Category: notes from JK

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notes from JK

Meeting with local government ministers Grant Shapps and Greg Clark

This morning I attended a round table discussion with Communities & Local Government Ministers Grant Shapps and Greg Clark. At the meeting were a cross-party mix of councillors and former councillors most of whom had experience of holding an executive portfolio. I believe I was the only Green there, I guess with a month under my belt as Cabinet member for Finance & Central Services I just about qualified!

Grant Shapps asked us what barriers there were to achieving our ambitions in local government. He wanted to brainstorm ideas that his department could help us with.

My input focussed on giving councils more money, using open data to improve partnership working with other public sector agencies and improving support for councillors through childcare and allowance schemes.

Whilst there were quite a few suggestions I strongly disagreed with, for example Tory councillors wanting to reduce pay and conditions for council staff, there was consensus on a few issues. Strongest agreement was on the highly variable quality of councillors with more needing to be done to encourage a diverse, quality set of candidates to serve. Several argued for higher allowances, but Grant Shapps made it clear the government wouldn’t countenance this. He felt councillors should be considered volunteers, more like non-executive directors than chief executives, and that he personally felt even MPs shouldn’t be paid. Which would hark back to the undesirable days of only wealthy aristocrats and merchants playing politics. But at least we know where he stands.

There was also general agreement that lack of money was a problem for councils, though no agreement on why this was or how it should be solved. I also sense some common desire to be rid of council tax and find alternative funding models. But whilst nothing was explicitly ruled out I got the sense from ministers that this was not on the cards. (And no he wouldn’t give Brighton & Hove any more funds, I did ask!)

Shapps recalled my YouTube tribunal case, having tweeted his support when things were getting heated. We agreed the standards regime was sometimes preventing councillors from performing their roles. That regime is soon to go, thankfully.

We spent some time discussing the growing role there could be for local councils in providing leadership, what this meant in terms of planning and the changes to the business rates system of funding. There were also concerns voiced that new bodies like local Police commissioners risk creating bodies of local influence in parallel to councils.

Ministers were clear that there would be no sudden shock changes to council funding when they push ahead with reforming local authority funding through business rates. Grant Shapps was vocal that year one of the new funding regime would be based on existing formula grants so minimal changes to our budgets should be expected. Which is in one sense reassuring but then begs the question of what the point of the reform is?!

All in all a mixed bag of views, but a common sense that local government has huge potential and so should be trusted and empowered by Westminster to do more for local communities.

 

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The first ever Green council cabinet meeting

It wasn’t until I started drafting this post that yesterday’s events really sunk in. Thursday 9th June 2011 saw the UK’s first ever Green-led council start making formal decisions. We had our first cabinet meeting at Hove Town Hall.

The Green administration has been in power for roughly 20 days – the formal transfer didn’t happen until the annual council meeting of 19th May. Still we have managed to push some decisions forward in that time.

I’m especially pleased that we’ve been able to approve installing solar panels on up to 40 council buildings across the city. It’s the largest ever solar project in the city which will save a huge amount of carbon emissions, save energy and create new revenue to help offset the central government cuts to our budgets.

Other positive stories were a new vehicle procurement programme which will save the council money and reduce emissions from our fleet. Work is underway to welcome the Olympic torch to our city. We’re also seeking bidders to bring the vacant listed buildings at Patcham Place back into use. Full details on all the reports and decisions are online.

What several of these reports highlighted to me, especially with my Finance & Central Services portfolio, was the tensions between front and back office. The story of protecting frontline services is not always so clearcut. If our “back office” central services functions didn’t have experts on energy and procurement (for example) we wouldn’t have been able to save or generate money with some of the reports we approved. That money will be put back into services, frontline services. But if we only squeeze “back office” budgets it may be a short term saving for a longer term loss. Yet I don’t want to see frontline services reduced one inch.

What’s the alternative for what seems like a zero sum game at first glance? Twenty-odd days in it feels to me that we need to do things differently, and more efficiently. That can sound trite but it’s true and eminently possible. Look at how some companies such as Dyson or Apple leap over the rest. They’re by no means perfect but they chose to do things a bit differently and we have all benefited from their innovation either directly from the products or how they push others to up their game.

