Peter Kent-Baguley

Governance Commission - the facts!

Unfortunately, in an otherwise balanced, interesting and even-handed report, Iain Robinson's front page story in The Sentinel on the Report of the Governance Commission last Wednesday (May 28th) wrongly stated that the Commission recommended "Cutting the number of councillors from 60 to 20."

In yesterday's letter columns in The Sentinel, inflated prominence was given to local Tory Sean Bennett's lashing tirade, almost half of which bemoans the Commission's "Reducing the number of councillors from 60 to 20." And on the next page, veteran columnist John Abberley, from whom I would have expected a more careful reading of the Commission's report wrote: "What is the thinking, I wonder, behind the proposal to reduce the number of councilors to one per ward? I can't see how reducing from 60 to 20 would serve the cause of democracy..."

The Commission do NOT recommend a reduction from 60 t0 20. They do NOT specify the number of councillors the new Council should have. They state quite clearly: "Since a review of the number of ward boundaries would be necessary, it would be possible to make wards smaller reflecting the 'real neighbourhoods'." (pare 3.9 p24)

I do hope that people will read the Report carefully and thoughtfully reflect upon the Recommendations before rushing into print with hasty declarations. 

Stoke-on-Trent City Council on probation

That is the essential underlying message of the Stoke-on-Trent Governance Commission's report to John Healey, MP, Minister for Local Government and to the City Council, published today in our Council chamber. The failure of the micophone system in the chamber was a grotesque symbol for the failure of the political system, as outlined in the Report.

I am delighted to read that the Commission concluded that the fundamental problems of the City's political system are much deeper than whether we adopt an elected mayor & cabinet model or a leader (elected by councillors) and cabinet system for beyond May 2009. I argued this very strongly in my submisison to the Commission. We must engage a much larger proportion of the people, through voting certainly but also through active community involvement.

I argued strongly for all-out elections every four years and for single member wards to replace the current 3 members per ward arrangement. And although I argued for smaller wards, I suggested a maximum of 40 instead of the present 20, thus producing a smaller Council, with 40 instead of 60 councillors. These are Recommendations 1, 2 and 3 in the Report.   

Their Recommendation 7 (strengthening of political machinery) will receive a mixed reception I suspect. I am not alone in believing that the authoritarian diktats showered from Labour's London HQ and Birmingham regional office has been the principal cause of the massive decline in Labour party membership across the city and the reduction of the Labour Group on the Council to a half of its size three years ago.

I am also pleased to see that the serious shortcomings of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee process have been well noted and Recommendation 9 concerns the strengthing of scrutiny, the basis of checks and balances on the Executive. Few would disagree that the so-called Independent Remuneration Panel needs to review the whole issue of councillor's pay and particularly the so-called Special Responsibility Allowances (SRA). 51 of the 60 councillors (including myself) receives a SRA.

The 14th and final Recommedation provides for the establishment of a Transition Board, consisting of a maximum of 15 people drawn from a cross section of the local community and chaired, possibly, by a member of the Governance Commission. The Board would: "...monitor progress on the implementation of our recommendations and help hold the Council to account. Action plans will be presented by the City Council for 'sign-off' by the Board and regular reporting to the Board will also take place...We believe that this will maintain local pressure from the people of Stoke-on-Trent on the City council to make the significant changes which are needed." 

This report is now in our hands and will be debated at the next meeting of Full Council on 12th June. The Chair of the Commission, professor Michael Clarke, made his view crystal clear: the recommendations are not to be cherry picked but accepted as a package. I hope Full Council will whole-heartedly adopt the Report's Recommendations so that we can make an immediate start on their implementation. We have here an excellent basis for political renewal.

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Annual Council upset

Annual Council is supposed to be a cosy, friendly, non-partisan affair with pre-determined, uncontroversial and agreed business nodded through. Thus it was at the beginning with the unanimous approval of the Deputy Lord Mayor, Cllr Derek Capey, assuming the role of Lord Mayor. The expected dvision for the new deputy duly took place with the expected outcome, thus we have the Lib Dem group leader in that role. The trouble started when the Executive, contrary to prior agreement at the group leaders' meeting, expected Council to approve extended delegated powers re planning issues. This should, of course, have been subject to an officer's report at the General Purposes Committee but that procedure had been ignored. Members were advised to vote for the extended powers and then the Developmnt Control Committee members could discuss it at a future date ro see how they felt about it!

