I know what you're thinking. "What is he on about this time? Doesn't he know a Council Group when he sees one?"
Alas and alack, life is not that simple when you're the Regional Bureaucrat. Since last year, Regional Parties are required to recognise Council Groups as a means towards connecting them back into the Party. You see, anyone was entitled to describe themselves as a Liberal Democrat Group, regardless of their actual status, membership or relationship to the Party, either at Local Party or Regional level.
Accordingly, the English Party has added Article 8 to its Constitution, which came into force at close of poll on 6 May - don't worry if you hadn't noticed, we were probably all busy worrying about other things at the time... Therefore, as a Regional Party, we were obliged to recognise our various Groups across six counties by 31 July. We're a bit behind, in truth... having failed to recognise a single Group thus far. We don't even have a process for dealing with applications for recognition, and I am hurriedly designing one to be adopted as soon as the appropriate Regional committee can do so.
We also have to, it appears, re-recognise Council Groups annually, and this brings with it further bureaucratic pressures. I can see that I'm going to have to design an annual stencil to be issued to every Council Group in the six counties. Ah well, it could be worse, we might have to recognise Town and Parish Council Groups too...
Oh, we do...
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