Councils get in a hubble-bubble over hookahs

The Local Government Association is in a funk about shisha bars:

‘Smoke-free laws are not offering strong enough punishments to deter irresponsible shisha bar owners who are making lucrative profits, which means councils often need to carry out costly and lengthy investigations to take action against the same bar over and over again.’

Let's piggle away at this one a bit. There's a market for people who want to go to a bar and smoke shisha (hookahs, hubble-bubble pipes for those who don't know about them - interesting that the Arab word, shisha, has come to be most common even among South Asian populations). And, because there are people who want to smoke said hubble-bubble pipes, unscrupulous business owners provide them and make "lucrative" profits.

Seems to me that the problem here isn't the unscrupulousness of owners or the lack of council powers - it's the smoking ban. There is no justification at all for banning people from voluntarily going into a private space to consume a legal drug. Councils are frothing away at this because the bars have priced in the risk of a fine and therefore councils want more powers, no doubt up to and including arrest and imprisonment, to deal with all this.

When we're looking at things that Council's really shouldn't be bothering about, grown men and women smoking shisha in a comfortable bar is up there near the top of the list. What's worse is that these licensing numpties don't understand why such places end up run by ne'er do wells. It's because of that smoking ban again. Organised criminals have always walked in lockstep with the puritans - one lot gets to cash in while the others get to pretend they're stopping "rogues" and protecting the public from terrible and sinful activities.

If you relax the smoking ban - perhaps just to allow cigars clubs, shisha bars and smoking rooms - then nearly all of this dastardly criminality will go away.

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Conservatives urging restrictive planning controls are planning their own demise

Liz Truss was right when she said that the Conservatives limpet-like attachment to uban containment policies would usher in a far left (and antisemitic) government:

In the early 2000s, there was only a weak connection between land-use restrictions and partisanship. Democratic places were only slightly more regulated than Republican ones. Interestingly enough, many towns that started out more Republican actually became more restrictive over time. This, for Sorens, is a key piece of evidence: “These data support the central claim of this paper: Democrats do not cause stricter zoning, but stricter zoning causes more Democrats (relative to Republicans),” he writes. In other words, when Republican towns increase land-use restrictions, they tend to drive away more Republicans.

I know this is the USA but the impact of urban containment policies is always to drive up land values (and rents and house prices) resulting in places where only the very rich and the poor can live. The less well off - especially the most marginalised such as immigrant groups, single parents and the disabled - live in social housing that is de facto reserved for such groups while the richest can afford the sky high prices and stratospheric rents. The most left-wing places in the USA are becoming, as a result of anti-development policies, the most segregated and most unequal.

As conservatives we should be pragmatic - if the result of such policies is the persistence of housing dependency for the less well off and, as reported recently, an explosion in wealth inequality as land values rocket then we should be looking for an answer that meets aspirations to own for as many as possible, that protects the poorest without enriching landlords and which doesn't featherbed the already rich. Right now, all we're getting is Onward proposing the extensive use of compulsory purchase to prevent landowners profiting from artificially expensive property as a result of those urban containment policies. Such an approach is little different from South African government seizing farms in the name of equality. Plus the, mostly left-wing run, councils in inner London will simply use the cash to shore up their client base through sustaining housing dependency.

Instead of allowing NIMBY residents on nice Surrey towns (and their MPs) to set the agenda, we should be doing was Liz Truss said and making it easier to develop in the city and easier to develop outside the city - if we don't we can expect to see the same happening to Conservative support in London as happened in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Hull.

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Hows about we try some of that there local democracy? It used to work quite well.

A while ago I wrote about the move to ban local councils from charging for Park Runs following the decision of a town council to do just that:

And, of course, you all think it absolutely right that politicians in London ban Councils from deciding on things like what they can and cannot charge people or organisations for doing. Don't get me wrong here, I don't particularly think Councils should charge for park runs (although please note that crown green bowlers, cricketers and football players are charged to use facilities in public parks) but I do think that if we are to go to the trouble of electing local councillors to make decisions we should actually let them make those decisions. And, yes, that might include charging for a park run. If you don't like the decision you get the chance to vote out the people who made that decision. This is how the representative democracy lark works.

This process - whereby decisions made by local authorities are over-turned because national politicians see some votes to grab or are badgered by national media and other national politicians into stopping the local council from doing what its democratically elected councillors have decided they will do.

