The London Borough of Hounslow has sent another shot across the bows of its outspoken Chair of Planning and community-friendly Syon councillor Theo Dennison by announcing a ban on members tweeting from Council meetings.
Councillor Dennison had recently introduced the simple but innovative concept of tweeting live from meetings of Borough Council to keep his readers and followers informed of what was going on, but it would appear this is too much to bear for the party he represents.
Meanwhile the Hounslow Conservatives have opened a Twitter account of their own at @LBHConservative to "hear from residents any ideas and/or suggestions they have for questions and motions".
Councillor Dennison is at @syonward.
Showing posts with label Borough Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borough Council. Show all posts
Wednesday, 6 February 2013
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Another Isleworth Councillor on the LBH Executive
At the Annual Meeting of Borough Council on Tuesday (it's to all intents and purposes a kind of AGM but doesn't appear to have an official title) another Isleworth councillor was promoted to the Council Executive.
Councillor Sue Sampson is now the Council's Lead Member for Performance and Customer Care, joining fellow Isleworth member Ed Mayne who remains Lead Member for Community Safety and Regulatory Services (the former half of that portfolio having been held by yours truly between 2006 and 2009).
Meanwhile Syon councillor Steve Curran holds what appears to be a rather large portfolio as Lead Member for Education, Housing and Human Resources and his ward colleague Theo Dennison has the influential task of chairing the Sustainable Development Committee (with Councillor Curran as his Vice Chair).
It is pleasing to see our own local representatives having such an input and playing such an important role. I am particularly pleased for Sue as I feel she is suited by temperament for the post for which she has been chosen, and I say this notwithstanding some of the disagreements we've had over the negative electioneering methods with which she has been associated in the past, a thing which to be fair was to some extent a cultural trait inherited from some of her predecessors.
I am sure she will make a success of her new appointment and I wish her all the very best.
The full list of appointments can be viewed at the London Borough of Hounslow website.
Councillor Sue Sampson is now the Council's Lead Member for Performance and Customer Care, joining fellow Isleworth member Ed Mayne who remains Lead Member for Community Safety and Regulatory Services (the former half of that portfolio having been held by yours truly between 2006 and 2009).
Meanwhile Syon councillor Steve Curran holds what appears to be a rather large portfolio as Lead Member for Education, Housing and Human Resources and his ward colleague Theo Dennison has the influential task of chairing the Sustainable Development Committee (with Councillor Curran as his Vice Chair).
It is pleasing to see our own local representatives having such an input and playing such an important role. I am particularly pleased for Sue as I feel she is suited by temperament for the post for which she has been chosen, and I say this notwithstanding some of the disagreements we've had over the negative electioneering methods with which she has been associated in the past, a thing which to be fair was to some extent a cultural trait inherited from some of her predecessors.
I am sure she will make a success of her new appointment and I wish her all the very best.
The full list of appointments can be viewed at the London Borough of Hounslow website.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
The Axeman Cometh
We are fast approaching that time when the London Borough of Hounslow delivers its budget for the coming year. In early March 2011 Borough Council will debate and vote upon a series of proposals that will, it hopes, enable it to reduce the local authority's annual spending by £18m. Inevitably valuable provision will be cut and the public will see a reduction in the services it receives.
The Axeman is an avowedly non-party political being. Up until 2006 he slashed services under a Labour administration, causing much angst as he closed John Aird House (a residential care home in Brentford), threatened to privatise vital health care services and hacked £1m in a single blow from the Education budget at a time when monies provided by the government for that very purpose were not ring-fenced. I attended more than one demonstration against what appeared to me to be acts of almost gratuitous inhumanity.
Then in 2006 a new administration took office of which the Independent Community Group (ICG) was a part. Almost immediately our Conservative coalition partners announced the launch of a drastic cost-cutting initiative called the Performance Improvement Programme (PIP) and declared its intention to freeze Council Tax levels, which we generally supported and between us actually managed to do for four years in a row. But there were casualties, not least the Hounslow Language Service, and from opposition Labour opposed many of the savings made by the coalition Axeman, campaigning against cuts in public services as we ourselves had done in opposition.
Now Labour is back in office, and the Axeman is once again playing for the team in red. Granted the impetus for the drastic programme of cuts upon which Hounslow is about to embark comes from central government and its savage Comprehensive Spending Review, but nonetheless the Labour administration has to deal with the same reality as the coalition administration before it and the old Labour administration before that. That reality is that the level of central government support for local councils declines year upon year no matter who is in charge at the Exchequer.
What happens at the stage we are at now is that Lead Members will have asked Chief Officers to identify potential savings in their own departments. Some of those suggested savings are included in this document, which will be discussed by the Executive next week.
The flaw in this process, and which has always been the case, is that Chief Officers will invariably identify those savings that they themselves are comfortable with, and omit those that they are not. For instance, rarely if at all will Lead Members be presented with a proposal to reduce Chief Officer salaries, or to merge departments so as to reduce their number. Unless the Lead Member is unusually hands-on, he or she will almost always accept the options presented as being the only ones realistically available.
