Writing on Con Home - why we don't need fewer councillors

Something of a rant but with the serious point that elected people, especially councillors, are the way we hold the unelected people to account:

But far from us needing fewer politicians, we need more. Rather than taking the decision-making further away from ordinary residents with unitary councils, regional mayors, and combined authorities, we should, as Conservatives, be wanting to get more decisions made right down in the communities where those ordinary residents live, by people they know and can speak with. Right now, our system of local democracy doesn’t function well, and the lack of real accountability is a big reason for this.

Whole piece on the always excellent Conservative Home.

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The strange death of local government - a comment on setting budgets (and what we do)

‘No new money from central government is being provided to councils in 2017/18. In fact, more than two thirds of councils will actually be worse off next year than they were expecting.'

You will have heard this sort of observation many times over many years. This version is from the current chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA), Lord Porter. The problem is that, while I think Lord Porter is right, over the years the repeated cries of pain from local government have destroyed much of our credibility on this matter - there may now be a wolf but nobody believes us.

That Night a Fire did break out--
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street--
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence) -- but all in vain!
For every time she shouted 'Fire!'
They only answered 'Little Liar!'
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were Burned.

Or in less poetic terms:

"Surrey County Council should hang their heads in shame.

"Surrey residents will have seen their council tax go up by around 85 per cent in the last two decades and have every right to feel that their local representatives have let them down once again."

So says the Taxpayers Alliance as it argues how paying councillors, high salaries for top officials and trips to conferences show there's no need for tax increases. After all, local government always says this:

"After years of striving to keep council tax as low as possible or frozen, many town halls have found themselves having to ask residents to pay more council tax ..."

That's Cllr Claire Kober, leader of Camden and chair of the LGA's resources board.

So is there any truth in all this? Are local councils being stripped bare as the easiest target for national government demanded austerity or is there still largess, waste and unnecessary expense out there in local government land?

I can't really comment on Surrey or indeed any local council other than my own, Bradford. Here's the state of our budget:



For the sake of precision, this is the 2016/17 revenue budget, third quarter report (taken from the papers for a Corporate Overview and Scrutiny meeting on 2 February 2017). What it shows is that Bradford Council's net expenditure for 2016/17 is £378m and gross expenditure is £1,230m (net expenditure being that gross figure less income). This is, for us mere mortals, a lot of money and most of it - including most of the income - is public money.

You will appreciate how, given the scale of the money we spend, saving a hundred thousand or so on paying councillors, senior officials or trade union reps isn't likely to fix the problem (assuming - see above - we accept there is a problem). And nor is this where we're spending the money. I'm going to focus on the unfunded part of the table above - the 'net budget' figure of £378m. This is funded from two sources - local taxes (council tax and, at some point, business rates) and Revenue Support Grant (RSG). When you hear about cuts to local budgets what is being talked about is reduction in RSG. It is the stated intention of the government to reduce this grant to zero - it is currently around £138m in Bradford. Some local authorities in England already have no RSG - the government cannot cut the budget of, for example, Sevenoaks District in Kent because they no longer give it any grant.

But enough of where the money comes from what about how its spent. Were I to ask an average Bingley Rural resident to tell me how much is spent on highways and how much on social care, I'd probably get similar numbers. The reality here is that we spend around ten times as much on social care as we do on highways. Look at that table above and you'll see that the net budget for adults' and children's care amounts to £207.8m out of that £378m net budget - that's 55% of the total net budget and over 70% of the money we spend on delivering services. Yet these are, in the main, hidden services that only the individual recipients know about.

In the budget planning papers for 2017/18 Bradford's finance director reports that, in terms of delivering care, we plan to spend £158m in the forthcoming year (note this is a different definition and calculation from the table above). And this will support 6,200 vulnerable people at a cost in excess of £25,000 per person. Oh, before you call this a scandalous waste recognise that this represents £480 per week in a world where average weekly cost in a care home (not a nursing home) is, according to Which, £600. And this hides significant cross-subsidy:

According to the healthcare market intelligence provider LaingBuisson, residential care homes in England currently need to charge fees of between £590 and £648 per week.

However, the average fee paid by English councils for residential care of older people was just £486 per week in 2016/17.

LaingBuisson estimates this means residents who pay from their own finances are filling a funding gap of £1.3bn a year.

What we're seeing in top tier local government is its gradual decline from being a maker of place into being the funder of care for vulnerable people. For county councils this is even clearer as they don't provide services such as refuse collection, leisure services, housing and economic development that metropolitan districts like Bradford provide. I'm guessing that the proportion of county budgets spent on providing care is touching 70%.

Linked to this shift in local government priority is a secondary truth - we really have very little control over these budgets. With adult care the entitlement to care is set out in law and local authorities have a duty to provide (or enable provision of) that care. If an older or disabled person - and there are growing populations in both areas - qualifies, the council has to provide and has to pay. For children we have a little more flexibility but most councils rightly seek to avoid increasing the risks and government retains (and exercises) the power to intervene and direct decisions in children's services.

This strange death of local government belies the scale of our spending and the importance (or even self-importance) of councillors. The sad reality for many councillors is that their local parish or town council has more flexibility in decision-making than does the grand top tier council with its fine offices, highly paid officials and more-or-less full time councillors. None of this is a criticism of local councils or councillors but rather a recognition - something even the TPA recognises in its more measured moments - that most of the financial challenges facing local councils point back to national government where, despite all the rhetoric, local councillors are largely seen by officials as bumbling fools that get in the way.

