Not our problem

The press release below refers to the decision taken at Woking Borough Council last week to introduce a membership scheme for Woking’s centres for the community. This scheme will allow the council to better tailor the services it provides for users of the centres and offer them priority services – informal consultation ahead of the decision showed that opinion was generally positive towards this idea.

The cost of all this will be just £8 a year – or £4 for those in receipt of concessionary benefits ie those on low incomes in Denzil Coulson’s blog entry. It’s not much – and it doesn’t raise a huge amount of revenue but what it does is support the idea that those who use a service should contribute a small amount to its delivery. The amount charged in this instance not only reflects the ability to pay but also the group being asked to pay.

Contributions such as these will help the council meet budget targets. By opposing this scheme, the Liberal Democrats are voting to make the budget more difficult to balance. They think that subscriptions from the garden waste wheeled bin scheme should be used to offset this scheme instead – totally missing the point that the garden scheme itself, also, has to be offset. In fact, a willful ignorance of how to balance the council budget is beginning to characterise their messaging at the moment, with suggestions of new services and opposing any extra charging to increase revenue.

I’m minded of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors’s Effective Opposition handbook, which says:

“Oppose all service cuts…no cut is going to be popular and why court the unpopularity that goes with the responsibility of power?”

Why indeed? Well, because unless you can handle the responsibility of power and the unpopularity that comes with it at some point, you’ve no place running a tap, let alone a council. Since the beginning of history, the placing of an extra financial liability on the population – or certain parts of it – has not been popular. But sometimes the responsibility of power has to be shouldered by those with the courage to understand that what is expedient is not always what is necessary.

The Lib Dem bible then goes on to say:

“You are NOT running the council. It’s NOT your problem.”

Correct – it’s the problem of every resident of the borough that an equitable way is found to ensure a sustainable financial settlement. I’ve been told to read Lib Dem literature and vote for them to find out about another way of financially modelling the council (is this the legendary “fourth way”?). Perhaps that’s true, perhaps not. But I’d rather not vote for any party that takes such a mercenary view of local authority administration – if they’re not in charge, it’s not their problem.

It’s yours instead. And that of those with the task of trying to balance the budget while maintaining a sense of proportion and fairness. Something that is, apparently, conspiciously absent from the Lib Dem handbook at the present time.

Press release: Conservatives enhance centres for community with membership scheme

At the Council Meeting on Thursday (1 October), the Conservative Group voted to confirm the decision already taken by the Conservative Executive to introduce a Key Card membership scheme for users of Community Centre services at a cost of just £8 a year, reduced to £4 for those entitled to concessionary benefits.

The enhanced scheme will give members continued access to services such as lunches, hairdressing, special events and priority bookings for outings, all at subsidised costs. Bathability and Chiropody services will still be open to all. 

Consultation has been carried out between the Council and centre managers, users and ‘friends of groups’ who agree with the principles behind the membership scheme.  Contrary to incorrect information released by the Liberal Democrats, the membership fee will not apply to volunteers or carers who give their time to help at the centres, unless they choose to access the services when they are not in a volunteering or caring role.

Leader of the Executive, Councillor John Kingsbury said: “I believe this Centre Key Card scheme, which will be incorporated immediately into the existing Key Card scheme in support of promoting and developing the Council’s health and well-being agenda, represents excellent value-for-money.

“It will give Day Centre Members the opportunity to enjoy a range of other Council venues and services as well as access to discounts with around 30 retail partners.

“In these challenging economic times, our aim must be to use Council funds to provide sustainable services that we can justify to all council tax taxpayers.  A similar Community Centre membership scheme operates across almost all Surrey Boroughs.”

It is intended to introduce the new Community Centre Key Card on 1 January, 2010.

Opening the Upper House

Packed with cronies or open for applications?

It’s a quiet Friday today, not much new in the papers – I’m waiting for the documentation for the October 1 Woking Borough Council meeting to be available.

Looking through some of my recommended blogs, I return to Tim Dodds’s post earlier today about Labour’s Baronesses. I agree with him that it’s a bit of a mockery that these wonks and flunkies hold the same honour as Lady Thatcher, our greatest post-war PM, without having done much, or indeed anything, to have deserved it.

