Category: notes from JK

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notes from JK

The case against elected police commissioners

First posted on Jim Jepp’s Daily Maybe.

Greens in Brighton & Hove are opposing the introduction of a directly elected police commissioner for Sussex Police. Why? Surely we support democracy and public accountability… don’t we?

Indeed we do, but there are many ways to deliver a public service whilst holding it accountable to the people it serves. I think an unfortunate aspect of the debate is that too many people are unfamiliar with how police forces are currently run. I must admit that I too was blissfully unaware until I was elected a councillor.

But without that knowledge of what we have now, comparisons are difficult. When contrasted with what many assume to be a faceless bureaucracy, of course an elected commissioner sounds positive. Yet police forces are already accountable to independent police authorities. In the case of Sussex Police it answers to Sussex Police Authority. This body is made of elected councillors and independently appointed members including local magistrates. The councillor membership of the authority follows proportionality rules so, as best as is possible, the seats must be divvied up to match the political representation on the local authorities in Sussex.

It’s not perfect, but the authority’s makeup does ensure a semblance of diverse representation for the communities Sussex Police seek to represent. Just as a local council does, the authority has committees and budget votes. These are open to the public and are webcast.

With a single directly elected commissioner many of the arguments Greens have used against directly elected local authority mayors hold true: Decision making will be less open, less accountable and there will be far fewer opportunities for a plurality of opinions to be heard.

Cllr Ben Duncan is the only Green on Sussex Police Authority, but his distinctive perspective has undoubtedly had a positive impact in winning commitments for more neighbourhood policing, more sustainable ways of working, for a different approach to policing hunts and much more.

The idea of directly elected police commissioners is one both Labour and Conservatives have borrowed from the American political system. There are many things to admire in the US constitution, but the results for everyday quality of life have been, at best, mixed. Indeed one could argue there has been too much of a good thing. Voters are asked to elect school commissioners, police chiefs, judges, municipal councillors, senators, congressmen, state governors, state secretaries of state and so on. Turnout levels in the US are incredibly low. I have often heard it said that in the US there are probably too many elections and too many things to vote on. Whether or not that is true, there’s no evidence to show that simply having a directly elected head of the police makes any positive impact.

Some argue that we should oppose commissioners because ‘undesirables’ (I assume the BNP and such like) might win some elections for police commissioners. I don’t believe that’s a fair argument against commissioners, though the detail of the electoral system proposed is something I have yet to see mentioned. Ultimately I believe that Greens should oppose directly elected police commissioners because they are contrary to green values: They centralise power, reduce the diversity of views, make decision-making less accountable and are needlessly expensive.

What could be done to improve police accountability? We could consider returning control directly to local councils, which would offer a more direct connection with communities and their elected councillors. In the meantime I believe police authorities are a reasonable compromise position, but the authorities must continue to work hard to engage with the areas they represent.

Particularly in these times of austerity, when Sussex Police’s Chief Constable estimates elections for a new police commissioner would cost upwards of £1 million, the case has not been made for this change.

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Planning updates: Mitre House + the old Royal Alex

For those Brighton residents interested in the redevelopment plans for Mitre House and the old Royal Alexandrea hospital sites, read on…

Mitre House

An application (ref BH2010/01966) to convert part of the building from (disused) offices into a budget hotel was pulled from a planning committee agenda at the last minute. Officers had recommended refusal due to the lack of any transport plans in the proposal. However at the eleventh hour some transport studies appeared from the applicant. Officers are now studying these in details – to my untrained eye the applicant is claiming that the change from office to hotel will result in a significant reduction in journeys to the area, which I find very hard to believe. Transport isn’t the only issue with this application so I hope these late reports won’t distract from the wider impacts a hotel could have on this community. We’ll probably see a revised officer report come to committee in November. Until then officers are still receiving objections, if residents wish to submit them.

Meanwhile a new application (ref BH2010/03122) has just been lodged by the owners. This is to extend the southern block of Mitre House by at least a storey to create more flats. This will probably cause more shading for some households. I’ve not yet viewed the detailed plans as they’ve only just been lodged.

Planning application online lookup.
(I cannot link directly to applications online due to an irritating legal disclaimer you need to agree on the planning register. It is a goal of mine to get this pointless click licence removed!)

The old Royal Alexandra Hospital

Applications to demolish all the buildings on this site, including the landmark main Lainson building, have been refused several times by the planning committee – and upheld by the planning inspector. Taylor Wimpey, who own the site, are now trying again.

Strangely they are planning to double their costs by lodging two applications. One is another completely new build proposal slightly tweaked from the previous ones that have been refused. It meets the 40% affordable housing requirement in council policy, has a doctors surgery and so on. However none of the old buildings remain, despite residents, councillors and officers all clearly stating a preference for at least some buildings being retained.

