I am grateful, once again to the other parties in Reading for highlighting the hard work of my Lib Dem colleagues and I on behalf of the local communities we were elected to serve.
RBC statistics obtained by Cllr Willis show that once again I have raised the most local issues with the Council via it's "Acolaid" IT system. This system records emails we send to officers to get things fixed from potholes to planning, and fly-tipping to licensing issues.
And there are a lot of issues needing our attention in Redlands, let me tell you.
This follows a similar conclusion reached by Rob White of the Green Party last November. Local blogger "Oranjepan" called me hyperactive last week, which is probably fair.
To clarify, all councillors are advised by officers to use Acolaid to log issues with the Council to enable officers to track councillor enquiries through the Council's IT systems.
The irony is the Lib Dems have been asking the Council to change the Acolaid system for ages - not to provide more comparative data on politicians for political bloggers - but to enable members of the public who raises issues with their local councillors to get a more timely response.
All to often, emails councillors send to officers get lost and replies delayed which causes problems for councillors and, more importantly for local residents who are sometimes left wondering what happened to their original query.
On the wider issue of member activity, it is clear that the other parties have got noticeably more bothered about the work rate of individual councillors following the news last year that two Lib Dems on Reading Borough Council reported more issues to the Council for attention than the entire 14 member Conservative group.
Cllr Willis is right to say that Acolaid statistics should not be used as the sole indicator of a councillor's work rate. I can honestly say it doesn't capture a large part of my council activities many of which involve other bodies such as the Police and Reading University.
However, I don't feel any real need to produce so-called 'activity reports' favoured by some: I hope this blog speaks for itself.
Being an effective councillor is about a lot more than simply turning up to Council meetings or party events. For me, it's about standing up for local people and making their voices heard - often unglamarous, but nonetheless very necessary work.
Our recent successful campaign to tackle bins on pavements is an example of harnessing people power: listening to local people and campaigning for action.
As it says at the top of this blog, our aim is to work hard for Redlands all year round. Labour neglected our area for years and it showed. When I stood for election in 2006 I lost count of the number of people who complained to me about never getting a response from their Labour councillors when they contacted them for help.
Cllr Willis observes that my Acolaid reports were less for the last three months.
I would admit that alongside my ongoing campaigns on neighbourhood policing and empty homes, my leading role in three scrutiny reviews into private rented housing, the future of dementia care and children's health have kept me pretty busy of late.
Ultimately, however it will be for the electorate, not bloggers, to decide whether or not their local councillors have put the work in or not by voting them in or out at election time.
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