I remember a grumpy old Labour councillor in Bradford called Syd Collard who, on the minibus to some planning committee site visit, went on at length about how being a councillor was a waste of time these days and he wouldn't recommend it to anyone any more. My Dad - a councillor for 35 years - says much the same. Wherever we look and regardless of national government cant about localism our ability to make local decisions about local services to local people are constrained by the interference of government regulations and the prejudices of the 'Man in Whitehall'.

I'm sure Syd and my Dad would agree that local government is important. But right now local councils - the top tier ones at least - are in danger of becoming merely the agents of care delivery for a combination of the NHS and national government departments. Without belittling care as a service, this isn't what we need and reminds me daily how the stupidity of the poll tax and the arrogance of ministers since resulted in the emasculation of local councillors - a gentling enacted in law by Blair's 2000 Local Government Act that left most of us sitting on the backbench being 'community leaders' rather than doing what people think they elected us to do.

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Why Councils should broadcast their meetings.

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Quite rightly the government has told local councils that they aren't allowed to unreasonably refuse people the right to photograph or film meetings. Yet this has yet to filter through to Councillors who are worried that the films or photographs might given a spin making the Council or councillors look bad.

Indeed this has happened here in Bradford where our Regulatory & Appeals Committee is upset because, at a meeting where permission was given for housing on a site at Apperley Bridge, a video was made that - quite creativeif a little long-winded - included a commentary that was less than complementary about the Councillors making the decision.

Yesterday the film-makers bobbed up again - this time to film the deliberations of a proposal to build some 600 new homes on a site in Fagley. And members of the committee weren't happy and wanted the filming stopped. Having been told they couldn't do this, they then demanded that the raw, unedited footage be given to the Council. The councillors were told they could only ask nicely and couldn't demand.

There is a simple and easy solution - pretty cheap these days too - to these councillors harrumph: broadcast the meeting. This isn't difficult to set up and plenty of councils have started to do this - Kirklees, Hampshire, Basingstoke, Wakefield, Croydon, Tameside, Brentwood are all examples. And if you have a record those pesky film-makers have less chance to do their Michael Moore style manipulation and make all us councillors look like baddies.

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Blair's 'modernisation' of local government has been a disaster...

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The Association of Public Sector Excellence (APSE) - which for connoisseurs of local government used to be the Association of Direct Labour Organisations (ADLO) - has published findings from a survey of councillors that asked about the 'modernisation' of 2000 that introduced the leader and cabinet system of administration:

Almost two-thirds of decision-making councillors believe the modernisation agenda for local authorities – which heralded the introduction of cabinet systems of governance – has been a success. Just 37% of backbench members agreed.

Two out of three non-executive councillors felt the changes had marginalised their role with 43% believing they could personally help to improve local services compared to 87% of executive elected members.

In simple terms people with front bench jobs believe the system is just great and that they can really influence what's going on but the rest of the councillors feel left out. This is a reminder that Blair's modernisation of local government was half-baked and ineffective. It began with lots of typical Blairite stuff about the committee system being a 19th century system unsuited to the challenges of decision-making in modern local government and ended up (because Labour councillors successfully lobbied to prevent the imposition of directly-elected mayors) with the rather undemocratic and opaque system of cabinet administration.

So the situation we now have is one where most councillors (Executives and/or Cabinets typically contain fewer than ten members) are no longer involved in the decision-making that their residents actually elect them to do. Once every four years there's a vote to choose a leader and this person hand picks the chosen few who will make the decisions. The rest of the council languish on mostly purposeless scrutiny committees or toil away on regulatory panels deciding planning permissions, licences and so forth - knowing that their decisions are subject (quite rightly) to challenge and external inspection.

The findings from APSE's survey shouldn't come as a surprise - any conversation with backbench councillors will reveal a genuine frustration about being able to influence the system. Instead we're fobbed off with a ludicrous role of 'community leader' - in the view of senior officers and council leadership, a role that tasks councillors with the job of communicating their better's decisions to hoi polloi. All this is made worse by the continuation of the system of 'special responsibility allowances' - extra payments to councillors who chair committees, run panels or do some other task deemed over-and-above the normal job of being a councillor.

APSE chicken out of proposing any substantial change - preferring instead to suggest stroking backbenchers and sympathising with their grumbles:

‘This study shows there is a need to find a way to better recognise the contribution of councillors who may be focused on serving their communities but feel disconnected from decision-making.’

So rather than change the system so councillors actually are involved in decision-making, we cobble together some form of words that says all the stuff we do is just as important. Except, of course, we know that it isn't as important. Being able to explain to a resident whose bin has vanished that the Council charges for a replacement is not the same as being able to make a decision about whether or not such a charge is warranted.

Perhaps we need to consider whether we should complete Blair's botched modernisation - I'd support elected mayors but even without them the current system clearly has too many local councillors - or else to go back to a system where all the councillors we elect are actually involved in doing the thing we elect them to do. That is to make decisions on our behalf about the administration of the local council and its services.

The present system lacks open-ness, is not especially democratic and produces a lot of councillors who feel like spare parts. Going back to the committee system would give those councillors a real role to play (and allow for them to develop genuine knowledge on a given area of service -something the cabinet portfolio system precludes). Alternatively we should reduce the number of councillors significantly, pay them all the same regardless of position, and eliminate the disconnection between front- and back-benches.