But leaving that aside, I’m interested in his thoughts on how to reform the house of Lords, make it properly democratic and representative, yet also a force for holding the government to account. I think it is also vital to prise away honours system from politicians and the civil service machine. Honours are a great institution of our country – but like much else, they have been brought to the brink of ruin by Labour.

Clearly the current ”life peers” are just a vehicle for government patronage. It’s not democratic, it’s not fair and it has no place in the UK. But a fully-elected chamber would inevitably find itself – even staggering the elections in between parliamentary ones – in a position where it was dominated by a governing party and not able to hold the Commons properly to account.

I was in favour of this arrangement because the American model works well – but am now less sure.

Anything in between is a hotpotch, whether it’s 50% or 70%. Voters have enough difficult understanding how everything works at the moment without having to add another election using yet another system into the mix.

I wonder whether appointment to the Lords shouldn’t be the same as appointment to, say, the magistracy. That is, limited to a particular number of people who apply for the posts in an open process. We don’t need more than 200 members of the Lords, all of whom could be paid a small salary – say £10,000 – plus sensible expenses and apply to an independent board, set up as a charitable trust rather than a quango.

Lords would be selected for appointment by the board and then recommended by the PM to the sovereign. At the beginning of each parliament, the board – not the PM – would work out under proportionality rules the political make-up of the Lords, including cross-benchers, and announce the actual membership during an initial meeting in the chamber. Only those sitting as members will be allowed to use their titles.

The board would then be in charge of monitoring attendance and behaviour of peers, with their party retain only the right to withdraw the whip. Those peers not pulling their weight may find themselves omitted from the next parliament and each year, the board would publish an annual report on its activities and those of peers for consideration by the Privy Council and public.

Obviously it’s impossible to completely exclude political influence from a political institution and the civil service would need to be involved in administering the new arrangements. But the principle of taking politicians’ favours away and handing them to an open and transparent body for due process would be an encouraging and refreshing change. 

Gone clubbing

I wasn’t at the Overview and Scrutiny session last night because it was the other half’s birthday but the Lib Dems called in the decision to create a club membership for those residents who use The Vyne and the other day centres around the borough.

The new system will provide benefits for club members and will only cost a nominal amount – £8 a year for goodness’ sake – and will allow the council to keep better information on who uses their services and therefore what their needs in the community may be. I can fully appreciate why the principle of charging for a hitherto discretionary will cause anxiety to some but the truth is that the council has been placed in such a difficult position by its lack of funding from government that it needs to look at whether non-statutory services across the board can be provided for nothing.

There remains a commitment on behalf of the Conservatives not to cut any front-line services in 2010/11 and this is a key priority for the group. To be fair to the Lib Dems, I believe that they are seeking more information on this for the best of reasons and the account that I received of last night’s meeting shows that they acted reasonably and without political malice by not insisting on a vote. I could, of course, be totally hoodwinked and the reason for the call-in may become clear in due course.

But the officers’ report shows clearly that we cannot sustain the day centre service for nothing. It is of course important that as few people as possible should be excluded from the services and details of how to deal with possible circumstances that might otherwise result in exclusion are being hammered out. It’s vital to get these right. But on the other hand

“It is clear from this information that the majority of Surrey Districts and Boroughs already have in place a Centres Membership scheme, although the way in which it is applied, and to what range of services, varies.”

is the officer view and it can’t be ignored.

It’s always painful to introduce a new charge but until we have a review of the way local government is funded, Surrey will pay the price of being a no-win area for Labour.

Update 16/9 : Cllr Denzil Coulson has enlightened us on his blog about exactly why this decision was called in. It’s apparently because we haven’t thought everything through properly. Well, it’s certainly important to think everything through so if the Lib Dems feel better about it all now for having the meeting on Monday, that’s fine. I notice that Cllr Coulson stops short of saying that the Lib Dems will oppose the card scheme pending the council meeting on October 1. So do they support it or oppose it?

Or, as usual, are they waiting to see which way the wind blows before they make a “principled” stand?

The (changing) thoughts of chairman Wells (part 3)

Another post from Cllr Olly Wells, although to be fair at least this one is about Knaphill rather than Burma or the Imperial plunder of British museums.

What readers of his blog might not be aware of is the revisions this posting had to go through in order to make it, well, accurate. Portfolio holder Cllr Melanie Whitehand spotted a more than “liberal” attitude to the facts and contacted Cllr Wells thus:

From: Cllr Melanie Whitehand Sent: 02 September
2009 17:23

To: Cllr Olly Wells

Cc: Councillors; Geoff McManusSubject: Dog
waste bins

Dear Councillor Wells,

It has been brought to my attention that you have placed on your web blog the question put to Council in July by Councillor Sharpley re. dog waste bins and the answer given by myself.

