Taking Out The Trash

Talking shop

Pretty much every month the parish council is asked to respond to one kind of consultation exercise or another.

A questionnaire, a letter, an online form, attach something to the leg of a racing pigeon.

Invariably we are given a very short deadline for our response and are given no feedback on what happens at the end of it.

Last week we got an email from the police asking us to respond to a questionnaire on the performance in our neighbourhood policing team.

The email arrived on a Friday (when the parish office is shut) and they needed the response by the following Tuesday (the parish office is also shut on a Monday).

What particularly irked was that the answer to freedom of information request I had received only a few weeks before showed that crime in the NPT had gone up dramatically in the last year (232 incidents to 411) and the types of crime had got more serious.

So here was a botched consultation exercise taking place at a time when perhaps more attention was needed on basic law enforcement.

What finally led the council to submit a very sharp response was the last question.

"Are the Neighbourhood Policing Teams in your area engaging locally to gather intelligence on counter-terrorism and to reassure the public?"

Our parish, like many in rural Wiltshire, has a large number of soldiers stationed in it so we're actually pretty reassured that plenty of people keeping an eye our already and should a terrorist incident occur they'll be plenty of people of around to take of the problem.

It's reasssurance that with the day to day petty crime is being detected and punished that we need.

This is my latest post on the Total Politics blog.

Paper candidates

Infrequent blogging due to sudden fury of work (and consequently lots of me putting things off which I should really be getting on with).

Even missed a deadline for Total Politics (hangs head in shame) but did file this:

At a recent Green Party election training event members were exhorted to find people who could stand as paper candidates in the forthcoming local authority elections.

The rationale behind paper candidates is clear: better exposure, promotes your agenda, has knock on effect in other areas etc etc.

For small parties such tactics are a necessary part of the game in a first past the post system.

It was clear, though, that some Green Party members didn't feel happy with the idea. In some way they felt it was defrauding the electorate. If you're not making any effort to win votes then you're being hypocrical - and their party should be above that.

Funnily enough I shared a long journey to work with the local Lib Dem agent the other week and we were discussing who their candidate might be in the new unitary elections. Their present district member has been invisible for two years and only turns up for meetings to avoid being struck off for six months of no shows. It's likely the Lib Dems will need a paper candidate simply because if no-one is on the ballot their vote might collapse and take a long time to recover.

Are paper candidates hoodwinking the electorate if you don't make it clear what you are doing? Or does that assume people are naive about how parties operate to get elected?

PS: When asking people to be paper candidates a common concern is that people don't want to 'accidentally' get elected and they cite some Conservative councillor this happened to. Is this an urban myth or has a paper candidate ever been forced to make good on his or her commitment?

Is that a rise in the polls or are you just pleased to see me?

Latest posting on the Total Politics blog is here:

Following on from Ben's post about TV personalities who become politicians (and vice versa) Hopi Sen has a rather marvellous story from Louisiana about entertainment and politics.

It seems that the incumbent Republican senator David Vitter has tested the patience of some in his party enough having been involved in two prostitution scandals but refusing to quit.

So they've advertised on craigslist for a porn star to run against him in the primary. Of course the adult entertainer must be a registered Republican. You can insert your own jokes here.

As a stunt to embarrass Vitter it's great.

So why can't we see more of it over here? Rather than Sir Anthony Meyer types, if you're a local or national party and sick of your incumbent then get on to eBay and hire yourself a decent stalking horse.

Increasing the 150 club

Just had this posted up on the Total Politics local government blog (although it was written a few days ago and so doesn't mention Trevor Phillips intervention on this issue or some of the rebuttals such as this from the Guardian's Michael White).

Obama might have shown than a black man can become president but over here the most basic rungs of local government appear to be out of reach to most minority ethnic candidates.

Harriet Harman this week pointed out that only around 150 out of 19,000 councillors across England are minority ethnic women. This is actually a fall on two years ago when the figure stood at 164.