This isn't just a British problem (although we are, among larger countries, one of the very worst offenders) - here's Joel Kotkin in New Geography about the USA:

This follows a historical trend over the past century. Ever since the Great Depression, and even before, governmental power has been shifting inexorably from the local governments to regional, state and, of course, federal jurisdictions. In 1910, the federal level accounted for 30.8 percent of all government spending, with state governments comprising 7.7 percent and the local level more than 61 percent. More than 100 years later, not only had the federal share exploded to nearly 60 percent, but, far less recognized, the state share had nearly doubled, while that of local governments has fallen to barely 25 percent, a nearly 60 percent drop. Much of what is done at the local level today is at the behest, and often with funding derived from, the statehouse or Washington.

Anyone taking a reasonably long view of English local government will recognise this trend with local councils increasingly mere agents of central government enacting programmes and projects deriving from the legislative and fiscal decisions of national government. The drive to standardisation through inspection regimes and the tendency to go on about 'postcode lotteries' provides the justification for this change. Very little that Bradford Council does is not directed, regulated and funded by central government meaning that, when that central government changes its spending priorities or reduces spending the thick end of the impact is felt by the council.

I believe this is, for all of standardisation's superficial appeal, bad government. Not only does is assume that circumstances are the same everywhere but it kills administrative innovation by constraining the freedom of action for local councils. It may be true that we'd all like everybody everywhere to receive the same incredibly high quality of service but the reality of modern government is that quite the reverse is true - the lack of flexibility and independence at the local level results in sclerotic, unresponsive public services that become inward-looking and producer-oriented. Faced with radical alternative approaches the producer-dominated local government (and agencies with related vested interests) appeal to national government and national bureaucracy to prevent any threat to the current system.

This problem has got mixed up with the arguments about regional devolution (an excellent idea being very badly delivered because of national government's control of investment finance and insistence on city-regions rather than existing political geography). The thrust of localism is that government is better when politicians focus on making what they see out their front door better rather than on designing grand schemes and systems to run everything, everywhere according to rules laid down by clever folk in a London office.

And let's remember that the check on this system - we call it democracy where I come from - is that folk get a regular chance to replace the politicians if they mess up. I happen to think this a rather better approach to government than the current system where those local councillors can simply blame central government for everything that has gone wrong.

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If we can't charge for park runs, what is the point of a local council?

Yesterday lots of people were running around smiling because of an announcement from the Government:

Councils in England will be banned from charging people to take part in weekend fun runs under rules being proposed by the government.

Free events, organised by the Parkrun group to encourage fitness, attract thousands of runners on 5km courses (3 miles) in parks across the country.

A parish council near Bristol last year proposed charging entrants £1 each, citing the cost of upkeep of paths.

And, of course, you all think it absolutely right that politicians in London ban Councils from deciding on things like what they can and cannot charge people or organisations for doing. Don't get me wrong here, I don't particularly think Councils should charge for park runs (although please note that crown green bowlers, cricketers and football players are charged to use facilities in public parks) but I do think that if we are to go to the trouble of electing local councillors to make decisions we should actually let them make those decisions. And, yes, that might include charging for a park run. If you don't like the decision you get the chance to vote out the people who made that decision. This is how the representative democracy lark works.

Except it doesn't really. I thought through the things we do as a local council - care for the elderly, look after the disabled, protect children, fix the roads, collect your rubbish, pick up the litter you drop, provide parks and hundreds of other services large and small. In every case the degree of genuine local control gets less and less each passing year. Our care services are determined by central government means tests, our children's services by national legislation and the threat of intervention, highways maintenance by centrally determined capital programmes, waste management by onerous EU regulations and, now it seems, Government wants to decide through legislation what we can and cannot do with the parks we manage.

Councils do a pretty good job - amidst a load of criticism - in administering the services we're asked to administer. And local councillors mostly do a great job (especially the Conservative ones) of helping people negotiate the nonsense of bureaucracy. We also provide a reality check on the innate daftness of government administrators. But these days our decision making is more and more limited to how we administer services within central government rules and trying to keep going the small number of non-statutory services such as allowing people to organise running round the park on a Sunday morning.

The park run case is about a council making a tricky decision about its budget. And then seeing a national organisation lobby central government to take away that council's right to make that tricky decision. So tell me, what is the point of a local council?

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Private bin collections, vulnerable people and the funding of local councils

I'm going to be very careful here because I don't want you all to think I've an issue with the concept of 'vulnerable' people or indeed our obligation to support them. But we need to look at how two factors are throwing a spanner into the works of local government (and the local delivery of services):

1. We're getting better at keeping people alive, which is great, but we're also getting better at giving those people a real life

2. We've realised that year on year real terms increases in the cost of government are unsustainable in an era of (relatively) low growth rates

The consequence of these two - somewhat contradictory  - factors can be seen in stories like this:

Some householders in Greater Manchester are paying a private firm to empty their bins.