Local government is a different tale altogether – dedicated to service and the public – but that’s not to say we can’t innovate. Let’s see what we – residents, council staff and councillors – can achieve together.

Papers for the Cabinet meeting
Webcast from the Cabinet meeting

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notes from JK

My priorities for finance & central services

I’ve been in post as Cabinet member for Finance & Central Services on Brighton & Hove City Council just over a week. In that time I’ve had to absorb a huge amount of information from the range of areas my portfolio covers and meet some of the officers responsible.

Last Thursday I met most of my heads of departments to introduce myself and set out my key priorities for the portfolio.

I have three top priorities for Finance & Central Services:

  1. Openness & Participation
    I want to push the council to be as open as possible in everything it does, and significantly improve citizen participation in our decision-making.
  2. Excellent Customer Service
    Expectations for customer service are, rightly, higher than ever. I believe the council can rise to the challenge and give our service users excellent customer service. In doing so we won’t just deliver great service, will improve people’s faith in the council.
  3. The Budget
    We need to meet the challenge of the central government funding cuts being imposed on us, whilst staying true to the Green Party’s ambitions and principles. No easy task.

In terms of things I’ll be doing to deliver those principles, the local manifesto is my starting point. This actually surprises some people, but yes party members democratically approved the manifesto and we plan to work to it!

There are already loads of great ideas bouncing around the council offices, and I’ve got plenty of things I’d like to see put in place. We’re going to get stuck in, and I look forward to keeping you updated here on my blog.

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notes from JK

Election debrief – some thoughts on the 2011 result in Brighton & Hove

Well that was exhausting! We have emerged from the largest ever Green campaign in Brighton & Hove with the first ever Green-led council in UK history. An incredible achievement building on Caroline Lucas’ election as the UK’s first Green MP last May.

It takes an awesome number of voluntary contributions for a small political party to achieve these kinds of results. It’s impossible to thank everyone who gives their time and skills to support a campaign they believe in. It’s an incredible thing to see and understand that wave of support we’ve had in the past few years. Thank you to each person who has helped us, no matter how big or small their contribution.

As someone who has been deeply involved in the party’s electoral strategy since about 2007 it is quite gobsmacking to see our ambition and our plans realised. Of course things were not straightforward, plans had to be adjusted and so on. Still, we have effected real change. A party with a very different culture and values to the others is for the first time in administration. Real change is possible. I’m involved in all this because I believe this is one of the best ways to change the world for the better.

Now we need to deliver for the people of this city. Thankfully, we have an excellent detailed manifesto to work from, and also the goodwill of many people and organisations around the city.

And no doubt we’ll need their support because we face many challenges: We’ll be a minority administration and our group has 14 new councillors out of 23 and we will have to deal with the cuts and changes the national Conservative-led government will impose on us.

Our group of councillors elected me to be the Cabinet Member for Finance & Central Services. I am humbled by the trust they have put in me to serve the city with this portfolio. Expect more blogging from me in the future on the areas covered by my portfolio.

A quick comment on the election campaign itself: It was disappointing how few hustings there were, it did feel that the local election didn’t really capture the public imagination. I think Labour made a real error, as they did last year over who could win in Pavilion, in claiming only they could form the next council administration. They have further tarnished their name by making claims which have been shown to be untrue. I hope they will reflect on that and hope we can work together constructively whenever we find common ground in the coming 4 years.

For now I’m catching up on sleep, spending time with my family and getting up to speed on all the departments I’ll be responsible for.

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A positive vision for the future: The Green Manifesto

Last week Brighton & Hove Greens launched our manifesto. Given that it looks like we’ve gone first, the ‘start your photocopiers‘ line seems apt for the other parties. We’ve already see the other parties pile into Green ideas for example with bike rental and solar panels for council properties. Green Cllr Bill Randall tells me he’s got an old leaflet from over 8 years ago with him calling for a bike rental scheme in the city. I guess there is some chance of debate advancing if after eight years these policies get adopted by the other parties. Shall I hope that in another 8 years they’ll be opposing public service cuts too?

