Tag: localgov

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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

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current affairs

Conservatives risk good governance with plans to axe the Audit Commission

A version of this post appeared on the Liberal Conspiracy

I was astonished to learn today that Eric Pickles will be axing the Audit Commission. Or more precisely, according to the leaked memo on the FT site, the commission will be privatised. Pickles is notorious for being ideologically wedded to cuts as shown from his time as leader of Bradford Council.

From the Telegraph’s one-sided report you’d think the Commission were a bunch of no-good layabouts responsible for, among other things, the terror of the fortnightly bin collection which keeps all good Tories awake at night.

No doubt mistakes have been made by the Commission at times, and they have overpaid some top staff – but which public or private sector organisation hasn’t in recent times?

In my three years on the Audit Committee at Brighton & Hove City Council I have been struck by the conscientious, helpful and detailed work Audit Commission staff have done for the council. The Commission has also helped to make the performance of public bodies more accountable, such as with the OnePlace site which barely got the chance to get going before being canned.

All the staff are experienced and understand local government – because that’s what they do. They also are public servants and take their duties seriously. It must be especially galling that these highly skilled, dedicated staff have been given the axe in a way that, without any consultation or debate, goes against all that might be called ‘good governance’.

How on earth does Pickles think we are going to get the same kind of scrutiny of our public bodies from corporate auditors, inexperienced in local government, and who failed to prevent a litany of corporate fraud and failures? Furthermore, why are private-sector corporate auditors going to be any cheaper to hire in than the Audit Commission who didn’t need to make a profit from their work?

As public bodies continue to be rocked by the cuts and upheavals being rained down on them, I don’t think that now is a sensible time to also completely uproot the key scrutiny and overview body which works to ensure services are robust and money well spent.

If Pickles wanted some genuine savings he could have simplified the framework used to audit local government services. There would be plenty of people, including those in the Commission, with good suggestions on how to streamline the audit framework. Instead, as I understand it, he’s ditched the entire framework and now the Commission too.

I’m appalled by this political meddling in what is an arms-length commission to hold local government to account. This is yet another ill-judged, ideological and unnecessary cut which will end up costing us all a lot more in the long term.

(Updated 14/8/10 to include a link to the Liberal Conspiracy, and include paragraph on saving through simplifying the audit framework.)

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notes from JK

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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notes from JK

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’.

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notes from JK

Council meeting roundup – 15th July 2010

So that’s it, we’ve had our council meeting and there won’t be another one until October. In spite of that Conservative and Labour councillors voted to axe proceedings at 9pm with two motions still to be debated.

The meeting started with my challenging the minutes of the 18th March meeting. Back then the Conservatives, backed once again by Labour, voted to defer the Independent Remuneration Panel’s report on councillor allowances (full background info). Four months later and the report still isn’t before us. In the meantime there are 34 councillors instead of 25 receiving additional allowances, which for a full year will cost the council £25k more than if the panel’s report was implemented. Back in March I had made a point of order noting that the deferral of the report would have budgetary implications. This point was not minuted and I asked for the minutes to be amended accordingly, but the Mayor refused to accept this. Not good.

Our new Green Cllr Lizzie Deane was introduced to the chamber and took her seat – well done Lizzie!

Next for me was the new system of questions. I can put as many written questions as I want to the administration, but they aren’t discussed at the meeting. You can read them online along with the rest of the agenda.

The replies were not particularly marvellous. For example in asking for an update on recycling figures Cllr Geoffrey Theobald gave me numbers for 2005/6 and 2008/9 but nothing for 2009/10 or a part of that financial year, which is several months behind us now.

I specifically asked for details of the licence under which the council’s financial data will be published. I would like it to be a very open, permissive licence that allows for all sorts of re-use and mashups. This point was not even acknowledged in Cllr Young’s reply. I also asked when they would start publishing the data, again no hint of dates was provided.

Asking about the council’s website, which has been due a rebuild for years, I received a lot of waffle about resident needs etc. The council website was supposed to be upgraded years ago, and every year it seems to slip a year.

Onto oral questions, which shamefully are limited to only one per councillor. I asked the Leader of the Council:

“In the face of drastic budget cuts which both Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors on East Sussex County Council are calling ‘unavoidable’, what policies does the Leader of the Council propose to put in place to prevent even greater inequality amongst Brighton & Hove’s residents?”

To which I received a rant about the Green Party but as far as I recall, no response to my question. I followed up by asking what evidence the Leader could provide to support her preferred approach of ‘Intelligent Commissioning’ would be able to meet the challenges this city faces. She could provide none, saying that because it hadn’t started yet there wasn’t any evidence. Which rather implies, as I suspect, that there is no solid evidence from other councils in the UK or elsewhere to back up the Intelligent Commissioning approach.