Many are angry because some councils have reduced rubbish collections in an attempt to cut costs, and to motivate people to recycle more.

A local businessman who bought himself a truck eighteen months ago is now emptying up to 800 bins a week.

Collecting the rubbish is, as far as most people are concerned, the main - they'll say "only" - service they get from their local council. Yet nearly every local council has now moved from weekly to fortnightly collections (all wrapped up in nice weasel words about recycling) and some are now creeping from every other week to every third week - even once-a-month.

Many of you will have noticed how local roads are getting worse too. There's a simple reason for this - to maintain roads in Bradford over a 25 year cycle, we currently need between £10 million and £11 million spending on them every year. We're actually spending £7 million to £8 million. Even with efficiencies and new technology, those roads will deteriorate.

It's easy to blame austerity - "the cuts" - for this parlous state of affairs. After all that's the second of the two points above. But what you should appreciate is that, even without 'austerity' (which I'll define as spending by local councils remaining at 2010 levels) there would be huge pressures on those general services as a result of 'vulnerable people'.

To illustrate this, I'll talk about the police. Recently I met with a couple of senior coppers to discuss policing challenges in Bradford. For the police (even with, now, a relatively protected budget) there's real pressure on basic frontline service - 'bobbies on the beat' as we most often call it. This is because, quite understandably, the police have been told to give more attention to child sexual abuse, missing people (especially children) and getting better at dealing with people they encounter who have serious mental health problems. These new priorities - usually just added onto the old priorities - are very resource intensive. One missing girl takes up a great deal more police time than one house burglary meaning that more and more resource is redirected to this work with 'vulnerable people'.

For local councils (and here I'm talking about unitary authorities like Bradford) approaching 50% the spending we control is now directed to dealing with these 'vulnerable people'. And there aren't very many of such folk. Looking at the numbers in Bradford, between adult social care, children's social services and programmes in public health (drug and alcohol rehabilitation and so forth) we work with about 15,000 people out of Bradford's half-a-million population - that's 3% of the District's population taking up nearly 50% of the money spent by the Council. And the looking after is expensive - one out-of-district placement for a child with special support needs can cost up to £200,000 a year.

As a result of this, small changes in predicted numbers have a huge impact on budgets - 900 looked after children rather than the 850 we expected and there's a multi-million pound overspend. And other support extends too - we seldom used to get situations where learning disabled adults ended up as carers for their physically disabled parents but this is now happening because we've helped those learning disabled adults have a better, longer and happier life. I could go on - more old people living longer in their homes, disabled children who used to die in their teens are now living into their twenties and thirties and we've rightly decided that children in care shouldn't just be dumped in kindly but crowded children's homes.

The result of all this is that, in one way or another, we're going to end up paying more for things we once considered free. And, while taxation is one way of doing this, I'm not sure I want the council tax of a young family struggling to pay the rent or mortgage to go up and up so we can provide care for an older person living in a house worth £250,000 or more. Unfortunately the debate about funding local services is trapped in a model of property taxes plus grant that precludes alternatives - even in places trying radical approaches like Swindon the solution is based on taxes rather than charges.

Regardless of national funding settlements, local council spending will continue to shift onto personal support services and away from the universal visible services we tend to think of as what our council does. This rather brings into question both the purpose of the local council and also the means by which we fund local government. Property taxes make sense when the services are primarily directed to place rather than people (emptying bins, sweeping streets, fixing potholes, running parks and so forth) but make much less sense when those taxes are overwhelmingly directed to personal support.

I don't know the answer to all this but I am sure that our national debate needs to pay attention to these trends. As a conservative, I'm in favour of personal responsibility with a safety net - where people are able to pay they should pay - but I recognise that we've somehow got the "I've paid into the system, I'm entitled to free stuff" mindset to deal with if this is going to change. In the meantime, Councils will continue to scrimp with the result that you probably won't get your bin emptied so often, the roads will be poor and the park will be tatty.

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Local councils do not set foreign policy and the pension funds aren't our money to play politics with

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The government proposes to prevent local councillors from using council funds to conduct political campaigns. And to prevent those same councillors from conducting those political campaigns using the savings of public sector pension fund members.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has confirmed it is drawing up new guidelines to prevent local authorities from mounting their own “boycott and sanction” campaigns.

The directions, which will be issued early in the new year, are expected to make clear that councils’ procurement and investment policies must be consistent with UK government foreign policy.

