Greed or Stupidity?

Tonight's meeting of Stockton Council produced some of the least credible arguments ever heard in that council chamber.  One of the agenda items was on the subject of members' allowances.  Over recent years the council has had to reduce its expenditure significantly and that has led to redundancies and cuts in services.  In 2011 the Liberal Democrat group suggested that the special responsibility allowances paid to vice-chairs of committees should be reviewed as part of an effort to reduce the overall amount spent on Councillor allowances.  In 2012 we tried to amend the budget in order to save money on all the SRAs.  Our move was not supported by the Labour group and we were told it wasn't a budget decision.
Councillors' allowances are recommended by an independent panel but then the council decides which of their recommendations to accept.  Last year the panel met and amongst other recommendations proposed abolition of the allowance for vice-chairs except in the rare circumstance where a chair is unable to attend for a prolonged period and the vc has to take over their role.  The panel made this recommendation because most of the councillors they had spoken to said it was a good idea.  Cabinet met in March and considered the report, recommending to council that the report be noted and that the proposals be considered.  That recommendation was part of the agenda papers for tonight.
Ten minutes or more into the meeting, a paper was brought into the chamber and distributed which claimed to be the cabinet recommendation to council.  When pressed as to which meeting of cabinet this recommendation had been made at, the head of law and democracy said it was a motion.  When pressed about which cabinet meeting had decided to put the motion the leader of the council said it was from him and the labour group.  Chaos is too polite a word.
The major change to the panel's recommendations was to keep the SRA for vice-chairs, thus removing at a stroke over £26k of savings, and announcing that the cabinet could probably be reduced by 2 members with a consequent reduction in select committees.  All this would only be implemented after the election next year.
A conservative move to defer a decision in order to give time for councillors to discuss it properly and understand exactly what was being proposed was defeated by a combined vote of Labour and Ingleby Barwick Independents.
The one UKIP councillor managed to get onto his feet before me or the BIA councillor present, all of us wanting to propose that the SRA for vice-chairs be removed.  That proposal too was defeated.  The excuse given by one Labour speaker after another was that we needed to get on with the job of saving money.  Not one of them could explain how paying a group of people over £26k per year saved money.
So I ask myself - are Labour and IBIS councillors too stupid to realise that paying out money is not saving money?  Or are they so greedy that they can't bear the thought that half a dozen of them might not get a few thousand pounds a year extra next year?  or is there a third explanation for their behaviour that escaped the rest of us tonight?

The Budget - A tough one

Yesterday's budget was a difficult one. Before the election we campaigned on a platform of Fairness - Fair taxes among them. No-one, not the electorate nor any of the parties, expected to have a coalition government trying to cope with a deficit as bad as Labour left us. Interest of £80,000 per minute - yes, per minute - beggars belief. No wonder we ended up with a budget that's tougher than we hoped. But thanks to the coalition agreement the Liberal Democrats have managed to ameliorate the worst excesses of Tory policies. Several Lib Dem policies have come through almost unscathed:

• Raising the point at which people start to pay income tax by £1000 this year, lifting thousands of low paid workers out of the tax bracket completely and helping thousands more ot pay less tax.
• A new tax on banks to help clear up the mess they helped to create
• A big rise in Capital Gains Tax for high earners, helping to put more of the burden on the highest earners
• Linking pensions to earnings rises or price rises or 2.5% rise, whichever is the highest. Never again will pensioners be left behind as Labour did.
• A regional growth fund to help areas like the North East develop new industry and reduce its dependency on the public sector for jobs.
• Help for small companies setting out or expanding so that taking on new staff isn't prohibitively expensive
• Cutting child tax credits for the better off and increasing child support for poorer workers.

All these are things we support wholeheartedly, and there are other things too which will come through in coming weeks.
The increase in VAT isn't something we wanted or campaigned for. But Lib Dem MPs looked at the books, saw the huge black hole in the country's finances and reluctantly agreed that it was unavoidable. By having a 6 month lead in time for the increase it avoids the risk of errors in rushing to implement it; some people will be able to plan their large purchases before the extra cost bites and as one young resident said "at least I can buy Chrissy pressies before it kicks in". I am very relieved that the extreme Tories who have in the past suggested VAT is applied to children's clothes or food or books haven't been listened to. In fairness to David Cameron I don't think those things were ever in his sights but sometimes leaders listen to the extremists in their parties. Coalition gives the opportunity to avoid that danger.
Mike Barker, Darlington Councillor and Lib Dem election candidate, has written a really good piece about his reaction to the budget - worth reading.