Tories keep saying Greens favour a congestion charge. We don’t, we have no policy for this and they’ll notice that our manifesto makes no mention of such a charge. Will that stop them suggesting it in their speeches and publications? Sadly, I doubt it.

I would say this, but the Green manifesto is full of clear, positive ideas for this city from more affordable housing, to 20mph limits for residential areas to a living wage for council staff. Lots of good stuff, but I want to highlight some particular areas of interest to me.

Democracy & Trust

We want to devolve power and introduce participative budgeting through neighbourhood councils or ward forums. We also want to return the council to the committee system which is more open and democratic than the current ‘strong leader and cabinet’ system imposed on us by the previous Labour government. We also would like to see a ‘one stop shop’ for people to be able to have their say on consultations, policies and services provided by the public sector.

We have a strong commitment to use open data formats and licenses for council information, reports, data and media. We also want to automatically publish Freedom of Information request responses (as long as privacy is not affected), remove restrictive terms on council web services and publish contracts the council signs up to.

Greens are committed to bringing services back in-house, reducing high offer pay and we oppose the move to abolish Sussex Police Authority with a single police commissioner for all of Sussex.

Waste & Recycling

We want to set our sights on becoming a ‘zero waste city’ which, until recently, was a status which brought councils extra funding. The new government’s waste plans are very much in limbo, but perhaps zero waste funding might return. Regardless we believe reducing waste and boosting recycling are the right things to do to save money and protect the environment.

We’re going to push for food waste collection, look to get the council collecting commercial waste and oppose any new landfill or landraise sites in Sussex.

Licensing

We are continuing to work with residents and businesses to find the balance between ‘peace and pleasure’. Being an old town with homes cheek by jowl with pubs and clubs, it’s always going to be difficult. However many businesses are responsive and understanding of the challenges. We want to support them with a responsible licensee scheme akin to the Scores on the Doors initiative for food standards in restaurants. We also want to improve the process for residents and businesses of nearby licensing applications. Where allowed by the law we’d also like to review the license fees charged by the council, as some seem too low and others too high.

Read about this and more in the full manifesto [PDF]

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A Green view on the 2011/12 budget council

What an extraordinary night we had at Brighton Town Hall last night: Adjournments as the rowdy public gallery expressed their displeasure. Possibly a record number of ‘points of order’ being made by councillors as speeches got nasty, tetchy and overly personal. They mayor was always going to have a difficult time managing the meeting, and all things considered, he did reasonably well – though Greens wanted to see more public allowed in the gallery.

I won’t report the meeting blow by blow: You can watch it on the webcast, the extensive coverage on Brighton & Hove news (see related posts at the bottom of that link for more) and The Argus’ multimedia coverage.

In essence the Tories repeated the usual nonsense that the cuts were inevitable and they were all terribly responsible for implementing ‘savings’. They attacked Greens for being profligate and irresponsible with money. Yet it was the Green Alternative Budget which spent less money than the Tory budget, and put more aside into reserves, putting us in a better place for future years.

I tried to speak to our desire to reduce the number of high paid council officers in favour of protecting frontline services and increasing wages for the lowest paid workers. Our amendment to this affect had already been blocked from getting onto the agenda, but the mayor then tried to stop me even talking about the idea saying I couldn’t talk about job losses. Rather bizarre given the Tory budget was proposing to remove 250 jobs from the city!

It was excellent news that the joint Green and Labour amendments were passed through, saving some important services and eliminating the worst of the Tories budget gimmicks. These joint amendments (which I’m disappointed to see Labour claiming as ‘the Labour alternative budget‘) changed about £2.7m in the overall budget. Which, compared to the only £20,000 or so we changed last year through a last-minute Tory concession, is a big achievement. But in the context of the overall budget there were still about £23m of service reductions included.

This was a secretive budget process: papers presented late, officers restricted from talking to us about the detail we desperately needed and cabinet members not even attending some scrutiny meetings. Other councils take a much more open and cross-party approach to their budget setting.