What is being made very clear here is that local councils - as a part of the UK's government - do not set foreign policy. This isn't simply because we're a bunch of numpties who don't know enough (or have access to the necessary information) to make sensible judgments about foreign policy. It's because if every diddy little town council decided whether or not we liked Israel there's a real confusion out there as to what exactly is UK foreign policy.

So if campaign groups want to change UK foreign policy, the right way to do this is to persuade members of parliament to vote accordingly or, failing that, to get people who will vote according ly elected.

A similar intention - making sure that those councillors don't play politics with the retirement funds of the council's staff - is equally welcome. The duty of the council, as a trustee for those pension fund members, is to secure the best return for those members. If this can be done without investing in Israel, fags, booze or guns that's fine but it has to be clear that any decision isn't a political one determined by the prejudice of councillors not the interests of pension fund members.
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Freedom of Information requests are a pain. That is the whole point of them.

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My colleagues at the Local Government Association have decided they want something done about Freedom of Information requests:

Freedom of information requests are a ‘burden’ on local authorities, and their use should be subject to tighter controls according to council leaders. The Local Government Association (LGA) has suggested fees for requests should be introduced and the time councils have to spend responding to them lowered from 18 hours to eight

No. Just no. The whole point about the Freedom of Information Act is that it provides the means for the public to hold the bureaucrats, technocrats and politicians to account. And this is because that information held by local councils is public information - meaning that the public should have access to said information. As a matter of right not as some big favour granted them by some stuck-up bureaucrat.

If Councils are bothered about Freedom of Information requests being a burden, then the proper response isn't to dream up some cod 'public interest' test but the make a whole lot more information publicly available, accessible and searchable. If you do that then the public doesn't have to go to the trouble of crafting requests that the Council responds to - instead they can go directly to the data they need.
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No, Germany doesn't have a better housing system that the UK

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Not if this is anything to go by:

Gabrielle Keller has been given until the end of the year to leave her flat in the small southern town of Eschbach, near the border with France.

The flat belongs to the local municipality, which says it is needed to house refugees.

Imagine a UK local council evicting a resident so as to house refugees. You can't can you for the simple reason that our laws don't allow the Council to do this (it's not clear whether German law allows this either).

So perhaps we can stop saying how splendid and super-duper Germany's housing market is? It isn't, it never has been and we really should stop pretending otherwise.

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Sorry but smoking doesn't harm Gedling Council's reputation

Gedling Borough Council (it's in Nottinghamshire and Labour-controlled, since you ask) is proposing the further demonisation and stigmatising of its employees - the ones that smoke that is:

"Whilst at work, and so far as is reasonably practicable, employees who smoke in accordance with this policy should do so with their Gedling Borough Council uniform covered as not doing so may create a negative impression of the council when viewed by the public."

Since when did smoking give a negative impression of the Council? Since officious HR managers and self-righteous councillors started treating smokers like pariahs. Ever since the smoking ban in 2007 (and long before that in many councils) smokers have clustered round the doors, on windswept pavements and corners. I'm guessing this looks untidy to those officious managers and is accompanied by moans from other employees about smoking breaks (like those other workers don't use up Council time talking about their holidays, making tea or playing solitaire on the phone).

What this policy is about is the isolation of smokers - it is but a short step away from a man with a bell parading in front of them crying "unclean, unclean". No health purpose is served and it isn't about the Council's image - it's simply nannying fussbucketry, rules for the sake of rules. A much better approach would be to provide a shelter for staff that smoke perhaps with somewhere to sit away from the doorways where smokers currently clump. But that would be thoughtful and considerate - why would the Council want to treat smokers that way, they're smelly scum aren't they?
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Hating the untidiness of whimsy - the curse of local councils

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Control, direct, order, limit, ban, manage, prevent, dictate, regulate, licence, stop.

Sadly these are the words that best define much of local government - and us local councillors. This is what we do - we stand in the way of community, cooperation, choice, innovation and initiative. And we revel in it.

In a statement the city of Leawood issued to TODAY, an official said that a property maintenance code enforcement officer had noticed the bookshelf but "thought it was placed in the yard for pick up." Several days later, the officer received complaints about it and notified the family the structure violated a city ordinance that states “no detached structure, including garages, barns, sheds, greenhouses, above ground pools, or outbuildings, shall be permitted."

And what was it that so offended the officials of this Kansas town? It was one of these:

In its most basic form, a Little Free Library is a box full of books where anyone may stop by and pick up a book (or two) and bring back another book to share.

A nine-year-old child had set one up in his yard. A little private initiative - done with hope and a smile - to build a local community. Stamped out by the council because some busybody 'complained' and some jobsworth decided the little box of books in the garden was an illegal structure.

