable Development role, and she has during the present system had this role as Shadow Cabinet member. She is one of the longest serving councillors and is actually one of the longest serving members who has not been given the office of Chairman.

We think it will be very sad to lose the tradition we have had with this Council to allow rotation of the Chairmanship around the main political groups. The Chairman is supposed to be a completely apolitical role, and indeed, it was whilst Cllr. David Turner was in office as the Liberal Democrat nomination that he decided he would purchase a new 'chain of office' to be a complete gold chain rather than wearing a ribbon of yellow. Until that time, Chairmen were given the office on a ribbon of either blue, yellow or red according to the political affiliation of the appointee - he felt this was wrong and against the spirit of the office of Chairman, and he was right. This new chain of office has been in use ever since.

We believe therefore, that we should continue in this tradition of keeping the role completely non-political and thus give the message to the public that the County Council Chairman role is indeed an office of ceremony not aligned to the ruling group.

Cllr. Purse will be an excellent candidate to continue this long tradition with the Council and I commend her to you all today.