The ICG has not had the opportunity to formally discuss these proposals as yet, but what I imagine will concern my colleagues in particular are the various implied assaults on local democracy. In particular the suggestion that Area Committees could be abolished or curtailed. My guess is that these were probably amongst the first proposals to have been mooted by certain of our Chief Officers and I would be surprised if much sleep was lost as they found their way onto the list.
It would be tempting, of course, to consider Area Committees as a luxury by comparison with frontline services to the really needy such as Older People or Children's Services. By that logic we might just as well do away with elections to the council as well - the potential saving involved would be considerable.
But the whole rationale of local government is that it enjoys a democratic mandate. This is precisely why elected members, as opposed to the more "expert" officers, are ultimately responsible for making decisions. Once that principle has been compromised we are embarked upon a journey down a very slippery slope with no handbrake. One cannot put a price on democracy.
I am also concerned by the suggestion that local community centres may be cut adrift. Sure, I do note from the document that the need for local community groups to be given time to build the capacity to take them over is acknowledged, but knowing as I do the complete lack of interest in resident involvement or even opinion that exists in certain departments there is little doubt in my mind that, were such a proposal to be taken up, our community centres would be abandoned with indecent haste and indeed closed down as soon as it was felt it could be got away with.
This is not about empowering communities, this is about certain senior officers seizing a perceived opportunity to remove themselves forever from meaningful public scrutiny.
These are difficult times, and I am reluctant to try to score points by blaming the current administration for the predicament it finds itself in (although it has to be said, under the circumstances, that some of the ruling party's election promises were reckless to say the least - everyone knew there would be cuts whoever triumphed at the general election). However I do believe that the organised community must lobby hard to protect itself from any attempt to use government cuts as a convenient excuse for curtailing its freedoms and its ability to organise.
The Axeman is an avowedly non-party political being. Up until 2006 he slashed services under a Labour administration, causing much angst as he closed John Aird House (a residential care home in Brentford), threatened to privatise vital health care services and hacked £1m in a single blow from the Education budget at a time when monies provided by the government for that very purpose were not ring-fenced. I attended more than one demonstration against what appeared to me to be acts of almost gratuitous inhumanity.
Then in 2006 a new administration took office of which the Independent Community Group (ICG) was a part. Almost immediately our Conservative coalition partners announced the launch of a drastic cost-cutting initiative called the Performance Improvement Programme (PIP) and declared its intention to freeze Council Tax levels, which we generally supported and between us actually managed to do for four years in a row. But there were casualties, not least the Hounslow Language Service, and from opposition Labour opposed many of the savings made by the coalition Axeman, campaigning against cuts in public services as we ourselves had done in opposition.
Now Labour is back in office, and the Axeman is once again playing for the team in red. Granted the impetus for the drastic programme of cuts upon which Hounslow is about to embark comes from central government and its savage Comprehensive Spending Review, but nonetheless the Labour administration has to deal with the same reality as the coalition administration before it and the old Labour administration before that. That reality is that the level of central government support for local councils declines year upon year no matter who is in charge at the Exchequer.
What happens at the stage we are at now is that Lead Members will have asked Chief Officers to identify potential savings in their own departments. Some of those suggested savings are included in this document, which will be discussed by the Executive next week.
The flaw in this process, and which has always been the case, is that Chief Officers will invariably identify those savings that they themselves are comfortable with, and omit those that they are not. For instance, rarely if at all will Lead Members be presented with a proposal to reduce Chief Officer salaries, or to merge departments so as to reduce their number. Unless the Lead Member is unusually hands-on, he or she will almost always accept the options presented as being the only ones realistically available.
The ICG has not had the opportunity to formally discuss these proposals as yet, but what I imagine will concern my colleagues in particular are the various implied assaults on local democracy. In particular the suggestion that Area Committees could be abolished or curtailed. My guess is that these were probably amongst the first proposals to have been mooted by certain of our Chief Officers and I would be surprised if much sleep was lost as they found their way onto the list.
It would be tempting, of course, to consider Area Committees as a luxury by comparison with frontline services to the really needy such as Older People or Children's Services. By that logic we might just as well do away with elections to the council as well - the potential saving involved would be considerable.
But the whole rationale of local government is that it enjoys a democratic mandate. This is precisely why elected members, as opposed to the more "expert" officers, are ultimately responsible for making decisions. Once that principle has been compromised we are embarked upon a journey down a very slippery slope with no handbrake. One cannot put a price on democracy.
I am also concerned by the suggestion that local community centres may be cut adrift. Sure, I do note from the document that the need for local community groups to be given time to build the capacity to take them over is acknowledged, but knowing as I do the complete lack of interest in resident involvement or even opinion that exists in certain departments there is little doubt in my mind that, were such a proposal to be taken up, our community centres would be abandoned with indecent haste and indeed closed down as soon as it was felt it could be got away with.