Next we debated a report on budget cuts. However all the report contained was a list of the reductions to grants that central government are applying. There were no details on when or how these cuts would be managed by the administration. The report was completely inadequate to facilitate any proper debate or scrutiny. It did emerge through the meeting however that the administration clearly do have plans written up, they just weren’t willing to share them to the full council. In the face of repeated questioning on several specific grants to community grants, the Leader started reeling off which funds were definitely secure. Cllr Mears knows the detail of what’s going to happen — she just refuses to share it with councillors.

I made the case that we should be open, inclusive and participatory in handling these budget changes. It’s only by engaging the entire city are we going to be able to find a path out of these unnecessary cuts imposed on us by ideologues in the coalition government.

A number of important reports were briefly discussed before moving onto Notices of Motion. We supported Labour’s motion calling for a return to the committee system of running the council. Labour have a bit of a cheek proposing such a motion after having tried to foist a directly elected mayor and several forms of cabinet system onto this council. Still it was good to see councillors agreeing that we all want a more democratic, collaborative form of governance if possible.

Next the two Green motions addressing cuts, first housing benefit and then cuts more generally as well as proposals for ‘Intelligent Commissioning’. Most of the way through the housing benefit motion, the Mayor activated the new guillotine motion supported by Tories & Labour in March. All debate ended and the motions were voted on. Both Green motions fell, without my having even been able to propose the one I had proposed.

Conservative and Labour councillors continue to show their preference for expediency over proper democratic discourse. They do their voters a disservice by their desire to shut down meetings rather than open them up with guillotine motions, limiting questions and speaking times. I have copied below the text of the speech I would have delivered if I had been given a chance. It is shameful when elected representatives are denied their right to speak because others just want to be home before the ten o’clock news begins.

Speech to Notice of Motion: OPPOSING CUTS AND ‘INTELLIGENT COMMISSIONING’ AS THE RESPONSE

In 1988 Eric Pickles, using the casting vote of the mayor, took control of Bradford council. On Tuesday 25th October, in a 12 hour budget meeting, Pickles forced cuts of £5.8 million from the council budget that night and cut £13 million within 6 months. His 5 year plan was to remove £50 million from the budget and restructure the authority to become a “holding company” that signed contracts with private providers.

By the end of that long October 1988 meeting Pickles had received a personal message of support from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as protestors roared outside. And now, the wheel has turned and Eric Pickles is a minister, unleashing his same awful vision on all councils in this country.

The cuts being imposed on this council are ideological – that is, they are completely avoidable. The country is solvent and credit rating solid, however Conservatives are committed to pouring yet more money into defence whilst failing to apply sufficient tax the wealthiest people and firms.

Let us not forget that Tories, LibDems and Labour all agree on the need for cuts – their only quibble during the general election campaign was when the cuts should start. Greens were alone in opposing cuts and offering an alternative path out of the mess, fully costed by economists.

Our motion speaks for itself on the cuts. We absolutely deplore them and believe it to be grossly unfair that the British government can find the resources to bail out banks and fight foreign wars, whilst dramatically cutting services to its own most vulnerable citizens.

Furthermore it is our view that Intelligent Commissioning is not the answer to coping with the cuts. We have yet to see evidence from any other councils that it works. Commissioning large corporations, who often have legal departments many times the size of ours, is a fraught business.

Only at yesterday’s health committee did we hear that a private contractor for the SOTC made an extra £750,000 profit last year, because of NHS commissioning which means they get the same fee regardless of how much or, in this case, how little work they deliver.

It cannot be good for staff morale, and it certainly isn’t good for the budget, for Intelligent Commissioning to require new directors at inflated salaries. We should be moving to a smaller gap between the pay levels of our staff, not a greater gap.

Of course there are times when a specialist product or service is needed from a private provider, we shouldn’t be re-inventing the wheel when, for example, software to meet our needs is readily available.

It is our view that the best possible value and service for this city comes from a different approach. It comes from dedicated officers, with decent pay and conditions, who are treated with respect and dignity by the leadership of this council. Constant reviews and the threat of being ‘commissioned into the private sector’ are not, in my view, the way to motivate people to deliver their best.

We and our MPs must fight these cuts as fiercely as we can. Furthermore locally I believe our response is for the council to come together, not to be split apart. We should focus on our positive spirit, that together we can meet these challenges and provide the best services possible locally, with public servants paid decent, but not excessive wages. We oppose these cuts and believe Intelligent Commissioning is not the way forward. Please support this motion.