The second application retains the main Lainson building and replaces all the others with new build blocks virtually identical to those in the demolition proposal. There is no doctors surgery in this and initially no affordable housing was mentioned. However after some strong words about this approach, including this letter from Sven and I, Taylor Wimpey are now floating figures of 12-13% affordable housing being possible in this scheme. This is an improvement, but still a very long way from the 40-50% we need to see in developments for this city.

With both applications there remain issues with the quality of the design for the new build plus shading and overlooking for existing residents on all sides of the site.

I don’t think the all new (demolition) proposals have any chance of being approved. Taylor Wimpey should focus on improving the conversion application. They’re never going to please everyone, but there’s much more latitude for meeting the majority of the community’s needs with a good conversion scheme than anything else.

I’m told we’re weeks away from Taylor Wimpey formally submitting something, so let’s see how they play it.

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YouTube appeal links

I’ve been off for a few days, so inevitably there has been a burst of interest in my YouTube case whilst I’ve been avoiding checking emails, Twitter etc!

Here’s a round-up of links I’ve caught up with:

Thank you for all the support, it is greatly appreciated.

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It’s time to give local politicians more power and resources

A version of this post first appeared on Liberal Conspiracy.

The UK, in my experience, is unique in how little resources, freedom and profile our municipal government receives. Control is notoriously centralised in London, though now with some devolution for the nations other than England. All the parties talk of ‘localism’, ‘decentralisation’ or ‘subsidiarity’, but will the coalition government deliver any of that?

John Perry Barlow argues that we are in an era of city states. I’m not sure I would take it quite that far, but certainly there seems to be increasing consensus that local municipalities need to be given more freedom to self determine and drive forward their futures.

Yet in reality UK local authorities have scant ability to make any major changes in direction. The vast majority of their funds are hand-outs from national government, over which they have no control. The incomes they can control are charges such as for parking and council tax. However if council tax is increased too much (over 5%) the government steps in and blocks the change. Meanwhile many of the responsibilities a council must meet are set down in law and so cannot be avoided. Fixed responsibilities (costs) against very limited fundraising options (income) is a difficult place to be.

This is made much worse, in my view, because municipal political leadership is done on the cheap. I’m sure it’s not a popular view, but I think we need to pay local politicians more.

As a councillor I represent over 11,000 people in my ward and participate in decisions affecting the 250,000 people of our city plus the many more who visit. Because Brighton & Hove City Council is a unitary authority I’m fortunate to receive £11,900 a year before tax. Some city councillors receive as little as £4,000 a year. Birmingham City Council, the largest municipal authority in Europe pays backbench councillors £16,300 a year. I don’t think that’s enough for running a city, unless we want to leave it just to the wealthy and retired.

If I look at municipal councils overseas such as in Europe, Canada and the United States we see that, particularly for cities, councillors are much better resourced and have greater influence over how their municipality runs. There may be a chicken and egg situation going on here: Until our local authorities get more power it may be hard to argue for better resourced local politicians; but without their having more time and support we may never succeed in persuading national government to give us more freedom. Without resolving this issue the full-time council officers will continue to take the lead because elected politicians lack the time and resources to contribute effectively.

Possibly some councils are too big and need fewer councillors to make this argument more palatable to local tax payers. Regardless, if we want better local government, more local innovation and more inclusive representation we need to increase the support we provide councillors. For cities and major towns we certainly need councillors to dedicate themselves full time to their area’s future. Amateur, part-time local politicians are not enough to provide high quality leadership for innovative local government.

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Update on my YouTube case: Tory Minister backs me!

I spent most of the day yesterday in a conference room, then spent the evening meeting Green Party members in Crawley from our Mid Sussex, Crawley and Horsham branch. Whilst waiting for a train I was astonished to discover support for my position from a Conservative minister!

ConservativeHome’s local government blog had yesterday posted a supportive piece which Local Government Minister Grant Shapps MP then tweeted a link to, adding his own view:

Surely no justification for reporting a Cllr who seeks to promote openness to the Standards Board

Indeed! The comments on the ConservativeHome piece are a fun read too.

Additionally Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has long campaigned on the inadequate councillor Standards Board regime, is supporting me and has helped me in preparing my case. John was a councillor for 17 years and Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council for a time.

To briefly recap on the story so far: Back in February 2009 a Conservative councillor filed a formal complaint that I had breached the councillor code of conduct when I put videos, already publicly available on the council’s online webcast system, onto YouTube.

A Standards Committee hearing panel consisting of two councillors (Labour & LibDem) and chaired by an independently appointed member decided that I had breached the code. Unless I apologised to Cllr Theobald (one of the councillors in the videos) and submitted to re-training I would be suspended for 6 months. I immediately appealed this decision to the First-Tier Tribunal. The Tribunal’s principal judge agreed to hear my appeal and suspended the sanctions until the hearing. The Council have decided to oppose my appeal and to hire outside counsel (costing thousands in tax payer funds) to fight me.