This is not about empowering communities, this is about certain senior officers seizing a perceived opportunity to remove themselves forever from meaningful public scrutiny.
These are difficult times, and I am reluctant to try to score points by blaming the current administration for the predicament it finds itself in (although it has to be said, under the circumstances, that some of the ruling party's election promises were reckless to say the least - everyone knew there would be cuts whoever triumphed at the general election). However I do believe that the organised community must lobby hard to protect itself from any attempt to use government cuts as a convenient excuse for curtailing its freedoms and its ability to organise.
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
New council leadership does not respect the opposition. Anyone surprised?
I understand that a very short Special Borough Council Meeting was held last night at Hounslow Civic Centre to consider various questions and motions tabled by the opposition Conservative Group.
The reason it was short was that a Labour councillor moved at the onset of the meeting that it be adjourned indefinitely, and so it was.
Of course this kind of stunt is underhand, bad for democracy etc., but is anybody truly surprised by Labour's actions? I know I do bang on somewhat about the fact that it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May - but - well, it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May.
The new Labour administration at the London Borough of Hounslow has no respect for its Conservative opponents and, with appropriate apologies to my good friend Councillor Mark Bowen who now leads the Conservative Group (and I wish him well), they don't deserve any respect following the debacle that was the local election.
Labour will simply trample all over them throughout the next four years as they quite rightly do not fear electoral repercussions at the hands of the Conservatives in a borough which has a "natural" Labour majority. Especially with a Conservative-led government in office which, whether rightly or wrongly, is committed to a major cuts programme.
The only hope of unseating Labour in Hounslow now, if that proves to be a desirable objective, lies in the emergence of a third political power within the borough to take on both establishment parties and to present residents with a new, radical, community-led and community-focused alternative. I wonder whether any of the current crop of Conservative councillors is ambitious enough, and angry enough, to wish to join us in helping to bring that about?
In the meantime the opposition should expect much more of the kind of thing they experienced last night. And the less time they spend at council meetings, maybe the more time they will have to reflect upon whether or not the strategy of using the cover provided by the general election to move in on the various independents around the borough in the hope of replacing them in their respective areas of influence was truly a clever one.
The reason it was short was that a Labour councillor moved at the onset of the meeting that it be adjourned indefinitely, and so it was.
Of course this kind of stunt is underhand, bad for democracy etc., but is anybody truly surprised by Labour's actions? I know I do bang on somewhat about the fact that it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May - but - well, it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May.
The new Labour administration at the London Borough of Hounslow has no respect for its Conservative opponents and, with appropriate apologies to my good friend Councillor Mark Bowen who now leads the Conservative Group (and I wish him well), they don't deserve any respect following the debacle that was the local election.
Labour will simply trample all over them throughout the next four years as they quite rightly do not fear electoral repercussions at the hands of the Conservatives in a borough which has a "natural" Labour majority. Especially with a Conservative-led government in office which, whether rightly or wrongly, is committed to a major cuts programme.
The only hope of unseating Labour in Hounslow now, if that proves to be a desirable objective, lies in the emergence of a third political power within the borough to take on both establishment parties and to present residents with a new, radical, community-led and community-focused alternative. I wonder whether any of the current crop of Conservative councillors is ambitious enough, and angry enough, to wish to join us in helping to bring that about?
In the meantime the opposition should expect much more of the kind of thing they experienced last night. And the less time they spend at council meetings, maybe the more time they will have to reflect upon whether or not the strategy of using the cover provided by the general election to move in on the various independents around the borough in the hope of replacing them in their respective areas of influence was truly a clever one.
Saturday, 15 May 2010
New Isleworth and Syon councillors "at the top table"
If I have read this article correctly it would appear that new Labour councillors Theo Dennison and Ed Mayne, who represent Syon and Isleworth wards respectively, have been appointed to serve on the London Borough of Hounslow's new Executive.
Whilst I criticised the last Labour administration for nominating first-time councillors with no experience to the local authority's most senior committee, responsible as it is for most of its decision making, the selection of two local members will at least hopefully ensure that our wards are not forgotten. I believe both of them have what it takes to stand up to their colleagues where necessary and to ensure that Syon and Isleworth receive their fair share of services and resources. I was particularly impressed by Ed's intelligence, humility and enthusiasm when I chatted with him at the election count last week. He is a decent young man and deserves the chance that he has been given.
It is also good to see that Councillor Jagdish Sharma has been given the opportunity to lead the Labour Group and the Council after having been in a position of responsibility for such a very long time. With the re-election of John Chatt and Colin Ellar many feared there would be an unseemly scramble for the top job, which doesn't appear to have materialised.
In the Tory camp Councillor Peter Thompson has "retired from frontline politics" and has stood down as Leader of the Conservative Group. I like to believe I enjoyed a good relationship with Peter based both on personal chemistry and mutual respect and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his support during the last administration and for the frank and honest discussions and also one or two laughs that we had along the way. He is replaced by Councillor Mark Bowen, who was sadly unsuccessful in his efforts to topple Alan Keen in Feltham & Heston at the general election and whom I consider a good friend.