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Twenty years serving Bingley Rural - a pleasure and I've done all right I hope

I've been the councillor for Bingley Rural for approaching twenty years. Come next year's elections it will be twenty years. And in that time I've helped, mostly in small ways, loads of people in the villages (at first four but, since 2004, five) with their issues. A lot of the time I get stuff sorted, grease the cogs of local government and allow people to get back to living their lives. Sometimes I fail, the problem isn't - or can't be - solved and this is as frustrating for me as it it for the people who've asked for my help.

When I look back, I remember the things that didn't work out - whether it's getting a beer garden approved for The George or trying to help a resident get permission for a hay store so she could better care for her motley collection of retired horses. And the bigger stuff like the planning permission at Crack Lane in Wilsden - a load of houses on a site that floods all the time and can only be accessed via the narrowest and steepest of rural roads. A planning consent rammed through by a Council seemingly obsessed with delivering on some sort of fictional housing need - macho planning at its worst.

Then I think about the things that aren't so straightforward - the traffic calming schemes that everyone wants until they're in place when everyone hates them. We really have to find a better way - the schemes going in today simply don't fit the bill. As one resident explained - he doesn't drive through Harden because his wife's bad back is exacerbated by the sleeping policemen in the village. Yet council officers are ever more defensive when challenged - pointing to "national guidance" and "good practice" to justify jarring, rattling physical speed controls. I'm minded not to support any more of these until this problem is sorted - the current schemes simply aren't right.

I was once asked - quite late in the evening when I was less than sober and in The Fleece in Cullingworth - "what have you done for me?" I stumbled over my answer but wish, in a classic piece of l'esprit d'escalier, that I'd responded with "what have you asked me to do for you?" But in the spirit of a genuine response here's a few of the big things I've help happen in Bingley Rural.

Parkside School - back in 1999 when Labour was doing its best to utterly ruin Bradford's education there was a schools reorganisation that abolished the middle school system the City had had since the 1960s. Had we not campaigned for a secondary school at Parkside, children from Cullingworth and Denholme would have been bused into Bradford or Keighley for school.

Manywells tip - the tip getting its permission was before I first joined the council but the efforts we've put in to stop the tip polluting the village and surrounding countryside have paid off. In time what was a smelly, fly-infested and bird-ridden rubbish dump will become a grassed and wooded hill above the village.

Buck Park Quarry - most of the credit goes to Denholme Residents Action Group (DRAG) but I've helped them through the long struggle to stop landfill at Buck Park. From the first application when, sat behind Cllr Harrison, I was muttering (as loud as possible) "refuse it David, refuse it" - it was turned down, the council didn't turn up at the public enquiry and the developer's failure to comply with conditions finally killed the idea of dumping putrid and toxic waste in Denholme

Cornerstones, Cottingley - I forget how many millions the development was but that probably doesn't matter. Again someone else, Cllr Baroness Eaton, had a bigger role but we bashed enough council heads together to get a fantastic community facility, a new church and a new medical centre for the village. I was talking to Irene, the chair or trustees recently and she reminisced about walking with Prince Charles (a long story) through the estate talking about what was needed. And we have what was need now.

Cullingworth Primary School - I was a governor at Cullingworth Primary during the incredibly protracted negotiations to get the land for the new primary in the village. I remember meeting with Philip Robinson, the Council Chief Executive at the time and him describing the land transaction as the most complicated and fraught he'd handled in 30 years as a council officer.

St Ives Country Park - Great place, isn't it? Well the refurbishment, the adventure playground, the new trails - these were a priority when I was Executive Member with the culture and regeneration portfolio. We now have a fantastic free facility for local people and visitors alike

Cullingworth Village Hall - just a month ago the planning committee agree to set aside £410,000 of s106 funding for a new village hall for Cullingworth. Again most of the credit is down to the Village Hall Renewal Committee but I helped - it is my pet scheme after all.

This is what Councillors do. It's not about debating the great issues of the day in the Council chambers or playing endless games of petty politics or in-party backstabbing. It's not the grand stuff but the every day things that bother ordinary people.

I think I've done all right. Perhaps my friends and neighbours in Bingley Rural will keep me on for another four years next May?

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What are local councillors for?

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I attended the Annual General Meeting of a local wellbeing charity this evening and, while waiting for the meeting to start, I chatted to the man who runs the charity's community garden and allotment project. Partly the conversation was about potatoes and runner beans but he also asked one of those deceptively difficult to answer but simple questions - what does a councillor do?

Now I've an answer to this question - people elect us to represent them. And this means that we do two things. The first is to go down to City Hall and make decisions for the simple reason that not all of those people can get down to do their own voting. In our discussion of such glories as community leadership and 21st century councillors, we often forget this simple - and central - function of the people we elect. Making decisions about the things that local councils do is the core function of the councillor and the main purpose of representative democracy.

The second way in which we represent the people who elect us is by acting as a route through which those who elect us can ensure their voice is heard. Sometimes this is a communal voice campaigning for new things or preventing old things from going, and sometimes this is an individual voice that the councillor can amplify by making sure it is heard by the right person at the right time.

None of this is about leadership, change or indeed anything other than being something of a voice for the people who elect us. Which is why I was interested in Localopolis' idea that us local councillors should be mini-mayors:

Mini mayors are local councillors with added status and recognition.  More than simply the community’s representative on the Council they are the focus for community governance.  Many councillors already act informally as mini mayors – the idea here is that this role could be formalised and given legal weight. 

I rather like this idea - I would because, as a local councillor, it strokes my ego. I'm not just a little voice in a big council but a big voice in a little community. In making the proposal Localopolis observes that, under the 'leader and cabinet' model of governance most councils use, backbench councillors feel unfulfilled and are excluded from council-wide decision-making. So we seek out a new role for councillors - the mini-mayor.