You have used those statements as a basis for further comment on the subject.

I was intrigued by this opening comment…

‘There are fewer and fewer bins for dog waste in Knaphill….

I contacted the Environmental Health department at the Council offices for clarification on this remark, as I was concerned that this was happening. The officer was surprised to hear this assertion as he felt sure that no bins have been removed. Should this have been the case they most certainly would have replaced them.

The second comment re. Barton Close and the lack of a dog waste bin in the area was answered by the officer that dog waste bins are never put that close to residential sites as both the County Council and Woking Council are restricted in this action. Dog waste bins are placed in larger recreational areas. i.e. The Brookwood Country park, Waterer’s Park and St. John’s Lye. The comment to me was that the desire to have dog waste bins close to residential houses was not encouraged from communities for the very reasons that you state, that dog
mess can harbour the parasite Toxi caricanis hence the enforcement of a fine if a dog owner is caught allowing their dog to foul in a public area.

Your third comment, that despite my assurance that…

‘.. where possible replacement or requests for additional bins will be accommodated…’

You report that requests for additional bins have been denied.

This was another comment I put to the Council officer, who again, was confused with this remark as he was of the mind that no requests for bins in appropriate areas have been denied.

Could you possible furnish details of the claims of where dog waste bins that have been requested in particular areas were denied please? And could you offer up evidence of where the losses of dog waste bins are as the Environmental Health department, I am sure, will be happy to replace them??

Regards

Melanie
Whitehand

A suitably chastised Cllr Wells replied, saying:

“I have amended the first sentence on my post as while it is my opinion, I am
more concerned with there not being enough bins in Knaphill and as these are
also being used as dog waste bins there are not enough bins for dog waste. I will
spend sometime checking the dog waste provision in Knaphill further (as I am
sure you will, perhaps we could do this together?)”

So the main premise of his blog post was, well, a bit of a guess, then.

As for whether Melanie has accepted his offer to audit the dog waste bins in Knaphill (but presumably not their contents??), I am yet to hear.

An unholy row

Further to my previous post, the executive has made its decision – to refuse the URC, to pass St Mary’s over to county councillor Geoff Marlow for consideration out of his Surrey members’ allowance and to give St Paul’s, Maybury, £30,000.

The executive members I think have made a sensible decision – the URC bid was just nonsense and the St Mary’s one, while worthy, is something the church should be doing anyway and has had 10 years to plan for. St Paul’s is a truly good scheme with great community benefit and probably deserved £50,000.

But some of the scenes in the chamber were a bit unsavoury. The Lib Dems tutting about grants refused and people getting tribal about churches in “their” ward – or even their churches. There is no place in the council chamber for this kind of contemptuous attitude or religious persuasion.

My own feeling is that the council should put a stop to all applications from churches as part of the community grants scheme. All the churches are wealthy enough to be able to fund their own business and the agrandisement of their own facilities.

If we are to consider exceptional schemes that clearly have an overwhelming and valuable community benefit, they should be brought forward separately – with no obligation for them to get to council – as part of delivering the council’s community strategy.

We shouldn’t be in the business of subsidising church efforts to secure future generations of worshippers. That isn’t what the council tax should be used for.

Update 4/4/09: I find myself in agreement with Cllr Denzil Coulson. Just fancy that!

Marjorie Richardson dilemma

The News and Mail leads this week with a “fears are growing for the…” story on the Marjorie Richardson centre, which has understandably caused alarm. There is a paper on this going to the executive on September 3 that asks members to consider whether to re-instate funding to the centre on the basis of its current grant, £15,285 rather than the £20,000 it wanted.

There are, it has to be said, a couple of things that the story omitted, which is understandable because the newspaper needs to focus on the people rather than the background.

At Horsell Village Hall, we don’t rely on the council for funding, although it’s nice when it comes along. We have to do our own fundraising, balance our lettings books and seek grant funding from elsewhere. There is nothing preventing the centre from doing the same thing, so by turning down funding, the council is not “closing” the centre, it is merely saying that it cannot provide the funds it has done in the past.