Don't try to tell me that your council is immune from this obsession with tidiness and the tin-pottery of control. Here in Bradford you need a licence to have a village gala. Not for safety reasons but because the Council wants to 'exercise its market charter rights'. And your council will be the same - a little ban here, a stern letter there. Whether it's the spirited citizen who's told to stop mowing the verge outside his house or the children who are stopped from their little bit of guerrilla gardening, your local officials will react to any community initiative by either wanting to stop it happening or else to bring it within their control and regulatory orbit.

But, and this is important, those intrusive officials are only doing what they know people want. Every day they encounter people who would stop someone drinking quietly on a bench, prevent a second takeaway opening on the high street and ban any number of odd but essentially harmless activities. As Scott Doyon, in writing about the Little Boy with the Little Free Library observes, we really have a problem with whimsy - and certainly independently initiated whimsy in someone's garden:

The second error is that you add value to whimsy by making it more uniform and predictable when that’s actually the exact opposite of what happens. A Little Free Library, or any other inspired creative expression, is like a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. You don’t make it more palatable by camouflaging it as concrete.

If we want interesting places filled with interesting people doing interesting things then we have to stop doing what people who want boring places filled with boring people doing boring things want us to do. We - and that means political and community leadership - need to stop thinking that the role of the local parish, town, village or district council is to look sternly at whether someone should be allowed a house extension, to run a fair, to open a cafe or, madly, to want a shark on the roof.

Councils are filled with people who see the busy-ness of local community as a problem, who tut and frown at folk outside a pub drinking and laughing and who think only regulations, controls, bans and licences stand between civilisation and anarchy. And who hate the untidiness of whimsy.

This, more than anything else, is the curse of local government. We are wielders of the permit and the permission not huggers of the whimsical and weird. Perhaps we could change it round! The world would be more fun I think!

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Why do authorities fear public gatherings so much?

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We were in Dent. It's lovely place and you should visit - winding cobbled streets, at least three drinking places and it's own brewery in a farm a mile or so up the road. Dent also has an annual beer and music festival, which (as chance would have it) was on this weekend.

So having wandered around the village, paid a brief visit to the festival and generally chilled after our exertions (we'd been for a pleasant walk along the valley), Kathryn and I call into one of the pubs for a drink and a sit. Up to the bar to order a couple of drinks. And to our surprise they're served to us in plastic 'glasses'.

Now I'm absolutely certain that Dent isn't part of some bizarre plastic loving cult. Indeed, I'm pretty certain that the use of plastic glasses is either a requirement of the festival's licence or else the result of many meetings and stern advice from Cumbria's constabulary. Because, as we know, folk festivals in the Cumbrian countryside are places of terror and violence - without these stipulations the festival-goers will resort to glassing eachother in the manner associated with the rougher parts of, say, Glasgow.

It seems to me that these controls - like many others prescribed in the interests of 'safety' - are rather indicative of authority's fear of public gatherings. To give another example, to hold the Cullingworth Gala now requires a licence costing £11 from the Council. It seems that authority cannot countenance any gathering of people taking place without their stamp of approval and the application of a set of pointless controls such as serving beer in plastic skiffs.

The idea that places and spaces in places like Dent and Cullingworth are for people's leisure and pleasure has been replaced with a desire from the police and local council to control, direct and, if not done properly, ban any activity. And especially any activity that might involve drinking, dancing, singing or the playing of musical instruments. Doubly so if the audience might include 'young people'. We are to be treated as infants given a set of instructions on good behaviour by the police and council jobsworths.

For sure, most of the time this isn't a problem - we can put up with booze in plastic glasses - but there is a point at which the costs imposed by officialdom start to put an end to gatherings. Dangerous gatherings like street parties and, but for a last minute intervention, Bradford's annual Boy Scout parade and service are ended because their organisers give up on jumping through hoops and paying out more money on the latest piece of over-the-top crowd management imposed by some bloke from the council.

The police and council fear that these events foment disorder, that all these people gathering together will encourage criminals and that, in some respects, gatherings are merely formalised anti-social behaviour. The authorities would much rather we sat quietly sipping something alcohol free from our plastic skiff - or better still that these inconvenient, even dangerous, events didn't happen in the first place. It's not a vain attempt to silence political dissent but rather an organised endeavour intended to limit and control our pleasure - most often in the supposed interests of 'safer communities' or 'public health'.

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Hamzah Khan: what we're told...

