IT’S the sure-fire way to wreck your filing system – a seemingly endless torrent of paperwork that gets bigger by the week.
But one Worcester politician has launched a fightback against officialdom, by deciding to stop delivery of all council agendas for good.
Councillor Richard Boorn is the first in the city to ‘ban’ all agendas from being sent to him, in favour of looking at them on his iPad mini instead.
He says as all the papers are freely available online he doesn’t need thumping piles of agendas sent his way.
Now he’s encouraging others to do the same, and says the ultimate people to benefit from it are taxpayers.
“I’ve got a mountain of agendas around 2ft high and decided I wanted to put a stop to it,” said Coun Boorn, who is Labour’s finance spokesman.
“I decided to take an iPad mini along to a meeting to see if I could function, and it was fine, I had no problems at all.
“If more councillors did this it would save a rainforest. Even if just a few did, it would make a difference.
“The council is always looking to save money and this is one way we could be more efficient.
“I’ve basically gone ‘digital’ and told them to not send any papers to me.
“I know it might be difficult for some councillors who prefer paper, but it’s worth more of us doing this where we can.”
There are 34 of the 35 city councillors still getting paper agendas for meetings sent to them, although bosses said it was difficult to provide a breakdown of the printing costs.
But the authority has welcomed Coun Boorn’s decision and said the door is open for others to follow.
Claire Chaplin, democratic services team leader, said: “We are fully supportive of Coun Boorn’s decision to go digital and have already started a review aimed at encouraging other councillors to do likewise.
“If a significant number of councillors followed suit, it would generate cost savings, both on paper and administrative time.
“I’m told it’s difficult to quantify the cost saving precisely, but I think it’s fairly obvious there would be a reasonable saving if all councillors followed suit.”
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