If I haven't found myself a proper job by then I might look in from time to time when all the new and not so new players are exchanging banter across the floor of the Council Chamber.
Whilst I criticised the last Labour administration for nominating first-time councillors with no experience to the local authority's most senior committee, responsible as it is for most of its decision making, the selection of two local members will at least hopefully ensure that our wards are not forgotten. I believe both of them have what it takes to stand up to their colleagues where necessary and to ensure that Syon and Isleworth receive their fair share of services and resources. I was particularly impressed by Ed's intelligence, humility and enthusiasm when I chatted with him at the election count last week. He is a decent young man and deserves the chance that he has been given.
It is also good to see that Councillor Jagdish Sharma has been given the opportunity to lead the Labour Group and the Council after having been in a position of responsibility for such a very long time. With the re-election of John Chatt and Colin Ellar many feared there would be an unseemly scramble for the top job, which doesn't appear to have materialised.
In the Tory camp Councillor Peter Thompson has "retired from frontline politics" and has stood down as Leader of the Conservative Group. I like to believe I enjoyed a good relationship with Peter based both on personal chemistry and mutual respect and I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his support during the last administration and for the frank and honest discussions and also one or two laughs that we had along the way. He is replaced by Councillor Mark Bowen, who was sadly unsuccessful in his efforts to topple Alan Keen in Feltham & Heston at the general election and whom I consider a good friend.
If I haven't found myself a proper job by then I might look in from time to time when all the new and not so new players are exchanging banter across the floor of the Council Chamber.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Why we held out for change on Budget night
Council meeting anoraks plus anybody who may have been apprehensive about the outcome of last night's great Council Tax debate, whether through fear of cuts in services or of increases in taxes, will be aware by now that the proposed Budget for 2010/11, incorporating this administration's fourth 0% tax increase in four years, was eventually approved last night.
The reason it was "eventually approved", rather than being approved straight away, was because two members of the Community Group abstained on the first reading. I was one of those two.
I am proud to have served as part of the coalition that has managed the London Borough for Hounslow. I believe we have achieved many good things. I support the low tax agenda, subject to frontline services not being cut, and as I have said before it is to the great credit of the Leader of the Council, Peter Thompson, that he has overseen a team that has made this all possible.
So why did I and one of my colleagues abstain?
To understand our reasons fully one has to have some background knowledge about the way the coalition has developed over probably the last year or so. And when I speak about the development of the coalition I refer not just to the relationship between the two Groups, but also to how the respective partners have been served by the council organisation in general.
That period of time has been for us one long struggle. The first major indication that something was amiss was probably the Mogden expansion application by Thames Water, where officers even at the very highest level of the local authority engaged in unprecedented lobbying of elected members and on the night of the decision, having read reports and heard presentations from which important information was omitted, councillors from the big parties united to approve the application and leave the ICG, and the long-suffering residents of Isleworth and Hounslow South, high and dry.
But there was more, as Frank Carson might have put it. Section 106 money effectively stolen from the residents of Syon ward and relocated not only into another ward but into another Area Committee's domain also became a political battle which saw the ICG isolated as the mutual political interests of the big parties converged. The defiant organisational resistance to attempts by residents to help improve the Electronic Data Management System (EDMS), obstruction to individual initiatives to empower sections of the Voluntary Sector, intervention by those responsible for managing Communications to misrepresent the Mogden situation in a way that showed the ICG Lead Member and by association the whole Group in an unfavourable light and the Chief Executive's unwillingness to deal with our complaints about same in any meaningful way, and further Chief Officer obstruction over Mogden until the Leader eventually intervened all combined to create a situation in which Community Group priorities were quite demonstrably being dealt with in an entirely different manner than were Conservative Group priorities.
Apart from, in some areas, a blind and unhelpful departmental defensiveness on the part of certain Lead Members, the fault for this situation did not lie with our coalition partners. Except - and it is a very big "except" - that it was allowed to continue. Some Chief Officers became increasingly confident, in cases arrogant almost to the point of openly mocking us, while the low-tax bandwagon rolled smoothly through the year with devoted Chief Officer co-operation, and those whose wet dream the 0% Budget is were happy to remain oblivious, and possibly genuinely knew nothing about what was going on around them.
Added to that there was an element of political insensitivity. At the November 2009 Borough Council meeting the Lead Member for Finance forgot the name of the Group he was in coalition with, but was able to declare confidently last night (presumably in response to my plea for an "aspirational" budget), that the coalition's "aspiration" (i.e. not just his own or his Group's) was not to increase the Council Tax. Just that, nothing more.
I have to say it came as quite a shock to realise that, for sixteen years, I had put my family on the breadline and any other ambition I may have had in life on hold, so that some bloke in W4 would not have to endure the intolerable burden of having to pay the finance installments on his Bentley and another 10p each month on his Council Tax bill.