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...does seem a little complacent. I will await the publication of the Serious Case Review before drawing any judgement about the case. But this first comment to us Councillors from the Council worries me:

That report (the Serious Case Review) will be published in the next few weeks but I can advise you that there was limited involvement from statutory agencies in this case as mum did not want to take up offers of help and no serious concerns were reported to the statutory agencies. This is not a case where lots of agencies were involved and didn’t see the signs, the question is how can this happen and professionals, neighbours, communities not be aware of it.

It also seems to me that the Council are preparing the ground for any response to the serious case review - indeed Cllr Berry's press statement indicates just this:

Serious case reviews lead to learning and action to make children safer, in our district and across the country

Maybe they do but the public would like those reviews to lift the lid on failings and to see those responsible held accountable. Is that not too much to ask?

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More unintended consequences: killing off the Royal Mail

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One of those little regulatory changes (from last year’s Budget as it happens) that rather sneaks up on us arrives on 2^nd April this year. The Government has extended to application of VAT to cover “bulk mail” and related services:

Changes to VAT law and the way in which our services are regulated have affected the VAT status of a number of our products.  A limited range of our services became subject to VAT through 2011, and this will extend to all bulk mail services from April 2012.

Now the government suggests that, because businesses are VAT registered they’ll be able to reclaim this and it won’t be noticed. But think for a second of the big users of bulk mail:

• Local government – all those Council Tax bills and other official bulk communications such as electoral registration forms
• Utilities – water, gas, electricity are all subject to a lower VAT rate or exempt
• Financial services – no VAT is charged on banking, insurance or related services (now there’s a blessing)
• Charities – direct mail is a central tool for charities to raise funds and keep their supporters informed
• Publishing – magazines, journals and so forth again carry no VAT

Now I don’t know about you but it seems to me that the big loser in all this will be the Royal Mail. The 20% increase in mailing costs will accelerate the move to paperless billing and statements for utilities, banking and other businesses. It may even prompt local government to look at the mail they send – perhaps consolidating or moving to electronic means.

One hidden effect of this change will be that some businesses – and especially those unable to claim back the VAT – will stop using targeted direct mail preferring to use cheaper mass leafleting. Meaning that rather than a personalised, specific appeal, we will receive general literature targeted using geodemographic profiling rather than real information.

That and it will cost local government a load of money that might have been spent on front-line services.

And, without a doubt, hammer another nail or two into the coffin of the Royal Mail.

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Undertanding how local government works. A lesson in making secret decisions

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Let me introduce you to the Association of West Yorkshire Authorities (can link to their website but it was down just now):

The AWYA is an association of the five West Yorkshire metropolitan local authorities – Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. It was established in 1993 to provide a forum for the discussion and co-ordination of matters of mutual concern and interest.

The AWYA acts as the local government voice of West Yorkshire, promoting and lobbying for its interests and identity. It provides a means for the five Councils to reach joint views on proposed legislation and other matters of concern to West Yorkshire, and to express these views to organisations such as the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly (YHA), Local Government Yorkshire and the Humber (LGYH), central government and other appropriate bodies.

The AWYA also works to secure greater accountability and effective working relationships with bodies which impact upon the sub-region, such as the Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber (GOYH), Yorkshire Forward, Yorkshire and Humber Assembly (YHA), the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), and the Strategic Health Authority (SHA).

This is a decision-making body, funded from the public purse. Just minutes ago I got an e-mail from a colleague saying this:

I have contacted the association they do not publish minutes or agendas

So I rang them and was told that the AWYA:

Does not meet in public so doesn't publish its agendas and minutes.

If we ask for them we can be sent them but they can't publish these papers because there is a "resourcing issue". However, when pressed, they told me that they have never published agendas or minutes.

So this organisation - chaired by Bradford's Labour leader - can make decisions, for example about £850 million of possible transport spending, in secret and without the decision being published.

Transparency?
 
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Before commenting on local government finance it helps to understand its basics

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Lord Palmerston once said of the Schleiswig-Holstein question:

"Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business—the Prince Consort, who is dead—a German professor, who has gone mad—and I, who have forgotten all about it."

So it is with the financing of English local government where, as we all find out some tine, a little knowledge is dangerous as it leads to great ideas that are really rather silly.

Town halls should be allowed to retain between 40 and 60 per cent of business rates generated in their areas, a new report urges.

Research by think-tank the Centre for Cities claims that the measure would give local authorities a much-needed incentive to say ‘yes’ to the development needed to drive economic growth.

You see, at the moment, business rates are collected locally but aggregated centrally into a single pot (the National Non-Domestic Rates fund - NNDR). These funds are then reallocated to local councils as part of 'formula funding' - distributed according to an estimation of 'need' (don't ask, really. Don't ask) rather than on the basis of how much is raised in the particular locality.