Greens chose to vote down this Tory-cuts budget, and we had thought Labour would do so too — but they blinked at the last moment and abstained, letting the Tories push their budget through. Which is a terrible shame. We wanted to call another budget council in a week. We would spend the intervening time finding much more detail on what the proposals before us entailed. We would involved the unions, voluntary organisations and public in examining the books which we would have thrown open. Then we could have set a better, fairer budget.

Yes, it’s a better budget thanks to the joint Green & Labour amendments. It was appalling that Tories wanted to hand out a 1% tax cut (worth only 20p a week to the average tax payer – and nothing to those on benefits who don’t pay council tax) plus a 5% reduction in parking permits whilst slashing services for the young, elderly and vulnerable. How can they morally justify cutting provision for orphans (for example) whilst spending over £1 million on removing a cycle lane?

So some of that madness was averted. But with details on posts previously claimed as ‘vacant’ so deleted being revised to not vacant but still deleted, there was clearly much more we could work through if we had the time and information.

Labour’s last minute change of heart on this was bitterly disappointing, and it was plain on the face of many Labour councillors that this was not how they thought they would be voting. Tories jeered as their budget passed. They had repeatedly accused opposition parties of not understanding ‘value for money’, otherwise we wouldn’t be putting money back into services with our amendments. Putting money into a service doesn’t mean it has to spend every last penny – quite regularly departments underspend as demand fluctuates or they find more efficient ways of doing things. That is quite separate from just lopping great chunks off budgets to the detriment of services and their users.

The Tory cuts budget passed as Labour blinked, but the blows have been softened by the joint Green/Labour amendments passing. Greens stood firm in our opposition.

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notes from JK

On the joint Green/Labour budget amendments

At tonight’s budget council meeting I will be proposing our Green Alternative Budget, setting our the Green vision of what we do if we were in charge.

However I recognise that, for now, we’re 13 councillors out of 54. Which is why, once the Green Group of Councillors had agreed our budget priorities, I (with our convenor Bill Randall) have sought to find common ground with Labour (who also have 13 councillors). Together we have produced joint amendments to the Conservative budget which reduce the harm of some of the changes, protect key services and support the council ahead of future cuts.

Due to negotiations going on for some time, they haven’t been presented as well as the Green budget, but I can point you to the amendments on the council agenda, and this spreadsheet excerpt laying them out as figures.

I’m pleased that we’ve been able to put tribalism to one side to improve what is a ghastly Tory budget implementing unnecessary cuts by the Tory-LibDem coalition government.

It’s a shame though that Labour present them on their website as the ‘Labour budget’ and not the joint work that they are. Also note that, at the time of writing, many figures on the Labour page are wrong. Refer to the amendments or the spreadsheet for the actual financial details.

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The Green Alternative budget 2011/12

As Green finance spokesperson I’ve spent nearly every non-working, non-sleeping hour in recent weeks working on the budget. Understanding the detail of the Tory proposals and pulling together our own Green budget. The fruits of that work, which depended on the expertise of all the Green councillors, were published last night in our alternative Green budget. I’ve posted my introduction below, you can download the full doc here [PDF].

Introduction to the Green Alternative Budget 2011/12

Cutting local government budgets is an ill-considered policy which will harm the most vulnerable. It runs contrary to the views of the Green Party, many leading economists, fairness and common sense. Cutting spending while the economy is fragile risks a further downturn and reduces services for those most likely to need them. The national deficit does not justify the cuts Conservative local government minister Eric Pickles is gleefully imposing on us all. This deficit is by no means the largest it has been in modern times, it is not an emergency.

In the course of an economic cycle, a government shouldn’t spend more than it has, and should leave some aside in case of troubled times. The previous Labour government’s failure to properly regulate the financial sector and rein in military spending left the UK more vulnerable to economic turmoil than it otherwise could have been.

Greens, including Caroline Lucas MP, will continue to make the case that the national approach to cuts is not the right one. But locally, elected councillors have a legal duty to set a balanced budget. The alternative would be to have un-elected council officers making the decisions on spending for our city’s services.

This leaves us the incredibly difficult task of minimising the harm caused by these budget reductions imposed by the Conservative and LibDem government. Council resources are far more limited than some commentators would have us believe. Their budgets are being centrally reduced whilst being given no new powers to raise funds.

