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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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notes from JK

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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notes from JK

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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voting

London confirms choice to use e-counting again

Given the signs, I’m not hugely surprised that London Elects have decided to go with e-counting again for 2010. It’s only likely to cost the taxpayer about £1.5 million more than doing it manually… and that doesn’t seem to bother Boris, but it bothers me. The DRS release claims that, if the GLA agree to use them in 2016 too, then they will be £0.2m cheaper per election than manual counting. But based on my review of the GLA figures for manual counting, they were seriously inflated to make e-counting look more attractive (and the Electoral Commission concurred). So I challenge DRS’ claim to cost-effectiveness.

As is often the case, rather than recognising the fundamental difficulties with e-counting (or e-voting), the GLA have decided that last time’s problems were because of the supplier they chose. So they’ve dumped Indra for a joint venture between DRS Data Services and Electoral Reform Services. (Disclosure: I’m a member of the Electoral Reform Society who own Electoral Reform Services.)

These were the same two suppliers involved in running the last Scottish Parliamentary elections, which also experienced significant problems as observed by ORG. Given his background and the sensitivity of these contracts, it is interesting that Lord (Neil) Kinnock remains on the board of DRS.

ORG will be planning to observe these elections once again. I hope they are trouble-free and improve on the experience in 2008. We’ll be watching!

Full announcement on the DRS website

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notes from JK

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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notes from JK

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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current affairs

Greens could take Norwich City Council this week

This week sees an extraordinary mass by-election in Norwich. Following Adrian Ramsay doubling the Green vote in this May’s General Election, Greens are now poised to take control of the council there.

Green Cllr Rupert Read has blogged on the possibilities here. You can also read about the exciting Green proposals for an ‘Open Council’ here.

If you can help on election day, this Thursday 9th September, then email pollingday@norwichgreenparty.org

I haven’t been able to make it to Norwich this year. But I hope to see plenty of happy Norwich faces at Green Party conference this weekend! Please help out if you possibly can.

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notes from JK

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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notes from JK

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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current affairs

Audit Commission closure links

Some more links on the Audit Commission story, which back up my view that axing the Commission is an error:

Via Liberal Conspiracy and Full Fact