So for every winner under such a scheme there is an equivalent loser. And it's no good saying that it will provide an incentive for "cities to develop their business base". Economic growth just doesn't work like that - it really doesn't. The activities of local councils - and the relatively small amounts (relative to the economy that is) involved in business rates - have little or no impact on business innovation, location or start-up.


And bear in mind that local councils spend that NNDR on ordinary everyday stuff like emptying bins, sweeping streets, looking after the frail elderly and protecting children (OK, they also waste a load on paying union officials, having massive climate change units and having a press office that seems to have more staff than the local rag has journalists). The NNDR isn't directed exclusively to promoting business - indeed it couldn't be since it represents roughly two-thirds of the 'formula grant' (£20bn out of about £30bn).


And since, prior to the invention of the Poll Tax, business rates were collected and spent locally (without equalisation) we know that the proposal would not:

"...fundamentally alter the way that local government in England is financed, incentivising local authorities to be far more pro-growth and pro-development". 

We know that because the reason in was centralised was because local councils used the rate as a soft way of raising money. Business didn't have a vote so business rates were raised while domestic rates were kept low (except in places like Lambeth where both rates went through the roof leading to an exodus of wealth and business from the borough).

The Centre for Cities haven't come up with a jolly whizzo scheme at all, merely a different way of distributing resources that are already being spent by local councils.

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Nottingham's Labour Leader doth complain too much I feel

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Nottingham is the local authority that thinks the public shouldn't know about how it spends their money. It is, of course, run by the Labour Party. And now - with the release of some spending information following a Freedom of Information request - the reasons start to creep out:

Nottingham City Council has hit back after housing minister Grant Shapps accused officials of misusing corporate credit cards to settle purchases of pizza, wine and a trip to Alton Towers theme park.

Details of the £3.5m spend in the year 2009-10 emerged from a freedom of information request submitted by communities secretary Eric Pickles following the council's refusal to publish details of all spending above £500.

Among purchases queried by the minister are £7,011 spent at a wine shop, £958 with Russian airline Aeroflot, £69 on Domino's pizza and £63on gift websites. A further £80 was spent on admission for Alton Towers and a card was used to settle a £50 bill at a local pub.

I'm sure a great deal of this is explainable but, given the Council's dislike for spending transparency, it doesn't look good, does it! However, the local Labour bigwigs continue to dig their hole deeper:

Defending the council, deputy leader Cllr Graham Chapman accused ministers of 'playing silly games' and of acting irresponsibly by failing to request the information formally as ministers of state.He said he was confident spending would be justified once full details were checked.

Cllr Chapman said: 'Most of the figures are below £100 and we are going to be checking on each of the individual items on Monday. But with the wine, for example, it is likely that it was brought for an event at the council house, - where we hold weddings and events for local businesses as a way of making money.'

I do hopw Cllr Chapman is right - I'd hate for some of that spending to be dodgy!

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How old is "old" - Bradford's over-50s housing strategy

Readers will be aware that I currently chair Bradford Council’s Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee. For our meeting next week we have a report – on its way through the Council system – entitled:

“Development of the Bradford District Housing Strategy for the Over 50s”

Now I don’t wish to bore you with the content of this report but to discuss whether there is any substantive case for the Council having a “strategy” for housing people who have managed to stay alive for half a century. First though here’s the Council’s patronising “case for age 50”:

The district’s Older People’s Partnership works on behalf of those aged 50 and over; this strategy uses age 50 as a threshold to align itself with the Partnership.

Most people in their 50s won’t think of themselves as being old, indeed we’re constantly

hearing phrases such as “50 is the new 40” in the media. But it’s a time of life when many will start to see their children leave home, and some will be lucky enough to start thinking about easing off, taking a bit of time to enjoy life a little more or take part in volunteering activities.

Using age 50 allows the strategy to be more than sheltered housing and care homes. Fit, healthy and active people in their 50s and 60s are in an excellent position to start thinking about where they would like to live in the future. Cohousing, co-operatives and Local Housing Trusts all present additional opportunities for those that plan ahead.

Now, I’m a little sensitive about this having just reached that half century mark but I really can’t see anything about the housing needs of people aged 50-65 that differ from the housing needs of those aged 35-50. And, more to point, most fifty year olds are getting up every morning and travelling to a job. They are paying off the mortgage on their family home, tending the garden, having a holiday if they’ve got the spare cash and carrying on in the same manner as they did prior to reaching that great landmark age.