The idea is that the councillor - ex-officio - sits on a number of sub-council bodies like parish or community councils, school governors and the management boards of any 'community initiatives'. This brings me back to my conversation with the chap who ran the allotment project - I made the observation that, dull though it sounds, my special skill as a councillor is 'going to meetings'. I said this partly in a moment of self-deprecation but also in a recognition that 'going to meetings' is not an end in itself, you have to do something as a result of going to the meetings!

If this idea of the mini-mayor is seen as a good one, it needs to get beyond going to meetings. As a local councillor I represent five villages, four of them parished, three secondary schools, six primary schools, two village societies, three community associations, two village halls and a host of other people and organisations making up Bingley Rural's 'Big Society'. However hard I try and even with the support of my two ward colleagues I can't make it to all the meetings. And even were I to achieve the nearly impossible and get to all the meetings, I would not be in a position to "join things up locally".

If mini-mayors are to work then councils have to delegate some of the decision-making from the eyries of City Hall to the local wards - to councillors. Because - back to the point of electing us - it is decision-making that is the main purpose of the councillor. Localopolis's idea only works if councillors have a formal decision-making role in the communities they represent. Without that authority, the 'mini-mayor' operates in a contested environment - parish councils with their own income and status, community groups jealously guarding their ideas and territory, and village halls or sports clubs promoting what they want to do. And this is before we remember that, in most places, the role of the councillor is also politically contested.

Much though I see merit in the mini-mayor idea, it is a reminder that the 2000 Local Government Act emasculated local councillors and created the situation where many ended up flapping around wondering what their role and purpose might be. Fortunately local councils - thanks to Mr Pickles - now have the option to create governance models that bring councillors back into decision-making. Councils can also - and should - devolve a great deal more to area committees and other structures below the main council administration.

In the end though - and to answer my question - local councillors are for 'representation'. What we need to do is give those councillors the support, access and capacity to actually do that vital job of kicking down the doors of bureaucrats to ensure that the people's voice echoes round those offices as loudly as possible.

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Trust me, I'm a (local) politician!

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I haven't seen the details of the polling but there will be a load of grinning councillors reading this:

The poll, carried out on behalf of the Local Government Association (LGA), showed that when it comes to making decisions about local services and the local area only 9% of people trusted MPs and a meagre 6% of people trusted government ministers. However, 77% of people trusted their local Councillor to fight for the local area. This figure has risen from 71% in October, while the number of people who would not trust MPs or government ministers dropped from 16% to 8%.

And all this rather gives the lie to those who see the solution being fewer community politicians - local councillors, parish councillors and the like - and more professional, manager-like regional, national and supra-national politicians.

The reverse is what we need.

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Some Councillors just don't get it - the case of York's leader and his deputy

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The leader and deputy leader of York City Council appear to dislike the publics' opinions:

A report brought before City of York Council’s audit and governance committee at the request of leader Coun James Alexander and his deputy, Coun Tracey Simpson-Laing, this week recommended speakers should not criticise the authority’s officials, should avoid “party political” and “frivolous” points and should ensure anything they say is “factually correct”. 

As it happens the committee wisely sent the document straight back to this couple of oversensitive political leaders with some choice word. But the question is whatever possessed them to propose gagging public comment and cuffing the prerogative of meeting chairmen?

This is from the same book as banning fair reporting, stopping photography and preventing filming - all things that self-important councillors have done in recent times.

We really should stop trying to make out that we are so grand that any criticism of our actions, debates or decisions must be prevented.

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The culture of social work (and the arrogance of the law).

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None of us know the whole truth about the tragic case of the woman forced into a caesarian only to have her baby taken into care and put up for adoption. We will have seen the original story, the related comments from Christopher Booker and John Hemmings MP, assorted clarifications from within the system including Essex County Council and a selection of writings from legal bloggers explaining why those criticising the system are wrong (or even suggesting, without evidence, that the facts are so very different from those printed in the newspapers). Plus latterly the interviews with the woman herself.

Because I don't know the whole truth, if I comment as a non-professional (i.e. not a child protection social worker or a specialist lawyer) then what I say can - and will be - simply dismissed by the system's defenders. Indeed, the easiest option for such defenders of the system is to attack the writer's credibility. You know how this turns out when the author (who is no more able to assess the "facts" than others but believes, also without evidence, that they are more able in this regard) starts with this sort of line:

So who are Christopher Booker and John Hemming?

This is followed by criticism based on unconnected matters (Booker's views on climate change, for example) and selective quotations from cases where either Booker or Hemming - or both - had been involved or had made comment. This isn't to say that Booker or Hemming are right or wrong but to observe that using anecdote (and a selected quote, albeit from a judge, is just anecdote) to destroy credibility is a classic tactic in ad hominem attacks.

The problem here is that the writer in question is, for all his attempts at being right-on, essentially an insider to the system - a government lawyer:

I’m a barrister, and worked as a government lawyer for twelve years, advising ministers and government departments on a wide range of public law issues from tax to terrorism, from freedom of information to pensions, from discrimination to health and from defence to broadcasting. My career in government included stints at the Cabinet Office, where I advised on the EU Constitution negotiations, and at the Attorney General’s Office where I advised Lord Goldsmith on a wide variety of legal issues. I have advised nearly every government department, from the Home Office to Health and from the Treasury to the MoD.

