Tag: localgov

Categories
current affairs

What are council reserves?

Yesterday, amid all the snow-related stories, Eric Pickles the Tory local government minister issued an extraordinary statement about council reserves:

“…building up reserves isn’t simply about turning town hall vaults into Fort Knox. These untapped funds exist to ensure councils can respond to unexpected situations like the pressing need to tackle the nation’s unprecedented level of debt.”

Naturally this got widely reported, along with figures on local authority reserve levels e.g. The Argus writing “Sussex councils holding on to more than £387 million between them”

The problem with all this is that most council reserves are not there for emergencies. Of the £65.8m reported as being in Brighton & Hove City Council’s reserves, the vast majority is allocated. About £9m is the general reserve which is for use in case of unexpected issues like severe weather, swine flu, terrorism or a major financial hiccup. Certainly some of that could be used to bridge a gap in the council’s budget whilst trying to meet the coalition government’s cuts.

The rest of the ‘reserves’ are more like separate savings accounts for specific purposes. For example one is used to tuck away money for big IT spends — we don’t have enough spare cash in one year to buy these big ticket items so we save up for them — just like people do. We also put away money for things like the cost of major, long-term contracts such as the waste Private Finance Initiative deal with Veolia. Capital costs, for building and refurbishing, are also set aside in ‘reserves’ while the projects are tendered for and delivered. It’s money we have to spend, not spare cash.

If Eric Pickles was just an uninformed commentator this wouldn’t be worth my noting. But Pickles is a former leader of Bradford Council, an MP and the minister responsible for Local Government. He knows full well that most council reserves are not available for general spending. The cynicism of his intervention, just before the details of local government cuts are published, is quite breath taking. He has managed to put a story out there which implies councils are sitting on piles of unused cash whilst heartlessly cutting services.

Pickles knows no shame and is an ideological cuts man through and through, as he was on Bradford Council. The reasons Councils are going through contortions to save money and cut services is because that is what the ConDem government and Eric Pickles want. Labour planned cuts too, and stick by that message post-election. Only Greens proposed finding new sources of revenue by reducing tax evasion and increased top-rate taxes. We will keep putting the alternative out there and working constructively to prevent the worst cuts.

Categories
current affairs

YouTube Tribunal Success!

Today was the culmination of a process which began in early 2009 when Conservative Cllr Ted Kemble filed a complaint against me for putting clips on YouTube. The full background can be read in my previous blog posts.

The Tribunal hearing was held in a room at the Hilton Metropole Brighton hotel. This was arranged by the Tribunal service. Whilst I was grateful for a good number of supporters in the public gallery, in the hot seat it was just me there to represent myself.

The Council on the other hand had brought Mr Wayne Beglan, an outside barrister along with two council solicitors, a press officer and the Chairman of the Standards Committee.

The Tribunal consisted of Simon Bird QC, Narendra Makanji and David Ritchie. I don’t know Mr Ritchie’s background, Mr Makanji is a Labour activist and involved in a number of public bodies. Mr Bird is a barrister from the same chambers as the Council’s barrister Mr Beglan. However that didn’t stop him rather comprehensively demolishing some of Mr Beglan’s arguments during questioning!

I presented my arguments first. You can view my notes for my presentation here [PDF], though I did range beyond my prepared remarks as the presentation unfolded. The tribunal panel challenged me on a number of points, but mainly on my argument that the code of conduct didn’t apply because I wasn’t acting in my official capacity as a councillor when uploading videos to YouTube. I had difficulty providing clear-cut, legally grounded responses to some of their questions and so I wasn’t surprised when in their judgement they didn’t agree with this specific argument. Thankfully that didn’t affect the positive outcome.

Then the City Council’s barrister made his remarks. I found them to be rather piece-meal and quite often misleading if not factually incorrect. It is hard to tell if these were deliberate attempts to spin the Council’s case or just oversights through failure to fully review all the paperwork. Mr Beglan tried to conjure up a view that I had changed my arguments each time I had been asked to defend my actions. But in fact I was able to rebut this with the paperwork already before the tribunal.

Mr Beglan completely failed to take on my arguments that the Council’s interpretation of the code of conduct impinged on my European Convention on Human Rights article 10 rights to freedom of speech.

I then had a chance to rebut Mr Beglan’s presentation, though the panel through their questioning had done better work than I could have done. To be fair to him, it wasn’t easy to defend the Standards Committee’s original decisions.