"Go and make your voice heard"

Not my words but those of Kate Adie, guest speaker at the Ladies' Lunch in aid of the George Hardwick Foundation. This is a wonderful charity which cares for carers, supporting them in their caring role, enabling them to have a little time to themselves, offering counselling and advice. Although some of their work is funded by Stockton Borough Council they have to raise lots of money each year to keep their premises intact and to advertise their services to the thousands of carers who don't yet know about the help and support that's available.
Kate spoke about her early years in local radio with BBC Durham and her transition to TV reporter and emphasised that she really learned all she knows in those years in Durham. She talked about the good reporter who listens to people and doesn't just jump in with comments.
She talked about the contribution local radio has made to bringing into the forefront of the nation's mind such issues as carers' needs - never discussed in the early 60s because the person needing care was seen as some kind embarrassment. But she also reminded us that we still have a long way to go and suggested strongly that more women need to get involved in politics, locally as well as nationally. "Volunteer to be a local councillor" she said. "Go and stand for Parliament". She commented that women couldn't possibly make a worse mess of the budget, the banks and international relations than men had and we'd probably make it a lot better. After all, who does all the day to day budgeting in the country? Women of course! Who mediate day in, day out in the home - women of course.
So I echo Kate Adie's words - let's have more women involved. If anyone wants more information on being a councillor, just get in touch.
While we were enjoying a lovely lunch in beautiful surroundings Alistair Darling was talking up his 2nd budget. I caught up with it later in the day and wasn't very impressed. A real missed opportunity and a real mix of previously announced changes, previously leaked changes and borrowing. The level of debt he's prepared to incur is terrifying. I look at our grandchildren and wonder how old they'll be before this slab of debt is paid off. I don't know that it'll be in my lifetime.
This morning we heard the news that the Tee Valley hadn't been granted City Region status, despite lots of encouraging noises in recent weeks from ministers and government spokespeople. It doesn't mean that we lose any money, just a bit of prestige and we have to work harder for the flexibility we'd hoped for in using our money across the area. However, Tees Valley Unlimited is down but not out, and the region will go on to greater things I'm sure. We will co-operate because it's the only sensible way to achieve what we want for our residents.

And at the end of a long day, time to catch up on e-mails and phone calls. Parking, new fences, old walls, children and ball games - It's fun being a councillor, honestly. Take Kate Adie's advice and try it - make your voice heard.

Budget Day

Not the budget that makes headlines in the national press but one which matters to the people of Stockton - our council budget. Most of the work of course is done by council officers with much better heads for figures than I have, but the final decision is for elected members. We are elected to represent residents and we are the ones who sometimes have to make hard choices.
This year we agreed to keep to what we proposed last year and to spend the year looking carefully at where we can make savings, doing things better and perhaps not doing things at all so that next year we can avoid having either a huge increase or large numbers of redundancies.
As Liberal Democrats we did support the amendment proposed by IBIS to use some of our capital to buy a plot of land in Ingleby Barwick so that if the Building Schools for the Future money comes through we'd be able to build more secondary places in Ingleby. It's only fair - that's where most demand is now. It would need to be very carefully organised so that it didn't have a negative impact on Egglescliffe and Conyers but that's not outside the realms of possibility.
If the worst came to the worst and the land couldn't be used for school places it would be a valuable asset owned by the council in years to come and could be used for something else.
As expected, the Labour-Tory unholy alliance didn't agree and voted against so we lost the vote but won the argument.
Of course today is also Ash Wednesday, a day for Christians the world over to start a period of reflection and reconciliation leading up to Easter. So it was appropriate to take some time out of the busy-ness for a church service. And it felt right to spend some time on detailed arrangements for the Go Bananas event on Friday March 6th to raise awareness of the poor working conditions of the growers of unfairly traded bananas.
In between I even found time to enjoy the walks to and from meetings on a relatively mild spring day.