I note with interest that the author is emphatically not a specialist in family law, social work or issues relating to mental health. Rather he is concerned to defend the system whereby social services, health and the courts were able (again whether this is right is not the question) to force a woman into a caesarian section, take her child into care and subsequently put that child up for adoption.  And when journalists, MPs or other lay people challenge or question the system it is imperative that it is defended - and especially that the cultural assumptions of, in this case, social work are not opened up for examination.

I've written before about the ideology of social work - the assumption of societal guilt, non-judgementalism and rejection of heterodox, or seemingly hetrodox, choices - but here it is the culture that is more important. In one respect this is a culture of self-protection, closing ranks and hiding in process and paper trails - things that are not surprising in a large bureaucratic organisation of any sort (and child protection systems such as closed courts make this much easier). However, there is a broader cultural factor - social work, like the law and medicine, presumes that only it is qualified to decide on a course of action and that any options from non-professionals are quite simply wrong.

Moreover, the culture is reinforced by the very familiar form of words in response to enquiries about specific cases: "(name of organisation - usually a local council) does not comment on individual cases". Thus the organisation can plead protection of privacy (for the subject of a case) in order to prevent any questioning of its decision-making. Indeed, in nearly all child protection cases, the actual decision-making process is not subject to any lay scrutiny and the secrecy of the courts inevitably leads to problems for reporters - such as Christopher Booker - in reporting concerns.

Even where there is a formal opportunity for lay enquiry within the system (such as is afforded to me as a local councillor), we are strongly advised that our remit is with the proper administration of the system not with the decision taken. A councillor is able to question whether the council has conducted the process correctly (and there are routes for action if this is not so) but, in essence, if the paperwork is correct, we are unable to challenge the basis of the decision.

Finally, the system of non-identification is used to protect the names of the decision-makers as well as the names of social services clients. This makes it more difficult to have adequate lay scrutiny at a departmental level and provides a strong incentive and opportunity to cover-up. Here in Bradford, the full Hamzah Khan serious case review is so redacted as to provide little practical value to us as councillors. We are forced to rely on the report summary  - and the assumptions it inevitably makes - rather than have the ability to review the actual data upon which that summary is based.

It may be (although I doubt it) that the actions taken in the Essex case were the only reasonable options available to the Council and other agencies. But so long as we cannot know (and 'we' does not have to mean full disclosure to the public merely disclosure to individuals or organisations that are not instruments in the decision-making itself), there will remain doubts about why certain decisions are made, the professional ideology of the decision-makers and the secretive organisational culture that engulfs social work.

Perhaps, rather than engage in ad hominem attacks on those struggling to expose possible flaws in our care systems, great legal minds - the full arrogance of the law - would be better directed to finding ways of allowing proper scrutiny of social services' decision-making and the operation of the family courts without unduly compromising the necessary protection of client identities.

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Minimum pricing by stealth...

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The campaign against minimum pricing for alcohol - a unwarranted and unjustified impost on the less well of - seems to have been success, at least for the time being. Or so says the Wine and Spirits Trade Association: 

Minimum alcohol pricing looks set to stay off the UK Government's policy agenda until at least the next General Election, the chief executive of the country's Wine & Spirit Trade Association has said. 

Crack open the bubbly folks, good cheer for all - including the poorest in the land - we can toast a successful campaign.

Or can we? Here's something from Alcohol Concerns 'Guide to Alcohol for Councillors':

Consider introducing a by-law to establish local or regional minimum pricing which is being looked at by local authorities in the north West.

This document - riddled with misinformation and inaccuracies (including the shocking lie that alcohol problems are getting worse when they aren't) - is being sent out across the land to Councillors. And if ever there were a bunch of people tempted by the New Puritan message it's Councillors - we love a nice ban, a new control or a new power.

So my cavalier friends the game has shifted - now you need to get hold of your local councillor and make the case for alcohol. The case about thousands of jobs, hundreds of businesses and the pleasure of the millions who elect us councillors.

Otherwise you'll get minimum pricing by stealth.

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Minimum alcohol pricing looks set to stay off the UK Government's policy agenda until at least the next General Election, the chief executive of the country's Wine & Spirit Trade Association has said.
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/584393/minimum-alcohol-pricing-off-the-uk-policy-agenda-says-wsta-chief#mcY3BLie5v2UP4JC.99

Minimum alcohol pricing looks set to stay off the UK Government's policy agenda until at least the next General Election, the chief executive of the country's Wine & Spirit Trade Association has said.
Read more at http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/584393/minimum-alcohol-pricing-off-the-uk-policy-agenda-says-wsta-chief#mcY3BLie5v2UP4JC.99

In which the BBC trolls Councillors for a story...

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I got a nice email from polling company ComRes asking me to answer a few questions. As Guido reports, these questions amount to trolling for a story:

The questions include:

• asking if they think “climate change is not happening”
• whether “Immigration has had a negative impact on Britain”
• whether “legalising gay marriage will cost my party more votes than it gains at the next Election”
• whether they support a ban on the burkha
• whether Cameron and Osborne are “arrogant”
• whether they support an electoral pact with UKIP

I suppose it's funny in a way - and there will be some colleague who hold some pretty whack views - but the BBC, who commissioned this, really should be ashamed of such a blatant attempt to troll for a nice silly season story using an opinion poll (paid for with tax money).

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On rude Bradford councillors...

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Yesterday, at a meeting of Bradford Council's Regulatory & Appeals Committee, there was a fine example of the arrogance of institutions and the rudeness of politicians.

Let me explain:

1. Around fifty members of the public were kept waiting in a corridor of City Hall while the committee had a "briefing". If members needed to be briefed before the meeting, so be it. But other rooms are available and the public could be allowed to go into the meeting room and sit down.