Much of the debate ended up being about what constitutes a council resource and what would be improper use of such a resource. Many metaphors and examples were wheeled out, which I think were helpful in exploring the ideas. In the end the copyright issues surrounding the webcast were sidelined by the primacy of the article 10 issues. But it wasn’t disputed that there are exceptions to copyright protection which I could use to legally excerpt clips, and I think this contributed to the view that no resources as meant by the code were used by my actions.

Essentially it came down to this… The Council’s interpretation of the code would result in discrimination against me because I was a councillor — members of the public could do what I had done without restriction, so why couldn’t I? The code of conduct could not and should not be interpreted to restrict my rights to freedom of political expression.

So after an adjournment of an hour and twenty minutes the panel returned to find that they agreed with me that I had not breached the code of conduct. They rejected the findings of the Standards Committee and the sanctions immediately cease to have effect.

The tribunal’s full reasoning will be published in 14 days and there are 28 days for the Council to apply for leave to appeal. In summary the tribunal stated, in reference to my actions that:

6.1 He did not fail to treat Councillor Theobald with respect;

6.2 The resources of the Council which he used in posting the video clips fell outside the scope of the resources to which paragraph 6b(ii) applied;

6.3 To find the Appellant breached paragraph 6(b)(ii) of the Code on the facts of this case would involve a disproportionate interference with his right to freedom of expression protected by Article 10 of the ECHR.

Whilst a stressful day, I didn’t find the legal debate and questioning quite as difficult as I had feared. For someone representing themselves (I refused to spend any money on this) I think I did reasonably well, mainly because a number of very kind people offered me tips and read my notes ahead of the hearing. Thank you to everyone who supported me in person, with messages or by signing ORG’s action on this.

I am absolutely delighted with the outcome. It completely erases the original sanctions and findings. It also shows that the code of conduct cannot be used to stifle freedom of expression, which is exactly what the local Conservative councillors were trying to do in filing the complaint in the first place. I address this further in the press release. For as long as the code of conduct still exists (Mr Pickles says it will be go), this result is important in giving councillors across the country greater confidence in their ability to express themselves freely.

Now, back to the work of representing my constituents as best I can. But I will also be following this up looking into a variety of issues. The Tribunal chose not to address my concerns with how the original Standards Committee panel worked including Cllr Lepper claiming not to have seen the videos in question (as supported by witness statements I collected) but then the Standards Committee subsequently flatly denying she said this. Also did the council really need to send so many people to the Tribunal, why did they fight my appeal so hard?

UPDATE: Freedom of Information request now filed. Cllr Kemble and the chair of the original Standards Committee hearing panel are spinning that all I had to do was apologise. No, I overturned being found guilty of improperly misusing council resources (a serious finding which I had to clear) and faced censure + suspension unless I apologised and submitted to re-training.

UPDATE 2: You can hear on BBC iPlayer the tribunal being discussed on BBC Sussex Radio before and after the result. In the second piece Dr Wilkinson from the Standards Committee and Cllr Kemble both participate, sounding rather unrepentant if you ask me!

Categories
notes from JK

How we treat children is a reflection of what we consider to be important

After the Tories had passed their guillotining motion to end last Thursday’s council meeting, all remaining business was put to the vote. I was delighted that the motion Cllr Rachel Fryer and I proposed was passed in that process. However, that we were not able to debate it was a source of regret to me.

Here’s what I would have said…

Full Council 21st October 2010

Speech seconding Notice of Motion on Cuts hitting Children & Young People

Mr Mayor I stand to second this motion as a father, as a son and as someone who believes that family is about community and not just blood ties.

Greens don’t believe there is an economic case for sudden, deep government cuts at this time. However if there must be cuts, they certainly should NOT hurt the most vulnerable and those least able to make the case for the services on which they depend.

It’s a truism to say that children and young people are our future. I believe that how we treat children – who are inherently innocent and trusting – is a reflection of ourselves and of what we believe to be important.

Good health, education and fulfilling work are important. Yet the cuts this motion notes say the opposite. The cuts say bank bailouts, subsidies for nuclear power and cold war era arms like Trident are more important. They are not.

