Tag: politics

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notes from JK

Letter in response to budget queries

I submitted this letter to The Argus in response to this spread of letters on the budget process. Unfortunately The Argus haven’t yet chosen to publish it, so here it is:

Sir,

How quick the Conservative and Labour councillors are to criticise, yet it is both their parties who argue the devastating budget cuts being imposed on us are necessary. Greens disagree and we are campaigning hard to change national policies which will harm the poorest and most vulnerable residents of our city. We face a 33% cut in the council’s formula grant over 4 years.

Conservatives are being disingenuous in claiming they had no plans for a 2.5% council tax increase. On 17th February 2011 the Conservative administration’s cabinet voted for a Medium Term Financial Strategy which included a 2.5% council tax increase for the next three financial years. Will Jan Young and Cllr Ann Norman withdraw their statements to the contrary?

Let’s be clear, the discussion currently underway is about the next council budget for the financial year 2012/13. It is highly misleading to suggest the underspend from the last financial year (2010/11), which in their dying days Conservatives had already programmed into the current year’s budget (2011/12), should have anything to do with the next year (2012/13)!

It will be up to all councillors to vote on what the next budget will be, including council tax. We understand the challenge everyone’s finances are facing: We are being careful with every penny. The proposed 3.5% increase is below inflation and will cost a Band D taxpayer 85p more a week compared with this year’s tax rate. Meanwhile the council needs to reduce its spend by up to 15% in the next two years.

Our whole budget approach will be to face that challenge in the most open, inclusive and sensitive way possible. I encourage all The Argus’ readers to participate in the consultation process when it starts later this year.

Sincerely,
Cllr Jason Kitcat
Green Cabinet member for Finance & Central Services
Brighton & Hove City Council

UPDATE: The Argus have now published the letter.

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Towards building the first Green city budget

Building a fair, balanced and progressive budget is one of my key responsibilities. The process for approving that budget has to be as open and inclusive as possible. That’s my personal preference, and also the best way to make decisions on the incredibly difficult choices ahead.

So at next week’s Cabinet meeting I’ll be presenting a report setting out our thinking on the budget process. In summary we’ll be seeking to invite cross-party involvement throughout the process, not just at the end; and we will be reaching out to citizens, unions and the third sector to feed into our thinking too.

We want to give council departments the space for longer term thinking and more sustainable changes than annual ‘salami slicing’ of budgets. So I’ve asked for them to present two year, rather than just annual, spending plans. I’d go for longer if I had greater certainty about what central government will do with our funding in future years.

The previous Conservative administration had budgeted on 2.5% annual council tax increases for the coming years. The Green administration are seeking to move that to 3.5% per annum. This is equivalent to 85p more per week for a band D property. At 3.5% the rate is below all the measures of inflation recorded by the Office for National Statistics.

Greens believe council tax is an unfair tax, but Government does not allow us to use fairer alternatives, such as land value tax. We do not take decisions to raise the tax rate lightly, and we are committed to spending the money raised carefully. That extra 1% will help us to protect key services from the cuts.

Meanwhile the council will be seeking spending savings of up to 15% over the coming two years, while also dealing with significant pressures from increased costs in a number of key services. Our principles in judging how to meet these challenges will be:

  • To prioritise services for the young, elderly and vulnerable
  • To promote efficient use of public money
  • To support partnership working with public, private and third sector organisations

I want to emphasise the importance of the public engaging in this process, as a first step to greater community involvement in budget setting as we begin to pilot more neighbourhood decision-making. I know it’s going to be hard, but I passionately want to see more citizens discussing and understanding the council’s budget.

We also will be seeking to publish carbon budgets of some form. It is early days but, as with our program of public involvement in budget-setting, we hope the carbon budgeting will improve significantly each year.

While we will inevitably disagree on some proposals, I hope all parties will work with us constructively to face the challenge ahead of us. The Coalition government have imposed on Brighton & Hove huge, unnecessary cuts to our funding. All councillors are united in their passion for this city and I hope we can collectively move from tribalism to constructive working to come up with the best possible outcomes.

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Meeting with local government ministers Grant Shapps and Greg Clark

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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The first ever Green council cabinet meeting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Papers for the Cabinet meeting
Webcast from the Cabinet meeting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A positive vision for the future: The Green Manifesto

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

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

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

Democracy & Trust

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

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

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

Waste & Recycling

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

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

Licensing

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

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

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On the joint Green/Labour budget amendments

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

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

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

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

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

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The Green Alternative budget 2011/12

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

Introduction to the Green Alternative Budget 2011/12

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Download the whole thing]

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Cynical, irresponsible, gimmicky – take your pick!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Reform of councillor allowances & webcasts rejected

So, as I posted previously, I have been pursuing two reforms on the council: Firstly, that councillor allowances be fairer and meet government guidance, in other words simply adopting the report of the council’s own independent panel on allowances rather than sticking with the old regime. Secondly, given my successful tribunal over the use of YouTube, that councillors no longer be unfairly restricted from their freedom of political expression in reusing public webcast video.

Unfortunately at last night’s Governance Committee the old guard kept things just the way they are. My detailed request on webcasting arrangements was batted away with effectively a non-answer saying that the Tribunal judged me on a previous version of the webcasting protocol. True, but the Tribunal essentially found that a restriction on councillors using the webcast, which didn’t apply to members of the public, would be an unreasonable restriction on councillors’ freedom of political expression. And that is exactly what the new protocol does, it requires councillors to seek written permission to use a clip, when a member of the public under copyright fair dealing rules could do so anyway. I will keep trying on that.

With the Green attempt to implement the Independent Remuneration Panel’s report of March 2010 I’m afraid there was a heavy dose of condescending and patronising remarks from the old guard. Of course they don’t want to change things, that would remove some of the feudal control they have over their groups by handing out posts (with allowances) to folk they want to toe the line. So the Labour and Conservative councillors voted against my amendment seeking to implement the long overdue changes to our systems of allowances.

It’s worth noting that the Panel’s report to the committee last night, an excellent piece of work in its own right, roundly rebutted all the reasons Tory and Labour councillors had used to reject the proposed reforms at last year’s council meetings. It’s a shame the other groups can’t agree to change on this, especially when we have such strong work from our independent panel to lead the way. I can’t say I was surprised by their vote against change though, those two parties have been taking turns running the city like and old club for years and they want to keep it that way.

One more point: Last night’s meeting also briefly discussed the move to individual voter registration. I do have some concerns about the changes planned with this reform, but overall it is a long overdue move which will help improve security. Keep in mind this was a policy passed by the previous Labour government, the timetable has just been brought forward by a year by the new government. So I was surprised to see Labour group leader Cllr Gill Mitchell trying to make something of this with a press release attacking the reform “Labour fears consequences of new electoral system“!

In the piece Cllr Mitchell attacks the lack of pilots – when there are pilots scheduled, the lack of additional funding – when there is £104 million of additional funding for this work, and suggests that this could undermine the integrity of our democracy – when ‘ghost’ registrations (the polite way of saying fraudulent entries on the register) have been a major problem especially with postal voting. So not exactly the most apposite comments I’ve seen. It does sum up how Labour will attack anything if they think it will get them something, even if it was their idea in the first place! I’m more than happy to accept that all parties have good ideas sometimes. I’m pleased the government have abolished ID cards, plan to scrap the councillor Standards regime and will introduce individual voter registration. There, I said it!