2. The meeting started late. Not a little bit late but 20 minutes late. No reasons were given, no explanations made. And worst of all the Chairman, Cllr Warburton didn't even apologise for keeping people - quite a few of them elderly - waiting in a drafty corridor.

A rather poor show. The public only turn up to meetings when it's really important to them - a little more courtesy wouldn't go amiss.

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Bet Cllr Pullen's pleased we scrapped the Standards Board!

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One of those slightly unfortunate comments on Twitter created a little storm in a teacup. George Galloway, for once, turned his eye towards Bradford to lay it on with a trowel about a Tweet by Keighley councillor, Steve Pullen:

“I don’t know who Councillor Steve Pullen is, but he’s an absolute disgrace, not just to the Labour party, but to humanity.”

Bit hard on Steve I suspect! But what a blessing it is that the Coalition scrapped the Standards Board. Had it not done so a long-winded investigation would have ensured into the Tweet doubtless culminating in some expensive lawyers trooping up to Bradford to conduct a little kangeroo court. Galloway would have loved the Standards Board!

Instead Steve's apologised, had his wrist slapped by the whips and left us the joy and pleasure of a Galloway rant!

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Haringey Council - fussbucket central!

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Although I fear that Councils elsewhere will be rubbing their hands in glee at the opportunity to fuss and bother over petty regulation:

Cllr Nilgun Canver, Cabinet Member for the Environment at Haringey Council, said: 'We will continue to work closely with our partners in the police and the courts to tackle illegal activity around vehicles, especially looking out for unlicensed waste carriers that are responsible for so much dumping in our borough.
 

Now I'm pretty sure that this nannying politician didn't write that quote - it was crafted by a well-staffed press office and approved by layers of bureaucrats. I could launch into a rant about so-called "unlicensed waste" and the obscene targeting of tradesmen in vans going about their everyday business. You know why the carpet fitter won't take you old carpet away? And you have to take your own waste to the council tip?

It's because councils have a nice little earner ripping off tradesmen and the Environment Agency has some expensive regulations for people moving "waste" about. Most of these regulations are not there to save the planet, to promote recycling or any such noble aim - they are there to protect primary manufacturers, they a simply protectionism via regulation.

Cllr Canver (or rather the jobsworth who wrote the quote she approved) assumes that Fred the plumber with some household waste in his van is going to do some "dumping in our borough". Rather than take it home, transfer it to his private vehicle and then take it to the tip - thereby avoiding tipping charges from the Council.

The report - understandably - focuses on the utter nonsense of fining a non-smoker driving a brand new van for:

Clipboard-wielding council officers then, however, spotted that he didn't have a 'no smoking' sticker on his gleaming van and he was given an on-the-spot fine of £200. 

And Cllr Canver (without thinking because she probably didn't) had this to say:

We will continue to protect those workers who are forced to sit in smoke polluted environments because their employers don't comply with the law which bans smoke in company vehicles.'

The mind doth truly boggle - this was a brand new van, pristine and shiny, being driven by someone who had never smoked.

However the real lesson of this is that the authorities had no good reasons at all to stop this vehicle. Councils and police have adopted an aggressive and illiberal approach to anyone who has the audacity to use a van for work. I've no issue stopping a van if it's being driven badly, seems unsafe or might have been involved in a crime. But stopping every van that passes and trying to find things to fine the driver for - this was a deliberate and targeted attack on people going about their daily business.

Finally, the Council claims the caught "several fly-tippers" - given the location (Wickes DIY) and the presence of a load of hi-viz clad clipboard-wielders, this is almost certainly not the case at all. What they found were people without a waste licence - not the same thing at all. One is dumping stuff by the roadside, the other is not complying with an expensive piece of petty bureaucracy.

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The brave among you might care to check out Cllr Canver's CV - it's a paen to left-leaning fussbucketry!

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Councillors as agents of the state

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The Communities and Local Government Select Committee has been worrying at the role of Councillors. And they have published a report that says Councillors' role is "on the frontline". It seems that this doesn't mean they're shipping us to Afghanistan apparently but rather that we should be out of those fusty dusty council meetings.

Here's Clive Betts MP, the committee chairman:

Councillors are spending less time in council chambers and more time out and about in their communities. In future, they will increasingly need to be on the frontline, working with constituents and external organisations such as GPs, schools, police, local businesses and voluntary organisations to ensure their communities make the most of all the opportunities available to them."

Now let me explain something here. As a councillor I am elected with the specific and express purpose of representing - in my case - the residents of Bingley Rural in the decisions that the council makes. That really is my role - it's why we have councillors since all 13,000 of those residents can't squeeze into City Hall to make the decision.

What Mr Betts and his committee appear to want us to do is something entirely different. Partly this is because the last Labour government (anticipating an age of elected mayors that never happened) abolished the committee system that had served local government pretty well for a 100 years or so. Instead we are told we're now "community leaders" - in reality little more than agents of the state and deliverers of bacon to the masses on behalf of benevolent state authorities.

For most councillors their main role - being a representative - is exercised only two or three times a year. When we elect a leader (although technically this is only done once every four years now), when we set the level of council tax and when we make the two or three decisions that statute has reserved to full council. Instead we are treated as some kind of community development worker - urged to make sure that all the state's goodies (those "opportunities" Mr Betts refers to) are available to our residents.

