In case you wondered what we do at Council meetings in Bradford

This is cross-posted from the Bradford Council Conservative Group's Facebook page. It's an illustration of the nonsense we get up to at our Council meetings. Most of the time we spend hours debating motions before resolving to write a letter to a minister. We spend very little time discussing things that we actually control like empltying bins, fixing the roads, looking after children and caring for the elderly. And when we do propose that the Council actually does something, the leadership arrange for it to be voted down.

"FULL COUNCIL MEETING – FIVE-AND-A-HALF HOURS TO ACHIEVE WHAT?

Yesterday Bradford Council met. All ninety of us gathered to, in theory, make decisions about the things that matter to the residents or Bradford. So what did we do?

The first part of the meeting was fine. We received five petitions asking for the Council to act on various matters and these were referred to committees for further consideration. We asked questions of the leader and received financial and corporate planning documents. From a four pm start we’d concluded this process by about ten to six.

The meeting however finished over three hours later during which time we:

1.       Agreed to write letters to the Home Secretary, the Education Secretary, and the Boundary Commission. In the last case the letter concerns issues not within the remit of the commission as it simply criticises the criteria given to that Commission by Parliament and Government.

2.       Rejected proposals to recognise and support e-cigarettes as an effective smoking cessation method that is used by 20-30,000 Bradfordians

3.       Turned down taking positive action against dangerous and anti-social driving

4.       Had an hour long debate about education that resolved nothing at all (except that a majority of Councillors don’t agree with grammar schools)

5.       Voted down the opportunity for the Executive to lead on Bradford Council’s response to the flooding in December 2015. Instead Council decided it was fine for an update to go to a scrutiny committee in six months time

6.       Agreed the salary packages of two senior officers 

We spent a whole evening failing to act on things that actually matter to the Bradford public like dangerous driving, smoking deaths and flooding. Instead the Controlling Labour group preferred to spend time debating a 1984 mass picket in South Yorkshire, moaning about national education policy, and moralising about refugees.

It is difficult to justify keeping Councillors in the meeting for hours when all we do is pass motions instructing the Chief Executive to write letters to people. Yet this is all the current Labour leadership seem to want to do. This year we’ve written letters to a host of government ministers all of which are carefully crafted by officers and all of which receive carefully word answers that change nothing.

But when it comes to taking real action – doing things as a Council – the Labour leadership consistently vote down proposals. As a result, the Council is clear that it isn’t interested in reducing the harm from smoking, developing a more active road safety strategy and treating the risk of flood as a priority."

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CCTV is a total waste of money and the cops aren't much cop either.

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OK so you don't believe me? In Bradford - where we've spent millions on fancy cameras and plenty on men to watch them - the cameras are unable to provide a good enough resolution picture for identification from a well lit area of individuals who are not hooded or masked. And the response of the police to me (I was chairing a Stronger & Safer Communities Scrutiny Committee) when I asked for some evidence was this:


Dear Cllr Cooke

Thank you for raising the query last night about the quality of evidential CCTV in the City and your concerns that this was impeding our ability to identify suspects.

I have spoken with my CCTV Team this morning who have reassurred me that in over 90% of the cases they investigate the picture quality of BMDC CCTV is to a good or excellent standard. There are however some occasions when the pictures are grainy or unclear which can be down to the lighting or the fact that we are relying on some of the older cameras or even the UTC cameras.

There are also numerous private CCTV systems in the City installed by shops and businesses which are not always of sufficient quality to use evidentially.

As discussed last night the updating and maintainance of these cameras is a challenge for the council due to the financial constaints at this time and the fact that this is a non statutory service makes it an area for potential cutbacks.

As a police officer I recognise the evidential value of CCTV and I hope that as a partnership we are able to support Phil Holmes and his team in maintaining what is as this time a very comprehensive system which assists in keeping our Towns and Cities safer.

 (from crime reduction inspector)

Now I've read an re-read this and find it most reassuring. The Inspector is assured by her team - no evidence, just assurance - that it's all fine and hunky-dory. Except that some of the cameras ore 'older', others are cheap ones put up by shops and still others (UTC cameras) aren't very good. That leaves - not very many at all that really do the job. And those might be subject to reduced maintenance because of Council spending cuts.

I intend to ask how many prosecutions of City Centre robberies have been achieved as a result of identifications by CCTV. I expect the answer to be a pretty small number. What annoys me most is that a serious assault can take place in the City Centre and the Police will rely almost exclusively on CCTV identification, witness statements and getting the witnesses and victim (assuming they can) to flick through a few snapshots of possible culprits. If this doesn't throw anything up the case file is bunged in the "can't solve this now, got better/easier things to do" pile in the hope that the criminals do another crime and the cops get lucky. No effort, none of that meticulous investigation, no using the CCTV as a guide to avenues of enquiry, no extra patrolling. Nothing.

All this because, of course, CCTV can catch all those baddies! Except that it doesn't work.

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