When all that is said however I still did want to support last night's Budget at the first time of asking. The councillor who suggested that I was electioneering could not have been more mistaken. As some Conservative councillors quite rightly argue, it is the relative poor just outside the benefit threshold who suffer disproportionately when their Council Tax bill goes up. The Leader, and the Lead Member for Finance, had drawn up a Budget which had quite skillfully avoided any incursion into frontline services. It did also include, it has to be said, a £300k package for the Voluntary Sector.
However, during my discussions with the Leader during the day, when I asked whether Community Group priorities could be given just that little bit more emphasis, it was clear that somebody - someone behind him - was playing hardball. Whom I don't know. What I did know is that the disrespect and indifference with which we had been treated by much of the corporate management over the past year or so was manifesting itself defiantly again, even as we approached the fourth and possibly most important Budget of the administration.
My pride would not accept that. I e-mailed my colleagues to tell them that as far as I was concerned it was a free vote (although we don't operate a whip, ordinarily we try our best to reach agreement before votes), and that they should vote as their consciences guided them.
A head count and an impromptu straw poll told me that, if two of us abstained, the Budget was going down by 28 votes to 27. That is what subsequently happened. Many of our partners, I believe, understood and sympathised with what we had done and our reasons for having done it. One certainly didn't, telling one of my colleagues (who had voted in support of the Budget) that we were "only a tiny part of the coalition" and that I'd had "no right to say the things (I had) said". Ironically, it was for the benefit of people who think like this that I had said them. Had it been said to me I would have replied that, right now, we would seem to be rather an important part of the coalition!
When I spoke to the Leader during the ensuing break in proceedings I made it clear to him again that all we wanted was a bit of respect and acknowledgement, and that those who had been advising him had let him down badly. He agreed - not only due to the necessity of the situation but also, I believe, as a matter of principle - and we secured another £250k for community projects (an Empowerment provision predictably described by New Labour as "a waste of money"). The meeting sat once again and the slightly amended Budget was approved by 29 votes to 28.
Needless to say I am not clairvoyant and I've absolutely no idea whether the Community Group will be involved in the next administration in any way, shape or form. As a rule of thumb we hope for the best and try to prepare for the worst. There have been mumblings that a coalition might be sought with individual members of my Group but not myself, but whether there is any truth in them or not I believe I know my colleagues better than that. But if we as a Group are involved we will seek to set out our stall more clearly at the beginning - in an honest, proportionate and reasonable way - and ensure that the organisation is structured in such a way as to respond with equal enthusiasm to the priorities of both or all the parties involved. That would avoid such a situation ever arising again.
I'm glad we've agreed a Budget that incorporates both a 0% tax increase and a substantial contribution to community projects and to the Voluntary Sector. All's well that ends well. Right now I guess we'll all be getting down to our respective election campaigns and let us see what comes out in the mix.
The reason it was "eventually approved", rather than being approved straight away, was because two members of the Community Group abstained on the first reading. I was one of those two.
I am proud to have served as part of the coalition that has managed the London Borough for Hounslow. I believe we have achieved many good things. I support the low tax agenda, subject to frontline services not being cut, and as I have said before it is to the great credit of the Leader of the Council, Peter Thompson, that he has overseen a team that has made this all possible.
So why did I and one of my colleagues abstain?
To understand our reasons fully one has to have some background knowledge about the way the coalition has developed over probably the last year or so. And when I speak about the development of the coalition I refer not just to the relationship between the two Groups, but also to how the respective partners have been served by the council organisation in general.
That period of time has been for us one long struggle. The first major indication that something was amiss was probably the Mogden expansion application by Thames Water, where officers even at the very highest level of the local authority engaged in unprecedented lobbying of elected members and on the night of the decision, having read reports and heard presentations from which important information was omitted, councillors from the big parties united to approve the application and leave the ICG, and the long-suffering residents of Isleworth and Hounslow South, high and dry.
But there was more, as Frank Carson might have put it. Section 106 money effectively stolen from the residents of Syon ward and relocated not only into another ward but into another Area Committee's domain also became a political battle which saw the ICG isolated as the mutual political interests of the big parties converged. The defiant organisational resistance to attempts by residents to help improve the Electronic Data Management System (EDMS), obstruction to individual initiatives to empower sections of the Voluntary Sector, intervention by those responsible for managing Communications to misrepresent the Mogden situation in a way that showed the ICG Lead Member and by association the whole Group in an unfavourable light and the Chief Executive's unwillingness to deal with our complaints about same in any meaningful way, and further Chief Officer obstruction over Mogden until the Leader eventually intervened all combined to create a situation in which Community Group priorities were quite demonstrably being dealt with in an entirely different manner than were Conservative Group priorities.
Apart from, in some areas, a blind and unhelpful departmental defensiveness on the part of certain Lead Members, the fault for this situation did not lie with our coalition partners. Except - and it is a very big "except" - that it was allowed to continue. Some Chief Officers became increasingly confident, in cases arrogant almost to the point of openly mocking us, while the low-tax bandwagon rolled smoothly through the year with devoted Chief Officer co-operation, and those whose wet dream the 0% Budget is were happy to remain oblivious, and possibly genuinely knew nothing about what was going on around them.