– freezing child benefit for three years;

– cutting the Health in Pregnancy Grant;

– cutting the Sure Start Maternity Grant for all but the first child;

– cuts in Housing Benefit – which will affect families with children the most;

– a cut in Tax Credit entitlements for the poorest by withdrawing the Baby Element;

– the cut in the Child Trust Fund.

These and other cuts say children aren’t important. But that’s not what we believe – children are our future and our inspiration.

Let us show this city what we believe in. By supporting this motion you vote for hope in a better future for our children.

[ENDS]

Categories
notes from JK

The Green view on the national debt

Further to my earlier post on this issue, an additional opportunity to set the national debt in context arose last week. The Conservative group of councillors submitted an extraordinary motion using the national debt to justify massive cuts whilst also reassuring residents that ‘Intelligent Commissioning’ and other actions left the council in a good position to handle the cuts.

Well this motion had to be amended, and so I submitted a detailed amendment, as you can see here.

Unfortunately the amendment fell, because Labour sat on their hands for the vote. Thankfully the motion as a whole also fell. Still Labour need to seriously reflect on what they stand for before coming to the next council meeting.

My speech to the amendment is copied below. I got no response to my final question as Conservative councillors ranted on about other things, if you can bear to watch on the webcast.

Speech proposing amendment to Conservative public debt NoM
21st October 2010

Mr Mayor

Yesterday George Osborne announced as part of the comprehensive spending review that not only would, according to the Local Government Association, local authority budgets be cut by 25.5% but that the cost of borrowing for councils would also be increased by 1%.

This authority and its officers are going to be squeezed beyond all reason. Yet, as benefit cuts bite and the economy suffers from the ill-considered government slashing of public services, our residents will need us more than ever.

Our amendment makes abundantly clear that the current UK national deficit is by no means sufficiently alarming to justify these unprecedented cuts. The deficit is not particularly large by historical comparison, the interest charges are a reasonable proportion of our GDP and the repayments are owed over many years. We include a number of ways in which the deficit could be reduced through tax and benefit reforms, but not public service cuts.

To echo a certain high street store – These are not just cuts, these are coalition government cuts. With lashings of hypocrisy and soaked in misleading statements.

What we are witnessing are not just a few efficiency savings. We are seeing the utter abandonment of whole swathes of our society. At the slightest hint of stormy waters the coalition government are chucking people overboard shouting to them “if you can’t afford to survive then you’re on your own.”

Frankly Mr Mayor, the administration have some gall presenting this motion reassuring residents in the face of this economic and public sector catastrophe.

I urge members to support this amendment. And I finish with a question – did any of the members on that side of the chamber actually check the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s lurid claims about the scale of the deficit, or did they just swallow it – hook, line and sinker?

Categories
notes from JK

October 2010 Full Council

Finally a full council meeting rolled around. There are so few in the year that inevitably the agenda was groaning under the weight of items included – and that was before reams of public questions, deputations and petitions were added.

Once again the need for more council meetings, which start earlier, came to mind – but the Tories will have none of it, and I seem to recall Labour too being opposed last time Greens raised it.

As usual I had a number of questions to councillors which, as usual, were not properly answered. In flagging up issues with the council website I was once again promised that a new site was on its way – a new site has been imminent for the entire 3+ years I’ve been a councillor!

I also continued my attempt to win a commitment to the council using an open licence for its publications, however every time my question is misunderstood or deliberately misconceived.

My final written question was again twisted by the respondent. At a previous debate on the long delayed IRP report we were told it was being delayed because a return to the committee system was imminent. This was a pretty transparent wheeze. To pretend now that the two were unrelated was taking the proverbial biscuit.

The one oral question I’m now permitted  to ask related to how local government cuts would have a massive impact on the local economy. The answers Cllr Mears gave were, at best, tangential to the question.

The meeting saw an excellent debate on the cuts being made to the Connexions as part of public questions, a deputation, a petition and a notice of motion. I think the procedure that results in a debate when a petition has more than 1,250 signatures worked very well – it’s a welcome addition to council meetings.

At long last the Independent Remuneration Panel’s report on councillor allowances was voted on. But as I have long predicted, Labour and Tories voted together to preserve their allowances – so that Brighton & Hove continues to exceed government guidance on the number of special allowances handed out. They also voted against group leaders’ allowances being proportional to the size of their group – which would be patently much fairer than the present system. Once again, it was the old guard defending their interests.