From being involved in debating and deciding on major issues - how must to spend on housing, the organisation and operation of social services and the building of public facilities - we have descended into pettifogging details. Worse still we are sucked into the little bans and controls that officers like to introduce - passive aggressive "no doorstop selling" campaigns, raising awareness of obesity or supporting campaigns against drinking or smoking.

In the end we scuttle round a few dozen active people in our wards and work with all sorts of "agencies" (when these can be bothered to involve us) with the main aim of delivering the goodies to the ward or accusing the other side of taking all those goodies for their wards. And we do a pretty good job of this in the main despite the system making it ever more difficult for someone with an actual job to fulfil the role.

...but it isn't what councillors are for, it isn't the point or purpose of representative democracy. And if the future is just about community development we need to ask why we need so many councillors. Or whether forcing us into being agents for state agencies simply undermines our democracy.

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Perhaps we should try some of this democracy stuff?

When I pitched successfully to be the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Keighley back in 1999, I made some observations about 'modern'. This was, after all, amidst the white heat of Blairite modernisation and the audience wanted to be reminded that simply changing things to be 'modern' didn't automatically make them better. As I pointed out a couple of days ago, Blair's 'modernisation' of local government resulted in the loss of transparency and the neutering of full council as a decision-making meeting.

Today Charles Moore speaks of modernising - this time exploring Cameron's take on the idea. And in doing so he captures an essential truth - all this modernising is undermining that most ancient of ideas: democracy:

The way we are governed today, by whichever party, increasingly resembles a coup. A small group brings in a new leader, and rules, rather unsuccessfully, from his Downing Street court. Party members, local councillors and even MPs have incredibly little influence on what is decided. In an age when we expect the democratic rights of the citizen to grow, they are diminishing. He or she knows that we are governed by rules issuing from Europe, from the demands of human rights judges, from regulations not properly legislated for, from quangos and officials, so he knows his vote does not count. Is this a situation, as modernisers like to put it, “fit for the 21st century”? 

The idea of the 'court' surrounding the leader (whether god emperor or prime minister) is a central theme in Finer's History of Government and is something that the enlightenment in government - the US constitution, the idea of human rights and the principle of universal suffrage - sought to reduce in power if not remove. Yet, as Charles Moore shows us, that court - the 'Westminster Bubble' - remains as powerful as ever. The interaction between people within this narrow clique determines the policies and debate of the age, which is why we're talking so much about gay marriage and so little about inflation and the cost of living. This is why the BBC's advert for the Radio5 Live "app" talks of "cars driven by renewable energy" and how the debate about energy has become dominated by the need to 'reduce carbon' rather than why the old lady round the corner can't afford to heat her house.

This government by dinner party - directions decided by chats between friends and through the prism of metropolitan ignorance rather than through the process of democracy - presents a huge problem. But we stumble around looking for an solution. For some it lies in the Internet - a sort of iDemocracy where engaged and empowered citizens interact via the web. Others want devolution and fragmentation - driving more decision-making down to regions, cities and borough. And others celebrate the bureaucratic state - disdainful of councillors and dismissive of MPs and political parties.

Democracy isn't a modern idea. I suspect that the idea of voting to help make decisions has been used since prehistory - competing with 'one potato, two potato' as a decision system. And we like it, we have confidence it and we are prepared (most of the time) to accept the decisions that it throws up. The problem with our modern state is that nearly all the decisions that matter to ordinary people aren't made using this tried and tested approach. Instead they're made by groups of "professionals" without reference to the people. The policies that determine whether someone's child is taken into care, if you can build an extension, whether you can set up a business and what your children are taught - these policies are decided without reference to democracy by those "professionals".

Indeed, us politicians are frequently told by the lawyers who guard the policies set by these "professionals", that we cannot change or overturn them. And we are further compromised by role confusion - not just being rebranded as "community leaders" but with our key role of making decisions on behalf of those we represent neutered. Under the new public health arrangements, we will have a "Health & Well-being Board". This will be a formal committee of Council but with officers given voting rights alongside councillors - in the cause of 'partnership' the principle of electing people to make decisions is compromised. Councillors are not expert enough to make those decisions and must be joined by the (unelected) professionals.

Right across government we see decision-making that should be done by people accountable to the public being done by the unelected - local enterprise partnerships, schools forums, probation boards, a veritable host of the unelected and unaccountable. This is post-democracy - consultation, partnership and the 'professional' have replaced the tried and tested process of electing people to make decisions on our behalf. We have decided that democracy - elections, MPs, councillors and so forth - are a bit of a pain. Or rather we haven't decided, the system has gradually sidelined politicians - the people's representatives - to the stage where the only way for us to effect any change is for us to join in the game, to play at post-democracy.

Democracy isn't modern and it runs counter to our cult of the expert, our obsession with that unreachable ideal of 'evidence-based policy'. So the powerful have emasculated democracy and replaced it with a pretty spectacle, a place of sound and fury. Great fun, as observers of parliament know, but ultimately pointless. The decisions are made somewhere else.

Maybe we should stop calling it "mob rule" and try that democracy stuff again. It might work, you know!

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LSE Politics Professor George Jones "dysfunctional"

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Prof Jones viewed a webcast of Thanet District Council's full meeting and declared it 'dysfunctional'. In doing so, Prof Jones revealed his deep ignorance of how local government in England operates. It worries me greatly that such dysfunction is teaching students at the London School of Economics & Political Science.

It may be that Thanet Council is a mess but what Prof Jones doesn't seem to appreciate is that the full council meeting is connected to decision-making at the Council only by taking place in the same building. The power - and this is what the Local Government Act 2000 set out - rests with (in Thanet's case) a single Party 'cabinet'. Full council cannot overturn decisions of that body except in a very few areas defined in the Act.