Added to that there was an element of political insensitivity. At the November 2009 Borough Council meeting the Lead Member for Finance forgot the name of the Group he was in coalition with, but was able to declare confidently last night (presumably in response to my plea for an "aspirational" budget), that the coalition's "aspiration" (i.e. not just his own or his Group's) was not to increase the Council Tax. Just that, nothing more.
I have to say it came as quite a shock to realise that, for sixteen years, I had put my family on the breadline and any other ambition I may have had in life on hold, so that some bloke in W4 would not have to endure the intolerable burden of having to pay the finance installments on his Bentley and another 10p each month on his Council Tax bill.
When all that is said however I still did want to support last night's Budget at the first time of asking. The councillor who suggested that I was electioneering could not have been more mistaken. As some Conservative councillors quite rightly argue, it is the relative poor just outside the benefit threshold who suffer disproportionately when their Council Tax bill goes up. The Leader, and the Lead Member for Finance, had drawn up a Budget which had quite skillfully avoided any incursion into frontline services. It did also include, it has to be said, a £300k package for the Voluntary Sector.
However, during my discussions with the Leader during the day, when I asked whether Community Group priorities could be given just that little bit more emphasis, it was clear that somebody - someone behind him - was playing hardball. Whom I don't know. What I did know is that the disrespect and indifference with which we had been treated by much of the corporate management over the past year or so was manifesting itself defiantly again, even as we approached the fourth and possibly most important Budget of the administration.
My pride would not accept that. I e-mailed my colleagues to tell them that as far as I was concerned it was a free vote (although we don't operate a whip, ordinarily we try our best to reach agreement before votes), and that they should vote as their consciences guided them.
A head count and an impromptu straw poll told me that, if two of us abstained, the Budget was going down by 28 votes to 27. That is what subsequently happened. Many of our partners, I believe, understood and sympathised with what we had done and our reasons for having done it. One certainly didn't, telling one of my colleagues (who had voted in support of the Budget) that we were "only a tiny part of the coalition" and that I'd had "no right to say the things (I had) said". Ironically, it was for the benefit of people who think like this that I had said them. Had it been said to me I would have replied that, right now, we would seem to be rather an important part of the coalition!
When I spoke to the Leader during the ensuing break in proceedings I made it clear to him again that all we wanted was a bit of respect and acknowledgement, and that those who had been advising him had let him down badly. He agreed - not only due to the necessity of the situation but also, I believe, as a matter of principle - and we secured another £250k for community projects (an Empowerment provision predictably described by New Labour as "a waste of money"). The meeting sat once again and the slightly amended Budget was approved by 29 votes to 28.
Needless to say I am not clairvoyant and I've absolutely no idea whether the Community Group will be involved in the next administration in any way, shape or form. As a rule of thumb we hope for the best and try to prepare for the worst. There have been mumblings that a coalition might be sought with individual members of my Group but not myself, but whether there is any truth in them or not I believe I know my colleagues better than that. But if we as a Group are involved we will seek to set out our stall more clearly at the beginning - in an honest, proportionate and reasonable way - and ensure that the organisation is structured in such a way as to respond with equal enthusiasm to the priorities of both or all the parties involved. That would avoid such a situation ever arising again.
I'm glad we've agreed a Budget that incorporates both a 0% tax increase and a substantial contribution to community projects and to the Voluntary Sector. All's well that ends well. Right now I guess we'll all be getting down to our respective election campaigns and let us see what comes out in the mix.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
What goes around
My first day at senior school was, like for anyone, a daunting experience. Suddenly there I was, resplendent in my brand new school uniform, and one of the smallest kids in the playground.
My experience was made easier by the fact that I had a few friends with me from my old primary school. They too were a trifle nervous and we clung together, metaphorically speaking, for support.
It wasn't long before we attracted the attention of the second year bully. For the purposes of this article I shall call him Jack. He was even smaller than we were. Nonetheless he strode over to us, bold as brass, and announced that he was going to "tootle" us.
We soon discovered that "tootling" was not the painful or traumatic experience we had immediately feared. It involved tearing the tag from the back of our new school ties which, it seems, were made by Tootle. It was a simple exercise in humiliation. Jack wanted to let us know who was boss.
Notwithstanding the fact that we were new kids we didn't see why this unimposing little squirt should be permitted to get away with this. Not, that was, until we saw the other kid. I shall call him Steve.
Steve was about six feet tall, despite only being twelve years old. He was blond, broad-shouldered, chunky and had a fearsome look about him. He smiled continually as he dared you with his eyes to resist the attentions of his diminutive friend Jack, lending him a slightly psychopathic aura. The four of us returned to our new formroom tootled.
From that day onwards Jack would often make our playtimes difficult. Not every day, but whenever the fancy took him. We avoided him, because we knew that wherever Jack was Steve would not be too far behind.