As usual the 4 hour guillotine was activated by the Mayor to end the meeting. However to my surprise the Tories didn’t vote for it. They later revealed that they wanted a chance to rip into my amendment to their motion before going home. Of course once that had been voted on they did propose a new guillotine motion which was passed despite a very mixed vote from Labour and Tories, only Greens consistently voting to carry on with the business before us.

I will cover the two main motions I dealt with in separate posts. I think it’s high time council meetings were re-organised to happen more often. This would allow public questions and petitions to be dealt with a in a more timely way. The meetings should start an hour earlier and we should stay until the work is done. And the Conservatives should be ashamed of their approach – they continue to guillotine meetings as soon as the bits they want are done with, thereby removing the space for debate.

Categories
notes from JK

Letter on licensing in Brighton & Hove

Last week I submitted the following letter to The Argus after having read this article about Cllr Mary Mears’ views on licensing in the city.

Sir,


As a councillor representing Brighton & Hove’s Regency Ward, where the bulk of licensed premises operate, I welcome Cllr Mary Mears’ support for rebalancing the licensing act to be more supportive of residents’ concerns (“Council concern over law” Wednesday October 13th).


However in addition to lobbying Theresa May, Cllr Mears should also speak to her colleagues on the Council’s own licensing committee who repeatedly are observed to be on panels which approve new and extended licenses in the cumulative impact area, in the face of strong objections from residents, councillors and the Police.


Indeed it was the Conservative chair of licensing who led the panel which approved extended hours for ‘Jam’ in Middle Street. This resulted in Sussex Police, for the first time ever, lodging an appeal in court against the council. I’m relieved that the ‘Jam’ case has now been resolved by the hard work of the Police licensing team who have negotiated a new, more restrictive, license.


Those of us working to address the impacts of the licensed trade in the city, including responsible venue managers, would appreciate Cllr Mears spreading the message not just to national government, but to local Tory councillors too.


Sincerely,

Cllr Jason Kitcat

Green Councillor for Regency Ward, Brighton & Hove City Council

Kings House, Grand Avenue, Hove BN3 2LS

Categories
current affairs

Why no NHS osteopathy in Brighton & Hove?

I was pleased to see a report in today’s Argus about osteopathy services on the NHS. The piece isn’t online but in essence it says a new report from the British Osteopathic Association has found that whilst NHS West Sussex referred over 1,800 patients for osteopathic treatment – no referrals were made by the NHS in Brighton & Hove nor in East Sussex.

NHS Brighton & Hove are quoted in the article saying that they provide the full range of NICE recommended treatments through their physiotherapy service. I don’t question the quality of the physiotherapists, but they are not the same as osteopaths. They operate in a similar field but with quite different techniques and approaches.

NICE guidance for lower back pain includes osteopathy. Indeed there’s a growing body of quality clinical evidence to show that osteopathy is at least as, if not more effective, than other methods for treating back pain. These include a recent meta study and the ROMANS study which found that “outcomes improved more in the osteopathy group than the usual care group” whilst osteopathy was not significantly more costly. Indeed when my daughter was born through a ventouse delivery, the hospital midwife recommended an osteopath for helping with the damage the delivery had done to her little head. Four years later and you can barely feel on her skull where the ventouse was used, but I paid for every osteopath treatment myself.

In January of this year, the Council’s Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee received a petition and a funding proposal calling for therapies including osteopathy to be made available through the local NHS. This was of great interest to me so I prepared for the item in detail including collecting abstracts of studies to cite such as those I have mentioned above.

Osteopathy clearly has a solid evidence base to back its use. However when I attempted to have this discussion the Conservative committee chair and the Chief Executive of NHS Brighton & Hove both were keen for no discussion to be held at all. Against my protests the item was not debated. The following committee meeting I tried to discuss it again or at least find out if the local NHS had done anything about the petition. Nothing.

So I applaud NHS West Sussex for looking beyond conventional medicinal disciplines in treating their residents. It would be great if other local NHS primary care trusts would, before they are abolished, set a precedent that osteopathy should be available under the NHS in their areas. There should be no argument over providing treatments backed by guidance and sound clinical studies.

UPDATE 27th October 2011:

Brighton chiropractor Matthew Bennett (of Sundial Clinics) sent me a link to an interesting case study which further supports the benefits of chiropractic, osteopathic and physiotherapy treatments – and that they end up being cheaper for the NHS too.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.

Categories
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.