So what Prof Jones viewed was playtime for politicians and, inevitably, it boils down to point scoring, vengeance and grandstanding. Maybe they should be debating "matters that are really matters of public interest" but this would give the erroneous impression that the Council meeting actually has any power to order the council's policies.

So, rather than beating up Thanet Council, Prof Jones should be hanging his head in shame at his total ignorance. Maybe he should read the 200 Act, check out the constitution of Thanet Council and then suggest that - just maybe - the problem lies with the system Blair imposed on councils because we were "out of date".

Full council meetings have just two substantive powers - to appoint a council leader once every four years and to agree the council tax. That's it - everything else is down to that leader we appointed.

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Nannying fussbucket of the Day: Cllr Steve Bedser

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Cllr Bedser is Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing and chair of the Birmingham Tobacco Control Alliance so he has good fussbucket credentials. And the fine gent thinks that smoking should be banned on "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!"

During this episode a contestant, Helen Flanagan, was filmed repeatedly as she smoked. Whilst I understand that the episode was broadcast after the ‘watershed’ I am of the strong view that the frequency of this image was such that it condoned, encouraged and glamorized smoking, especially by young girls. There was no editorial justification for including these particular scenes.

And, this particular fussbucket argues, this is all for the children who will rush out and start smoking because they've seen some celebrity (of sorts) having a drag on telly. In a 'reality' show - you know, one that's like real life*. The real life where people smoke.

Cllr Bedser has inhaled the full anti-smoking bible - 'denormalisation' is the game and:

Smoking initiation is associated with a range of risk factors, including exposure to tobacco marketing and depictions of smoking in films, television and other media.

This is thoughtless kneejerk fussbucketry -  peers and parents are overwhelmingly the drivers of smoking 'initiation' not seeing some star with a fag.

*OK "I'm a celebrity..." is only tentatively connected to reality.

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Were Tim Yeo a local councillor would he be arrested?

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Tomorrow, amongst other tasks, I will be updating my 'Declaration of Interests'. In my case this is a pretty dull document from which you can glean where I live, where I work and that I own a load of shares in Barclay's Bank (I describe this as 'significant to me but insignificant to them'). Oh, and I'm a member of Cullingworth Conservative Club.

When I'm at a council meeting and one of these interests is touched on by the matters under discussion, I am obliged to declare that interest. And, if that interest is prejudicial I must withdraw from the meeting and take no part in any decision. This latter situation would cover significant pecuniary interests such as business dealings, ownerships and relationships. It applies to me and to those close to me. Failing to make a declaration is now an offence carrying criminal sanctions.

Which I guess brings me to Tim Yeo:

...it was then pointed out that a company of which he is chairman, TMO Renewables (which last year paid him £60,000, at up to £1,000 an hour), has just signed a memorandum of understanding with the largest farming corporation in China to supply it with feedstocks for biofuels. TMO’s latest annual report states that doing business with China has become a “key focus” of its activities. 

Were Mr Yeo a local councillor there's a distinct possibility that the police would have arrived on his doorstep at 5am to arrest him for failing to make a declaration - indeed a declaration that may well be prejudicial.

Members of Parliament debated a law to apply to other elected people - local councillors - without at any point realising the double standard they were installing in law. Put pretty simply, were the Commons select committee on energy and climate change a local council committee, it is highly unlikely given his significant financial interests in its subject matter that Mr Yeo could be a member let alone chairman.

That a man who makes ten times his parliamentary salary from the business of renewable energy chairs a committee influencing government policy and decision-making in that area simply wouldn't happen were MPs subject to the same rules they applied to us local councillors.


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Meet Cllr John Butcher - the real deal health fascist

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I pity the poor electors of the nice Surrey town of Cobham who have this John Butcher as their Councillor:

“If the NHS in Surrey were to be run on the basis that patients with self-inflicted morbidity (mainly smoking, alcohol, narcotics, obesity) and injury (dangerous activities) are, following due warning, placed in a much slower-moving queue for healthcare than ‘other’ patients, this would encourage the self-inflicted to move away from Surrey, to areas where there is no differentiation between patients on the grounds of their contribution towards their condition."

So if you smoke, drink, drive fast cars round a track or climb rocks (not sure whether Cllr Butcher's 'dangerous activities' includes horse riding and playing rugby) you'll be made to wait longer in the hope that you'll move away from Surrey. Indeed, it seems that Cllr Butcher thinks that, by doing this, all these people with "self-inflicted" illnesses will move to places where the authorities believe in equal treatment.

What I found yet more bizarre is that, when challenged for his unalloyed health facism, Cllr Butcher digs his hole even deeper with this proposal:

Everyone in, or aspiring to, a position of public responsibility and everyone in a position to influence the public, including entertainers etc, should be asked to sign a voluntary pledge not to take illegal narcotics or consume excessive alcohol, or drive when so affected..

...(a)nyone who fails to sign that pledge, or who signs it and breaches it, should be excluded from positions of public responsibility and influence. All public organisations, included regulated broadcasters etc, should agree to impose this exclusion..

...(t)here would be a Trust to manage this pledge and to determine breaches, with a right of appeal. The costs of running it would be funded by fees from signatories, donations from philanthropists and a grant from the government – the grant being greatly exceeded by the savings in cost to the Exchequer, due to the substantial reduction in such abuse that will follow. 

Amazing stuff! It is, however, quite depressing that this health fascist is a Conservative Councillor.

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