The hearing is due to be held mid-October. (My previous posts on this here and here)

In the meantime I have received widespread support across the city and further afield.

Mark Pack on Liberal Democrat Voice filed a very supportive post. As have Brighton Politics Blogger, UNISON branch secretary Andy Richards, Gez at Delib and local musician Chris T-T. On Twitter I’ve received messages of support from Labour and LibDem activists.

The Argus have covered the story here and here. E-government Bulletin also reported on the story, with interesting discussions in the comments including someone from the council’s webcast supplier Public-i.

Finally Private Eye also covered the debacle in July as follows:

Mary Mears, the gaffe prone leader of Skidrow-on-Sea council who won a 2009 Rotten Boroughs “compassion in the crunch” award for expressing sympathy from the deck of a cruise ship for 150 staff she had just sacked (Eye 1253), has put her foot in it again.

Last year, Brighton and Hove’s Tory supremo took umbrage at the fact that Green Councillor Jason Kitcat had posted video clips of council debates on YouTube and his blog. The footage – already in the public domain via the council’s own website – mostly consisted of Kitcat giving Skidrow’s Jag driving cabinet member for the environment, Geoffrey Theobald, a hard time about communal rubbish bins, a fascinating subject close to Cllr Kitcat’s heart. Theobald was not fussed, but Mears leaned on an obedient stooge, Cllr Ted Kemble, to complain absurdly to the council’s standards committee that Kitcat had “failed to treat Cllr Theobald with respect” and had used the council’s resources “improperly for political purposes”.

More than a year later, the panel has found Kitcat guilty n the political purposes charge and decreed that he should, er, have a break in the form of a six months’ suspension unless he apologises within 28 days. Which he has no intention of doing.

Updated 14:30 9/9/10 to add information about John Hemming’s support.

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Next time a Tory mentions value for money…

… think of the following:

1. Tory councillors pursuing a complaint against me since February 2009 just for putting some already public council webcast video clips onto YouTube. This has taken up a huge amount of expensive council officer time. I’ve appealed and now I hear the council are going to be hiring outside counsel to oppose my appeal. More tax payer money wasted.

2. The council has spent £120,000 on recruiting four new ‘strategic directors’ in a process Greens opposed. This included hiring rooms for interviews in hotels, rather than the use the Council’s own facilities, and spending £84,000 on recruitment agencies. These costs were never approved by a full council meeting of all councillors.

3. We don’t know the exact figure but paying off the former directors who have been replaced by the new ‘strategic directors’ will cost the council up to £1 million. Once again, these costs were never approved by a full council meeting.

4. The Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley wants to move the NHS even further down the path towards ‘commissioning’. This is a process which a Parliamentary Health Committee has said already pushed NHS admin costs up from 5% to 13.5% with little benefit to show for it.

Conservatives nationally and locally are making ideological decisions not backed by any sound evidence or even common sense. Nobody’s perfect, but seriously, how much money tax payer money can they waste?

UPDATE: One more classic Tory money-waster came to mind overnight! They spent £93,000 planning and consulting on a much-needed cycle lane for the Old Shoreham Road, before cancelling it for unknown reasons.

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Action on licensing: East Street residents speak out

Licensing issues continue to be a key concern for residents in Brighton city centre, as previously noted. Despite the introduction of a ‘Cumulative Impact Area’ hours continue to get later and it’s a struggle to stop a race to the bottom. I’m really pleased that Police, residents and ward councillors have been working together more closely than ever on licensing issues. Unfortunately, that’s not always enough… For example earlier this week, despite very strong objections from the Police, the council noise team, residents and myself as ward councillor, a panel of licensing councillors agreed to extend the hours and operations for Jam (formerly the Water Margin) in Middle Street. Their decision seemed to run contrary to council’s own policies and furthers the rush to later hours, as it seems only a matter of time before other venues nearby try to extend their hours to keep up with the competition. There’s more in my release.

With limited Police resources, Operation Marble (which handles night-time economy issues Fri-Sat) can only cover so many streets and, at best, runs until 4am. However more and more premises are being allowed to open beyond that, meaning people leaving clubs after the visible Police presence has gone.

The Cumulative Impact Area (CIA) policy is supposed to go a little way to balancing the problem that each license application is supposed to be taken on its own merits. Without the CIA it’s virtually impossible to refuse applications just because there’s already too many licensed venues in an area already. However it’s not enough and East Street is a good example of where a high density of venues in one small area can cause serious problems. We need to preserve Brighton & Hove’s attractiveness for visitors, but we need to do that in recognition that it has an old town centre with a significant residential population.