This alternative budget sets out how a Green-led council would have addressed the challenges this city faces differently. It was produced in the very limited time the Conservative council administration allowed opposition parties to review the budget papers ahead of the vote. Information about this budget has been deliberately withheld to the very last minute. In forming this budget we have battled a culture of secrecy to understand the detailed financial plans for council services in the coming years.

However, whilst not perfect,  it is my view that the proposals here reverse the worst of the Conservative proposals, reduce the harm to the young, older people and the vulnerable whilst also leaving the finances in reasonable shape to face the further budget cuts we know the ministers in Whitehall will impose over the coming years. In a sense, it is the best that could be made of a bad job.

[Download the whole thing]

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Royal Alex conversion plans approved

Today I spoke to the Planning Committee about the site of the old Royal Alex Hospital, and how the proposals before them were imperfect but a decent compromise compared to all that had gone on before.

You will be able to view the speeches and deliberations on the webcast site soon (it takes about 24hrs to become available).

Yes neighbours on all sides are affected. There’s less affordable housing than I’d like. There’s no GP surgery. The new build designs are not as good as I’d like. The Victorian villa is being demolished. But overall the main building has been saved, there are decent section 106 contributions, many changes have been made to the plans to accommodate neighbours’ concerns and there will be some good green space on the site.

The plans were approved and I’m relieved. The site will not be decaying for much longer, Taylor Wimpey have said they are keen to start work quickly. The sooner it’s over with the better.

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Cynical, irresponsible, gimmicky – take your pick!

On Friday the Tory administration finally published the budget papers for the 2011/12 financial year. The papers claim the reason for the unacceptable delay in publication was late information on government grants. I don’t buy it and have asked the Chief Executive for an explanation. Since Tuesday we were told the papers were coming out the following day. Everything I hear lends me to believe that these were down to the administration – either playing games or struggling to come to a final decision.

Regardless their budget is breathtaking. It slices HUGE chunks of budgets for children’s services and social care. Almost £5.5m from Children’s & Families services, about £6.1m from Adult Social Care as well as smaller but harmful cuts from planning, licensing and central services including, for example, health & safety support work. Additionally the Tories propose to spend £1.1m capital funds removing cycle lanes from Grand Avenue & The Drove. Yes, that’s right, removing cycle lanes. They also wish to borrow just over £4.5m to refurbish car parks.

This is the year of the biggest cut in our central government grant, the cuts were front-loaded, so you’d think they’d hang onto every penny. But no, in a cynical gimmick to cling to power, the Tories propose a 1% cut in council tax plus a 5% reduction in resident parking permit costs. This is utterly irresponsible – and as there are waiting lists for residents parking permits this will hardly help manage that demand.

If one uses the admittedly imperfect analogy of a household income… Then this is like a family member getting a pay cut, and knowing more cuts are due in the future, voluntarily giving up MORE of their income. But when one of the family loses their job or gets a pay cut you focus on reducing spending, not reducing income! Income is the thing you absolutely need to stay afloat.

For the next two years the Tories are forecasting 2.5% tax increases, so the 1% reduction is very much a short-haul gimmick for election year. Furthermore they are making some very risky assumptions about inflation and waste tonnages, which are critical to their budget balancing. They are counting inflation to be 2% for the next three years, yet it’s currently 3.7% / 4.8% (CPI / RPI) which is quite some distance from their predictions!

On waste they are saying that they can save on the waste contract because waste tonnages are down due to actions by the council including promoting composting. Yet when I challenged the council about declining recycling rates, they claimed reduced tonnages were due to the recession. Which is it? There has been no major fundamental shift in supermarket’s dependence on packaging (though some incremental improvements by some of them) which leads me to believe that economic growth will also bring growth in waste tonnages again.

That’s it for now. I’m meeting officers next week to run through the many detailed questions and thoughts I have on the Tory budget. My colleague Bill Randall and I have asked to meet Labour councillors to discuss any joint amendments we might be able to agree on. We have until 28th February to submit amendments for checking by finance officers. Watch this space for more updates.