My amendment that the measures should be deferred was carried, highlighting the Elected Mayor's exceedingly fragile grip on power following Labour's losses on May 1st. Three weeks after the elections it emerged that the Elected Mayor had managed to continue his cobbled coalition with the Tories and Lib Dems but with only a paper majority of 1. As the division on Thursday demonstrated, that is too slender for success.

The Elected Mayor has the choice of leading a lame duck administration for his final year of office or working with a broader cross-section of Council. Either way, it is clear that this year we have a more realistic chance of enforcing more open, honest and democratic processes within the Council. And that's got to be good for Stoke-on-Trent. 

Supporting local Post offices - a practical guide

This was the title of today's national conference at the Local Government Association's (LGA) Smith Square HQ, Westminster. Limited to two people per local authority, I managed to secure the last two places before the local elections. Being massively over-subscribed encouraged the LGA to webcast the event. Delegates from across England made the journey with high expectations, particularly to hear at first hand the much trumpeted Essex County Council experience, presented by the Leader, Lord Hanningfield. Like me, each person I spoke to was very disappointed with the generality and vagueness of Hanningfield's presentation. First off with questions, I asked Lord H if he could  give us two or three concrete examples of alternative services the County Council was about to finalise with Post office Ltd. Also, could he indicate the split between capital and revenue spending from the Council's £500,000 allocated for supporting alternative post office services. Sadly, we were given a repetition of the original generality so we were no wiser about the precise kind of services, their of form of delivery and costings.

Post Office Ltd's Sue Huggins, the programme director of Network Change, (translated: Post Office closures) followed. She was more explicit, detailed and emphatic. Examples: i) 2,500 Post Offices will close. So if their are reprieves, others will be found to keep up the numbers. ii) 90% of Post Office customers will see no change to their local branch. Post Office Ltd has already received some 100 expressions of interest to support alternative services - 50% from local authorities.

To be accepted by Post Office Ltd to provide a Post Office service/s, potential partner's must be mindful of: i) the need to cover the Post office costs; ii) guarantee stability until 2011; iii) be bound by state aid rules; iv) the level of commitment to make the venture work and the necessary resource implications.                                               

Kirsty Anderson from Reading Borough Council gave a detailed picture of the town centre post office the Council opened in 1993. With 5 counter positions, the five full-time and two part/time staff serve some 1,300 customers monthly. The safe and all the I.T. are provided by Post Office Ltd. As successful as the venture is in terms of meeting a large customer need, with surpluses of £91,600 from the post office services and £47,500 from cards and other shop items, the staff salary bill of £135,000 is met but rent, business rates, maintenance and so on are part of the Council subsidy.

The message is clear for our cash-strapped City council: support for any alternative service needs detailed research to determine both the kind and extent of need and the cost of meeting that need. But for a Council aiming for excellence, a passive collating of anecdotal responses from community groups is totally inadequate. The Executive should be actively investigating the needs of those residents affected by the impending closures.

Anti-Academy Campaingers defeat Conservative council leader

Interestingly, the success of the four anti-academy candidates in last Thursday's local elections for Barrow-in-Furness District Council, Cumbria, have received minimal national media attention. First of all, congratulations to the four successful candidates who stood as Our Schools Are Not For Sale (OSANFS) though listed as Independent on the election material and on the Council website. A fifth candidate lost by one vote. One of the four, Mike Stephenson, unseated the Conservative leader of the Council.

Cumbria County Council propose to close three secondary schools in Barrow and re-open them on the same sites as a single academy!

Lord Patel's plan to seek views on Preventing Violent Extremism in Muslim Communities turned into crisis of confidence  

Last Friday, the 6 Group Leaders on the Council were invited by the Assistant Chief Executive to meet Lord Kamlesh Patel, an advisor to Hazel Blears MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. The 30 minutes meeting was scheduled for today at 11.15am. An hour before an officer telephoned me in my Town Hall office to say that the meeting had been cancelled, with no reason given. Later in the morning a Group leader informed me that Lord Patel refused to meet with the BNP Group Leader present. This evening, the Council's Head of Public Relations telephoned me to say that the reason for the cancellation was that Lord Patel had run out of time.

Our briefing contained: 

A new strategy ‘Preventing violent extremism - Winning hearts and minds' was announced in April 2007 to step-up work with Muslim communities to isolate, prevent and defeat violent extremism. Stoke-on-Trent City Council secured funding from the new Preventing Violent Extremism Fund to take forward a programme of activities to tackle violent extremism at a local level.  There is a LAA performance indicator relating to this agenda, NI35 but it has been decided that in Stoke-on-Trent this will be a delivery plan item and not one of our 35 selected targets.

