The moment when you wish you'd made a contemporary note of precisely how far you'd driven, nearly a year earlier, to get to a certain appointment. Or when you struggle to remember the names of all the former staff members who'd joined you for dinner, at the company's expense, at a conference in Blackpool. And the blind panic when the accountant peers at you over the top of his spectacles and without saying a word, his raised eyebrow let's you know he's doing you a huge favour by signing off on your departmental records.
I can imagine that's how it's been for quite a few people at County Hall this week. Hundreds of archive invoices to be tracked down, questions asked, countless person-hours devoted to answering questions which no-one ever thought would be asked.
How much has this week cost, both in terms of the Daily Telegraph's initial damaging publicity, which made Cornwall Council a national laughing stock, and in terms of the effort to muck out the stable afterwards?
That job of mucking out the stable has been performed by a relatively small number of people at the council, and I have to say I think they've done a very good job of it. They have reminded us of the vast range of services that the council delivers, that it reaches into almost every aspect of our lives, and that it provides a huge, generally civilising presence in our society.
But I don't expect to make any friends at County Hall by saying that I think it was entirely reasonable to question the information which the council itself put into the public domain. When the council spent thousands of pounds in pubs and restaurants, and gave no other clues as to why it did this, how many of us would automatically assume that it was for housing the homeless or to support a Department of Work and Pensions jobs scheme?
Or if an apparently excessive hotel bill, which says specifically that it was for two people, turns out after exhaustive investigation to have actually been for three people?
And should the Daily Telegraph have assumed that when the council answered its Freedom of Information question in pounds sterling, that the council actually meant a basket of foreign currencies which it had failed to convert - giving the impression that it had spent 100 times more than it really had?
The situation wasn't helped by the council's initial response. On Tuesday morning council leader Alec Robertson berated the media for using the term "credit" card. The council's own statement, issued on Saturday (and still on its website) says
"Using credit cards is an efficient and transparent method of payment and is standard practice in both the public and private sectors."
It was less than inspiring, four days after hitting the iceberg, to hear the senior council official (£140,000 pa) responsible for Corporate Resources struggle to tell us how many council spending cards were in circulation. 1,000? 600? Turned out to be closer to 500. Details of spending limits, the general policy on the cards' use and specifically the policy on using these cards to buy alcohol still remain a mystery.
The way the council handles information is clearly in need of drastic overhaul. I imagine Chief Executive Kevin Lavery will want to focus on the email exchange between the Daily Telegraph and the council in the days leading up to last weekend's media firestorm. His inquiry needs to go further.
A Freedom of Information request takes about a month to process. So how did so much raw data, riddled with serious errors and which potentially compromised vulnerable children, find its way into the public domain? And why was it in a form which just begged further questions?
For several months now the council has routinely published details of all its spending over £500. This information is on its website, and in a form which is relatively easy to understand. For example, we know that taxpayers spend nearly £15,000 a year on taxis for the council chairman because this charge crops up every month and is detailed as being for "civic functions." We are entitled to take a view as to whether or not this a sensible raid on the public purse, but there is no doubt about what it is for.
This routine, monthly disclosure of £500+ spending has attracted relatively little investigation, because the answers are already there. Why was the information released to the Daily Telegraph not published in similar form?
As usual, the cock-up theory of history has triumphed over the conspiracy theory. I wonder what this afternoon's meeting of the Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee will do about it.
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