It means minority ethnic women make up less than one per cent of all local authority representatives.

Sure there are all sorts of reasons for this beyond racism (women of all backgrounds often have to cope with the demands of caring for home, family and career while men concentrate on the latter).

But it's still a pathetic figure and it doesn't bode well if we are looking for a minority ethnic woman to fill senior local government or central government roles.

All politics is local

Below is my latest post on the Total Politics site. I understand the blogs there are to undergo a revamp so keep an eye on them.

Last week there was quite a detailed discussion in the school playground between parents on how accurate the America polls might be.

Who knew that the Bradley effect could become common currency rather than a psephological speciality?

We'll find out over the next 24 hours (providing there is no re-run of 2000). I’ve invited parents to drop in on the way to and from school on Wednesday morning to have a cookie or bagel and watch the fnial stages of the Presidential election.

Beyond the natural interest of this fascinating race should people in this little Wiltshire village really care?

Actually, it’s the primary school mums and dads who are most likely to be affected.

Half of the children at the village school are from service families. My daughter is used to making friends with children who stay for a year and then suddenly leave as their father is posted elsewhere.

And of course significant numbers have served or are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Whichever of the candidates wins will have an impact on Britain’s role in those countries which will percolate down to our community.

One aspect of having so many service families is that it can play havoc with school budgets.

Every January there is a count of pupil numbers and based on that the school gets its funding. However, the MoD might move significant numbers of personnel around any time.

It could be good for the school if its numbers drop and so it has more funds per head. Or it could work the other way.

If you sign up for the forces then the unexpected is what, well, you expect. However it’s hardly an ideal way for a school to operate when its budget plans are subject to such an arbitrary snapshot.

Should we devise a different forumla for schools with a high proportion of service children?

Follow the money

It's been a busy old time in the Trash household so just getting round to posting some items up. Normally I have teasers of my Total Politics posts on this site but Im going to post in full the following because it hangs together better.

What has surprised me most about the story of local authority reserves and the Icelandic banks is the degree of criticism of councils.
I heard Nicky Campbell on Radio 5Live going on and on at a representative from the Local Government Association about this (to be fair Campbell goes on and on whatever the topic and really needs to find that off switch).
Then the leader of Somerset County Council was on the drive programme and was asked why so much money was in these banks. She explained that it's only about 2.5% of their total, so not all their eggs were in one basket. The follow up was a surprised: "What are you doing with so much money?"
Wiltshire County Council, which put £8m just three months ago (whoops) into a subsidiary of an Icelandic bank, emailed all staff to explain: "The council invested with Heritable which was a reputable bank with a strong credit rating as part of the council’s policy to optimise investment income while ensuring security by investing in strongly-rated banks."
It went on to say: "At any one time, the County Council, like all Local Authorities, has money it is holding to use for forthcoming activities. This money is invested until it is needed to ensure we get the best possible income for the people in Wiltshire."
Which is the reasonable position adopted by many other councils.
As for the huge sums overall - isn't it obvious that, for example, local government being such a huge employer will also have gigantic pension responsibilities?
Yet relatives of council employees report being quizzed in the last few days about why councils have all this money and why don't they put it in to UK banks?
Local government finance is about as comprehensible as a plan for a nuclear power station written in cuniform. The situation is not helped by generally poor explanations from either central or local government which are keen to blame cuts on the other party and credit investment to themselves.
This latest crisis has highlighted the lack of public (and journalistic) knowledge there is about council finances.
And if you don't know where the money is going to and from, then are you really making informed choices when it comes to voting?

A home isn't too much to expect

This also from the Total Politics local government blog (yes, I'm catching up on aggregating my posts from elsewhere).