The government's strategic objectives for this programme are to develop a community in which Muslims in our communities: i) identify themselves as a welcome part of wider British society; ii) accepted as such by the wider community; iii) Reject violent extremist ideology and actively condemn violent extremism; iv) Isolate violent extremism activity and support and co-operate with the police and security services; v) Develop their own capacity to deal with problems where they arise and support diversionary activity for those at risk.

Lord Patel would like to talk about three issues: i) How do people think violent extremism can best be prevented at local level - based on their personal experiences and views; ii) How do people think they can best work together e.g. communities, LAs, Police, Education etc on preventing violent extremism; in particular, how can grass roots organisations and ordinary people be effectively involved; iii) What future support do they think they need

Please think about these issues in advance and come prepared to share your views and experiences. This is also your opportunity to talk to Lord Patel about the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) agenda, the reality on the ground, how the agenda affects you, your community or organisation. It is important that people are open and honest when expressing views and opinions. (My emphasis)

Unfortunately, there is now considerable doubt about the veracity of that final briefing sentence.

Premiership Potters

To secure their promotion to the Premiership, Stoke City had to achieve at least a draw in their match yesterday. This they have done with a goaless draw, against Leicester City, a result which confirmed Leicester's relegation. So, for the first time for 23 years Stoke City is back in the top league of British football. It certainly seems a long time since I was at Stoke City's old Victoria ground with my eldest son who supported Arsenal. Now, once again top flight football teams will be playing in Stoke-on-Trent on City's new ground at the Britannia stadium where they secured promotion yesterday. Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, the whole roll-call of Premiership teams will be playing here next season. The home of the legendry Sir Stanley Matthews and the all-time great goalie Gordon Banks will once again play host to today's top ranking players. Thousands of extra supporters will be coming to the City, businesses will enjoy tremendous boosts to their trade (a pub in Stoke that normally takes £400 on a Sunday took £8,000 yesterday) and the City itself will gain a wider, national, even international profile. It's just the tonic the City needed. Congratulations Potters; enjoy your triumphal open top coach tour tomorrow evening around the southern and central parts of the City and the subsequent Civic Reception.

Election results

With 11 of their 23 seats being defended, as widely expected Labour failed to hold 9 of the 11. With 2 gained added to the 2 retained Labour now have 16 Members, plus the Elected Mayor. That will read as follows:

16  Labour (23) 11 up, lost 9; gained 2.  

9    Conservative & Independent Alliance (10) 4 up, lost 4; gained 3. 

5    Lib Dems (4) 1 up, lost 1; gained 2.

14  City Independents (10) 2 up, held 2; gained 4.

9    BNP (6) gained 3.

2    Potteries Alliance (4) 2 up, lost 2.

5    Non-aligned (3)

Mike Tappin, Labour Group leader lost. He is the 4th successive Labour leader to defeated, following in the footsteps of his predecessors, Barry Stockley, Mick Salih and Terry Doughty. The possibility of being the 5th successive loser is unlikely to influence those jockeying for the vacancy to lead the Labour Group, now reduced to almost half the size of what it was when I ceased to be the deputy leader in 2006. 

If there is a desire to continue the Labour/Tory/Lib Dem coalition, it would be possible as the fugures show they can muster 30 votes plus the Elected Mayor. 

Despite this massive shake-up, with 16 of the 20 seats up for election changing hands, because only a third of the 60 seats are up for election the impact of the electorate's signal for change is largely dulled.

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May Day Greetings

Fraternal greetings to all, and yes, that's it now, the fruits of our collective City-wide electioneering are captured in the ballot boxes. We shall have to wait until late tomorrow morning to see the first of the results from the 20 wards across the City. Because of the huge number of postal votes now and the time consuming process to verify them all, the Friday morning count initiated last year was reluctantly agree by Group leaders again this year. The buzz, adrenlin and excitement of the late night count is lost and certainly last year's Friday count was a very low energy affair. However, with the prospect of widespread Labour losses for the 11 Labour councillors seeking re-election not to mention the other Labour candidates, there will undoubtedly be a mounting tension across the Town Hall tomorrow morning.

For an on-line minute by minute results service turn to: www.stoke.gov.uk/elections