Then one day a curious thing happened. We walked out into the playground and espied Jack. But rather than giving us a hard time, Jack had a sheepish and slightly worried expression. He avoided us.
Out of curiosity we followed him. He avoided us some more. Then, almost as one, we cottoned on. Steve wasn't at school that day.
Jack was never unpleasant to us again.
Borough Council begins at 7.30 this evening.
My experience was made easier by the fact that I had a few friends with me from my old primary school. They too were a trifle nervous and we clung together, metaphorically speaking, for support.
It wasn't long before we attracted the attention of the second year bully. For the purposes of this article I shall call him Jack. He was even smaller than we were. Nonetheless he strode over to us, bold as brass, and announced that he was going to "tootle" us.
We soon discovered that "tootling" was not the painful or traumatic experience we had immediately feared. It involved tearing the tag from the back of our new school ties which, it seems, were made by Tootle. It was a simple exercise in humiliation. Jack wanted to let us know who was boss.
Notwithstanding the fact that we were new kids we didn't see why this unimposing little squirt should be permitted to get away with this. Not, that was, until we saw the other kid. I shall call him Steve.
Steve was about six feet tall, despite only being twelve years old. He was blond, broad-shouldered, chunky and had a fearsome look about him. He smiled continually as he dared you with his eyes to resist the attentions of his diminutive friend Jack, lending him a slightly psychopathic aura. The four of us returned to our new formroom tootled.
From that day onwards Jack would often make our playtimes difficult. Not every day, but whenever the fancy took him. We avoided him, because we knew that wherever Jack was Steve would not be too far behind.
Then one day a curious thing happened. We walked out into the playground and espied Jack. But rather than giving us a hard time, Jack had a sheepish and slightly worried expression. He avoided us.
Out of curiosity we followed him. He avoided us some more. Then, almost as one, we cottoned on. Steve wasn't at school that day.
Jack was never unpleasant to us again.
Borough Council begins at 7.30 this evening.
Friday, 11 December 2009
It's all fundamental
Over recent months it has become increasingly obvious to us as community councillors that we have not been enjoying the co-operation of some chief officers and other senior officials at the London Borough of Hounslow that we feel entitled to expect.
As is so often the case it begins with little more than a hunch, often tempered by a worry that one might be making too much of a casual remark, of an e-mail not responded to or a question not properly answered. We are all capable of letting people down on occasions and even the most competent local authority employee is not beyond the occasional lapse. For some reason whenever I protest about some or other failing within the organisation I find myself greeted with the "c" word. Not that "c" word, I hasten to add (none of our chief officers has become quite that brazen - yet!). But the word "conspiracy" has the potential to instantly transform a valid complaint into some psychological maladjustment on the part of the complainant, rubbishing both at a simple stroke. "It's not a conspiracy," goes the argument and, despite the fact that nobody had suggested it was, the substance of the complaint becomes lost in the fog.
The ongoing Mogden discussion is a very good case in point. E-mails will be sent in by community representatives asking legitimate questions about our monitoring operation. Then a reminder will be sent, then a reminder of the reminder. In one instance a senior officer had to be asked thirteen times for a substantive answer to a question. The officer complained that he was being harassed. I just didn't have the willpower or the energy to point out the obvious fact that, had he responded to the first e-mail, the twelve reminders would not have been necessary.
The passing of the Motion on Community Engagement by Borough Council on 21st July 2009 was in the view of us community councillors a milestone along the road to transforming our local authority from a perfunctory bureaucracy into an outward-looking, community-driven vehicle for positive change. Whether the other Groups on the local authority, all of whom supported the Motion, saw it in the same way is of course a matter for speculation. But for the corporate council it would have appear to have been received more as a challenge than as an opportunity.
One department in particular seems to be resisting the new mentality with gusto. Word coming across to us from frustrated subalterns, combined with the occasional (but by no means isolated) outburst of rudeness or sarcasm in correspondence with community leaders, suggests a view of the community activist's role in the process which is quite fundamentally at variance with our own. Getting something done about the mindset that seems to prevail is a little like extracting teeth, promises to try to do better without any attempt to drill down into the root of the problem and the occasional invitation to a private, unminuted, off-the-record chat as the days between now and the next local elections tick away being the favoured line of approach.
Last week a member of my Group received two items of correspondence from a senior officer for whom I have a lot of time and respect which rather summed up the standoff that seems to exist. I say two items, though in reality it was one and a half as the officer clearly thought twice about sending the e-mail and stopped in mid-sentence, although - it would appear inadvertently - he sent it anyway. In the first he protested that he didn't "take instructions from residents", and in the second he delivered himself of the view that "as a councillor you are a representative, not a delegate".
Assuming his view to be one that is shared by his colleagues, he would appear to have captured in two short sentences the essence of the corporate council's difficulty with us as a Group. Because it is fundamental to our outlook that we are - within reason - delegates rather than representatives. We were elected on the understanding that we would articulate the community's view and defend the community's interests, be it at Borough Council, at IBAC or at any other forum.