Sian would love to stay in the village where she grew up. She’d love her daughter to go to the same primary school she did. But the finances don’t stack up.
So she, her partner and their young daughter live with her parents - but it’s not a long-term solution.
There are For Sale signs up in the village but they’ve been up a long time because no-one is buying and those selling can’t afford to take a hit.
There are places to rent but if you’re on an average salary then you’re simply not going to be able to afford it.
A local builder is just completing his latest project. It’s one of the few signs of construction activity in our community of 1,900. (The other is a huge villa some millionaire is sticking on the green belt).
This new house is a big one and really we need flats for people like Sian.
Sian is not alone.

You can read the rest here.

We need to talk about John

Now I'm up to date with my posts from the Total Politics site:

Let’s call him John because, well, it's as good a name as any.
He’s one of my fellow parish councillors. He’s white, retired, middle class, been a councillor since the year dot – pretty standard fare.
John made one of his rare visits to the parish council last month and sat and listened to a debate on a proposed parish plan. It’s something we have been working on for a several months. We’ve been trying to involve the wider community and establish an independent organising committee.
John wouldn’t know that because he only manages to attend about six months of the year and for long periods he’s on holiday.
So we’re all listening to an expert tell us how we can take this idea forward.
John leans forward and pronounces that it all seems a waste of time because it’s a duplication of effort. He then leans back and adds that he won’t vote against it though, he’ll just abstain. That’s his sole contribution for the evening. Not sure when we’ll see him again.
I sit there open mouthed.

You can read the rest here.

Light touch in the public sector

I've posted previously on how a couple of councils have failed to follow the adjudication of the local government ombudsmen when they have been found guilty of maladministration causing injustice.

Perhaps the most egregious example was Trafford whose treatment of a young woman with disabilities and her family has been callous.

Some people have been trying to find how many other councils have ignored the findings of ombudsmen.

Documents posted here from a freedom of information request show that 143 and one school have ignored findings.

Now these date from 1974 to the present period and they also only cover the one rejected entirely. As the discussion on this board shows, the numbers not accepting these independent findings is likely to be higher.

You can read the rest of my latest post on the Total Politics Local Government blog.

Rule of Thumb

My latest post on the Total Politics local government blog is below:

Our village is only eight miles from either Bath or Chippenham but it might as well be 80.
We’ve got a bus service running six days a week into Bath alone but it’s only every two hours and stops at 6pm. For the commercial operator there isn’t the demand to increase the frequency.
Since we’re on top of a hill and connected by narrow and fast country roads, walking isn’t an option for most people.
It’s frustrating to be just out of reach of bus, coach and mainline rail networks and to have to rely on the car so much.
So some parish councillors and green activists in the village have been thinking about how to bring these networks within reach.
We’ve been getting some advice from Community First on options such as a community minibus and we’ve promoted car sharing with limited success.
But what’s caught our imagination is hitchhiking.
Traffic generally uses only three principal routes out of the village and with the bus stops in place there are ideal stopping points. We’ve also got ideas on where to stand when people are heading home.
There are safety issues (we’re thinking drivers should register and carry a sticker in their car) and cutting the waiting time (blanket text alerts so people know someone needs a lift?)
The details are fuzzy but somehow we must be able to match all these people driving alone and all these people who want to travel. Any ideas on how to make this less fuzzy gratefully accepted.
Poland used to have a government-run hitchhiking scheme called the Social Autostop Committee which folded when the Berlin Wall went down. I’m trying to find out more about how it worked. Something about vouchers, Ladas and queuing I imagine.
I like the idea of our parish council adopting a Communist-inspired scheme just for the incongruity of it all - but a simple and informal system is going to work best.
According to Hitchwiki:
“Hitchhiking in the United Kingdom is feasible although the British are a little surprised (especially in England) to see people still doing it these days since it has become a dying trend largely due to the safety worries and very busy roads. You will still manage a ride somehow but you really need to be at the right spot. …For example, the rural mentality in the South West makes it a lot more easier than trying to hitch in the South East or East Anglia.”
So perhaps the scheme isn’t a total non-starter.