The centre has now submitted a business plan – and not before time. Any operating model that relied so heavily on one source of income (WBC) is clearly in need of review. The plan shows that the centre is making £20k a year on sales as well as a £15k WBC grant but is spending more than £25k on management! This I would suggest, not WBC’s meanness, is the real problem – it’s a pity no-one at the News and Mail bothered to look it up.

In addition, the story tells us that 45-55 people each day use the centre – which is slightly at odds with the 433 a week in the grant application. However, if we multiply 50 by 5 and then 52 to get a rough yearly figure, it’s around 13,000. This seems to imply that with 15,500 visits for the year in 2007/8 (not people using the centre as the newspaper implies), we have roughly the same 50 people using the centre each day with a few extra here and there.

£20k, or for that matter £15k, is quite a bit of money to spend on – let’s be generous – 150-odd active individuals out of 92,000 residents in Woking. No-one likes to see the axe fall anywhere and taking funding away from community groups is not what Conservatism is about. But if you think that Horsell Village Hall received £3,500 for its 2,000 individual users, it does seem to introduce some perspective here.

My understanding is that the Marjorie Richardson Centre could be given time to make the new arrangements – ie a proper rather than pie-in-the-sky business plan – work. But users and staff blaming the council for the state it’s in, aiding by some unquestioning journalism, doesn’t paint it in the most favourable light.

The Thoughts of Chairman Wells (part 1)

If you are ever unfortunate enough to entertain Lib Dems to tea, make sure you bake two cakes – one for them to have and one to eat. Having moaned for ages that Woking parking charges were too high, they are now moaning that the action the Conservatives have taken to reduce charges at commercially sensitive times are inadequate.

His latest blog, imaginatively entitled Parking Charges seem to go up and up under the Tories, offers nothing new in the way of ideas about how to address this issue. Yes, charges have gone up. Yes, the council needs to increase its revenue to cover increasing costs.

“I wonder if in Woking parking charges should be linked to cost of providing
parking services and public transport and that the money raised should not be
spent on other things. In Woking this would probably mean a threat to
services that are paid for by the profit from parking.”

He muses. Profit from parking? Can Cllr Wells please explain what this profit is – the parking service is not run as an independently operating financial unit but as part of Woking Borough Council, which doesn’t make a “profit”.

“The money raised should not be spent on other things”- yes, he’d like that, wouldn’t he? Then the nasty old Tories would have no money to provide any other services, which he would then be able to crow about when they got cut. The Conservatives will not cut front-line services in Woking.

“What about restricting any additional income from rises in parking charges to be
ring fenced to only be spent on improvements in parking facilities and better
public transport.”

This gets funnier. Is Cllr Wells seriously saying that Woking should hand over part of its income to Surrey County Council for it to make improvements to public transport in other parts of the county? Are the Lib Dems saying that they would do that? And the parking facilities have only just undergone a multi-million pound capital overhaul. Where is he going to spend this ring-fenced revenue to any effect?

Car parking income is dropping because the recession means that fewer people are using their cars and they are not buying so many goods. The increased cost can never be a good thing – but it is not the primary factor for most people staying away. Woking Borough Council’s experience in the past is that dropping the charges has no effect on takeup.

Cllr Wells’s pie-in-the-sky nonsense shows a total lack of understanding about local government finance, the respective responsibilities of tiered authorities, not to mention a great deal of naivety about how to bring about increased revenues, a vibrant town centre and transport improvements.

God help us if this is the level of the Lib Dem thinking we can expect if they take control next year. But mark my words – if they do, car parking charges will increase in the same way that they have this year.

When the Lib Dems were last in charge, parking charges in Woking went up twice in the same year.

College blues

Nothing particularly surprising – Labour playing politics with funding to colleges. Labour has consistently played politics with its money since coming to power, diverting millions of pounds in revenue grants and business rates to councils it considers closer to its own thinking ie not Conservative.

Among the colleges left high and dry by the government in the face of the financial crisis, of course, was Woking College, whose potential move to Woking Park would not it seems have been likely to go ahead even if the executive at Woking BC had agreed to it.

The Conservatives made exactly the right decision to not allow it. But it shows how unreliable the government’s commitments to fund anything in Surrey are and how unwise it would have been for members to take heed of widly optimistic officer assertions that the move could still have gone ahead on a different site.

Perhaps it will – but not during this Parliament.