Our predecessors of course were of a different view. They clearly believed that they knew better than the "ordinary" people in the street and that their role was to pursue their party's interests rather than the community's - indeed on many occasions they seemed to take an almost revolting delight in "stitching up" the people who had elected them. They were voted out.
We were elected with a completely different mandate. A mandate to empower.
The words of the officer to whom I refer would seem to question the right of my electors to inform the work and deeds of their elected members. In so doing, they spell out the corporate council's actual rejection of the political programme of one of the parties to the coalition. It is little wonder that as the local elections approach and our time on office (they believe) draws rapidly to a close they should become more and more defiant, and obstructive, in their dealings with us.
With the rise of the Community Group, and even outside of our Group of a new way of thinking, the clash of the old fundamentalisms of free-market conservatism and dogmatic socialism, along with all the pragmatisms and compromises that exist between, pale into insignificance. The corporate council is able to adapt to either of these old systems because they both operate on common assumptions as to the role of the bureaucracy.
We, of course, are fundamentally different.
As is so often the case it begins with little more than a hunch, often tempered by a worry that one might be making too much of a casual remark, of an e-mail not responded to or a question not properly answered. We are all capable of letting people down on occasions and even the most competent local authority employee is not beyond the occasional lapse. For some reason whenever I protest about some or other failing within the organisation I find myself greeted with the "c" word. Not that "c" word, I hasten to add (none of our chief officers has become quite that brazen - yet!). But the word "conspiracy" has the potential to instantly transform a valid complaint into some psychological maladjustment on the part of the complainant, rubbishing both at a simple stroke. "It's not a conspiracy," goes the argument and, despite the fact that nobody had suggested it was, the substance of the complaint becomes lost in the fog.
The ongoing Mogden discussion is a very good case in point. E-mails will be sent in by community representatives asking legitimate questions about our monitoring operation. Then a reminder will be sent, then a reminder of the reminder. In one instance a senior officer had to be asked thirteen times for a substantive answer to a question. The officer complained that he was being harassed. I just didn't have the willpower or the energy to point out the obvious fact that, had he responded to the first e-mail, the twelve reminders would not have been necessary.
The passing of the Motion on Community Engagement by Borough Council on 21st July 2009 was in the view of us community councillors a milestone along the road to transforming our local authority from a perfunctory bureaucracy into an outward-looking, community-driven vehicle for positive change. Whether the other Groups on the local authority, all of whom supported the Motion, saw it in the same way is of course a matter for speculation. But for the corporate council it would have appear to have been received more as a challenge than as an opportunity.
One department in particular seems to be resisting the new mentality with gusto. Word coming across to us from frustrated subalterns, combined with the occasional (but by no means isolated) outburst of rudeness or sarcasm in correspondence with community leaders, suggests a view of the community activist's role in the process which is quite fundamentally at variance with our own. Getting something done about the mindset that seems to prevail is a little like extracting teeth, promises to try to do better without any attempt to drill down into the root of the problem and the occasional invitation to a private, unminuted, off-the-record chat as the days between now and the next local elections tick away being the favoured line of approach.
Last week a member of my Group received two items of correspondence from a senior officer for whom I have a lot of time and respect which rather summed up the standoff that seems to exist. I say two items, though in reality it was one and a half as the officer clearly thought twice about sending the e-mail and stopped in mid-sentence, although - it would appear inadvertently - he sent it anyway. In the first he protested that he didn't "take instructions from residents", and in the second he delivered himself of the view that "as a councillor you are a representative, not a delegate".
Assuming his view to be one that is shared by his colleagues, he would appear to have captured in two short sentences the essence of the corporate council's difficulty with us as a Group. Because it is fundamental to our outlook that we are - within reason - delegates rather than representatives. We were elected on the understanding that we would articulate the community's view and defend the community's interests, be it at Borough Council, at IBAC or at any other forum.
Our predecessors of course were of a different view. They clearly believed that they knew better than the "ordinary" people in the street and that their role was to pursue their party's interests rather than the community's - indeed on many occasions they seemed to take an almost revolting delight in "stitching up" the people who had elected them. They were voted out.
We were elected with a completely different mandate. A mandate to empower.
The words of the officer to whom I refer would seem to question the right of my electors to inform the work and deeds of their elected members. In so doing, they spell out the corporate council's actual rejection of the political programme of one of the parties to the coalition. It is little wonder that as the local elections approach and our time on office (they believe) draws rapidly to a close they should become more and more defiant, and obstructive, in their dealings with us.
With the rise of the Community Group, and even outside of our Group of a new way of thinking, the clash of the old fundamentalisms of free-market conservatism and dogmatic socialism, along with all the pragmatisms and compromises that exist between, pale into insignificance. The corporate council is able to adapt to either of these old systems because they both operate on common assumptions as to the role of the bureaucracy.
We, of course, are fundamentally different.
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