Working with the residents I’ve created a film of what a Friday night is like for them. Along with the launch of this film I’m calling for a summit to bring together the council, Police, venue managers and residents to find solutions. We’ve already had some small wins by just improving communications between venues and residents. I know we can build on that. Until the licensing laws get properly sorted out by Parliament, we’re going to need a lot more of this kind of joint working to ensure that the needs of businesses, visitors and residents are sensibly and successfully balanced.

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The Old Royal Alex site: A letter to Taylor Wimpey

This evening my colleague Sven Rufus and I sent this message to Taylor Wimpey. We’ve spent too long trying to get Taylor Wimpey to engage constructively with the community and the council’s adopted planning brief for the old Royal Alex site. They haven’t taken on board a single word we’ve said.

To: David Brown – Land and Planning Director
Taylor Wimpey South West Thames

Dear David Brown

Thank you for the invitation to participate in another meeting with you and your colleagues at Taylor Wimpey.

We have met and corresponded with you, your colleagues and contractors on many occasions in the hope of finding a positive way forward for the site of the old Royal Alexandra Children’s hospital. However these discussions have never led anywhere, you consistently have refused to take on board any of our suggestions to engage with the community or prepare plans centred on sympathetic conversion of the key buildings.

The planning brief is the preferred option for the council and the community. It is very clear in its requirements. We still hope you will offer an application that meets them.

Until then, we will see you at the Planning Committee meetings, and if necessary any further appeals you decide to lodge.

Sincerely,
Cllr Jason Kitcat & Cllr Sven Rufus
Green City Councillors for Regency Ward, Brighton & Hove City Council

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Why to vote for Caroline & Adrian

[Apologies to non-Green party member readers, this post is about the Green Party’s leadership contest, which is held every two years]

Caroline Lucas and Adrian Ramsay are seeking re-election as the Green Party’s leader and deputy, and I’m supporting them in their campaign.

Our party’s leaders must be serious, frontline politicians. Some have been arguing in the webosphere that Caroline and Adrian are too busy to do the job properly. I disagree. Of course they are busy, they are high profile, respected Green politicians – a credible and hard working leadership team, who’ve delivered results.

However they do not have a fraction of the office and staff support that other party leaders have. This is due to our more limited funds but also inexperience in supporting our leaders. We need to work to provide better support for them, not elect less busy leaders with less experience or profile! (Jim Jepps touches on this in his post)

Ultimately I believe that if they are to lead us as a party, they greatly benefit from being publicly elected representatives who understand the hard choices that need to be made when in office. And, as just two votes on the national party executive, they have a strong track record in improving the party’s position in terms of membership, finance, profile and elections (Peter Cranie makes the case in more detail).

Let’s discuss the support and structures we provide them at conference in September. In the meantime I’d encourage new and old members alike to vote for Caroline and Adrian, for another two years of growth and increasing influence.

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More reasons to be wary of commissioning

Greens oppose Brighton & Hove City Council’s move to an ‘Intelligent Commissioning’ model, as I’ve detailed previously.

Commissioning creates a split between who buys a service and who provides it – which in the public sector is often rather artificial. Public services are not like the business sector and cannot be treated in that way. If I recall rightly, the council tried several times to outsource municipal waste collection before having to bring it back in-house after experiencing serious problems with managing the contracts with provide suppliers.

It’s much harder to manage and monitor contracts than many people realise. Which makes the House of Commons Health Committee’s March 2010 report on Commissioning [PDF] very interesting reading.

The report is fairly damning of Primary Care Trusts, the main NHS bodies tasked with commissioning. The committee also pulls no punches on the idea of commissioning itself. The report (which I highly recommend) finds that before introducing the purchaser-provider split (aka commissioning) the NHS had admin costs of about 5% of total NHS expenditure. Since then it has risen to be around 13.5% of NHS expenditure. That’s an absolutely huge increase.

A team at York University cited in the report note that old ‘Beveridge-type’ health systems have low transaction costs and that:
“In the English NHS, the purchaser-provider split, private finance, national tariffs and other policies aiming to stimulate efficiency in the  system and create a mix of public and private finance and provision mean almost unavoidably that the more information is needed to make contracts, hence transactions costs of providing care have increased, and may continue to increase.”

(It’s worth nothing that despite commissioning the York study, the Department of Health never published it, the Health Committee had to winkle it out direct from the academics over protests from civil servants. The same civil servants were also rebuked by the committee for failing to provide accurate figures for costs themselves!)

The committee’s report concludes that unless some convincing, rigorous new data shows benefits for the 20 years of NHS commissioning, it should be abolished as a costly failure.

I find it hard to believe that the city council are going to be able to somehow avoid these risks and pitfalls. Commissioning would need to deliver some immense cost-savings (which nobody has the evidence to prove it can) to justify almost trebled admin costs!

I have asked, and will keep asking, for evidence to justify the council’s leap into ‘Intelligent Commissioning’.