The really worrying thing about this strategy is it’s inference that people aged over 50 are likely to be inappropriately housed – in the state’s opinion at least:

“Enable older people to have their families living close to them by freeing up much needed family accommodation. Ensuring our existing housing stock is used as effectively as possible and reduce pressures on land.”

So there you go – government thinks we’re greedily taking up important “family housing” by staying in our four-bed detached with garage and garden. Yet again we see the triumph of patronising state planning directed at a section of the community who really aren’t asking for any special treatment and for whom – in the main – the private sector will provide more that adequately. Indeed, when we want to move house that’s precisely what we will do and nothing that this strategy says or does will change this truth.

There is a good case for supporting the very old – people who really do need support of some kind or another. But very few of these people are aged 50-65 – indeed you’ll struggle to find many under the age of 80 living in sheltered and extra-care housing. The housing needs of this group can be met through the existing housing strategies – we do not need a strategy for “Over-50s housing” especially one with the title:

“Great Places to Grow Old”

Patronising or what?

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We have to risk the mob's fury to earn the right to govern the mob

Fear of the mob was a constant feature of politics in past times and that mob was not always either informed or edifying. But it mattered because it's wrath could and did challenge the decisions of governments - especially when those decisions seemed unjustified:

Wilkes was expelled from Parliament in February 1769, on the grounds that he was an outlaw when he was returned. He was re-elected by his Middlesex constituents in the same month, only to be expelled and re-elected in March. In April, after his expulsion and another re-election, Parliament declared his opponent, Henry Luttrell, to be the winner. In defiance Wilkes was elected an alderman of London in 1769, using his supporters' group, the Society for the Supporters of the Bill of Rights, for his campaign. Wilkes eventually succeeded in convincing Parliament to expunge the resolution barring him from sitting.

I don’t agree with much of the deficit-denying, there-must-be-no-cuts-of-any-sort rhetoric that dominates much of the on-line dialogue around local government decisions about budgets during this cycle. However, as I’ve made clear before, I really don’t agree with the officious control of who can or cannot report, take pictures, tweet, blog or generally pass comment on what we get up to as councillors. After all – as I point out frequently to colleagues – if parliament can broadcast all its proceedings, surely a local council can let someone take a few photos?

We could cite example after example of local councils getting all heavy-handed over reporting rights – in Bradford we even threw out the local paper’s photographer! But some of the focus has been on the strange way in which Barnet Council acted. Presumably this was a response to some of the problems experienced at Lewisham and Lambeth – I’m not sure but the whole thing seemed rather over-the-top and largely unnecessary. And the justification seems frankly ridiculous:

“The current advice according to the constitution does not allow filming in the council chamber.  I’ve not had a chance to have discussions about it with any of our group.  Can you imagine how chaotic it would be if the whole public gallery was trying to film it?”

Now, for the benefit of the uninitiated, the “constitution” to which Barnet’s leader refers is that of the Council. This is the rather grandiose title now appended to what used to be standing orders, regulations on financial conduct and advisory matters such as conduct of meetings. Now it seems to me that, even if Barnet Council’s standing orders do restrict the use of cameras, the Council Meeting can if it chooses suspend any or all elements of its standing orders relating to the conduct of meetings. By way of illustration, Bradford Council – at its recent budget meeting – suspended the standing order relating to the length of speeches thereby allowing each party group leader to speak for ten minutes.

Barnet – or any other Council could easily accommodate photography or filming of proceeding should that be the wish of members. Yet these councils choose not to – and in the case of Barnet the aim is to limit coverage:

“The only thing we will do is consider responsible media requests, and they are the only thing we would allow at this stage. If we had a request, I would expect an officer to approach me about it.  I do not think we would consider a request from bloggers. Only respectable media would be considered.”

In the end this is both a minor matter – the debate and decisions of council meetings are on the public record – and a major concern – decisions affecting the public should be made in public and the public should have the broadest possible opportunity to witness those proceedings.  So when one blogger – Kate Belgrave - says this I have to agree:

Lynne Hillan's attempt to keep the public out last Tuesday seemed to me...as good a reason as any to make sure the public got in. I turned up with the equivalent of a small television station in my bag: a camera, two phones, a laptop and a couple of alternate-provider dongles. I wasn't the only one – the long queue outside Hendon town hall lit up in the gloom like a nightclub as people prepared their cameras and phones for action.

We should not be keeping people out – that is a negation of openness and democracy. Too often Councillors seem to take the view that any audience can only be a source of trouble and that is to be avoided! For my part I’ll fight my corner and make the case for what I believe to be the right thing – and if Kate and her mates want to heckle me, that’s fine. I’d rather that than make decisions behind some sterile authoritarian protection constructed from fear of the mob.

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