Budgets, budgets

Hardly a glimmer of good news today. First of all a sombre discussion about the pressures that are looming on the Council's budget. How to continue to fund the extras that Stockton Council and other local authorities provide on the free bus pass for over 60s, the pass introduced by the government with a great fanfare but only designed to work after 9.30 in the morning. That's a fat lot of use if your hospital appointment is at 9 or even 10 unless you live very near to the hospital on a direct bus route. And of course that's only one example of when older people need to use a bus before 9.30. So Stockton and other Tees Valley councils decided to put money into providing a pass which works all day, every day But that costs money and these days with rising electricity and gas bills and falling interest rates the Council is in the same position as many households - it's belt tightening time. So what should we cut back on? Bus passes for older citizens? Social workers for vulnerable children? Road mending? Pavement sweeping? Street lights? Litter bins? Difficult decisions lie ahead and whatever is decided will hurt someone.
That was followed by a meeting of the Environment Select committee at which we had a presentation of a seemingly very good action plan to reduce the numbers of rats and pigeons infesting the borough - not a huge problem in most parts of the borough but visible and irritating in some parts. The action plan sounded great till we realised that it could only be implemented if there was a bit of spare cash to fund it - not likely in the present economic climate. So the chances are that it's going to be a tinkering with the problem because we can't afford the full blown action plan.
However, there's always someone worse off than me, as my mother would tell me. So, as the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights approaches (10th December for those who like to know these dates) I encourage you to support the campaign to help retired Gurkhas to have the same rights as the people they served alongside in conflict zones around the world. It's something that Liberal Democrats have been supporting for over a year now and it was heartening to see the High Court give a boost to the campaign last month. Let's get it sorted out by Christmas!

The Budget is Set

After quite a debate tonight Stockton Council set its budget for the next municipal year, starting in April. There were two amendments proposed to the Cabinet recommendation. First of all, Ingleby Barwick Independents proposed using some of the reserves being kept for "pump priming" capital expenditure to add to what is already planned for spending on Romano Park. Although we sympathise with the people of Ingleby Barwick there's quite a lot being spent there and we didn't feel that it had more merit than several other possible capital projects around the borough. Certainly we would need a lot more information to persuade us than was on offer at Council tonight and we hadn't been given any prior notice of the proposal.
Thornaby Independents had given us warning of their amendment, mainly because they were proposing that money didn't need to be spent on the Cemeteries post which the Environment committee last year. They were proposing to save more money by not upgrading Christmas lights and a couple of other projects in order to spend over £1m on upgrading Park View Residential Home so that it can remain open. Whilst having some sympathy with their desire to maintain that home in the public sector we couldn't support an amendment which removed the post recommended by the committee I chair and agreed by Cabinet. The speech proposing the amendment was very clear and well delivered. But the debate became very heated and acrimonious as it progressed, and accusations were thrown around the chamber at high speed. For those of us not intimately involved it was an interesting debate to watch and listen to, and there are certainly some questions to be answered about the process of the scrutiny. Sadly, in all the emotion I suspect those questions won't be answered and no-one will be held accountable for the things which weren't done properly.

Elections Approaching

Another step on the way to election day came on Friday when I collected the paperwork for nomination to Egglescliffe Parish Council for Alan, John and me. Mike is valiantly seeing to the Borough Council paperwork and deserves a medal for it.

I spent part of the morning in a meeting about how we assess the performance of senior officers of the council. It's a very difficult subject - so many things that really matter to us are beyond their control like bus timetables and yet they have targets to meet! I hope we've set in motion a slightly more sensible system but it'll take time to see if it works. The officers do a great job and it seems hard at times to be looking for ways to challenge them to do even better, but that's what performance management involves.

Then it was time to sort through some papers and try to catch up on things I'd missed when not well earlier in the week before trying to sort out an IT problem for another councillor. The more I read the more I concluded that Ming Campbell was right - Gordon Brown has wasted a great opportunity in his budget. Then I read about how little of the Lyons Review seems likely to be implemented and I thought "How on earth do they expect Local government to work when they won't finance it and won't give us the freedom to listen to our electorate?" Except I wasn't quite as polite as that when I was muttering.

Time to produce a Focus leaflet and get it to deliverers before Easter! Much more satisfying than listening to Labour MPs telling us why we can't be trusted to do things.