My week ahead, 15 - 20 December 2014

Monday 15 December, 4pm – Culture and Leisure portfolio meeting
7pm – Labour Group

Wednesday 1t December, 20m – Visit to Military Charity at Imperial War Museum

Thursday 18 December, 6pm – Borough Scrutiny meeting

Saturday 20 December, 10am – Labour campaigning in East Ipswich

Last week I mentioned that the meetings I was planning to attend during the week have been poorly supported by the Lib Dems and the Tories in the past. Well, the pattern of non-attendance continued.

The first meeting on Monday was the Culture and Leisure working group – an important meeting as we were discussing the budget but the Lib Dem member failed to turn up or send their apologies but I am sure that will not stop the Lib Dems commenting on the budget in the New Year. At least the Tories did turn up if at times it was embarrassing for them when discussing having to cut spending on items that should in truth be funded by the Tory run County Council.

By Thursday the non - attendance bug had spread as we had our final Housing Panel meetings of the year, the East Panel saw both the Tories and the Lib Dems fail to turn up or tend their apologies and the South West Panel was also devoid of opposition councillors. At least the Tories from the North West did turn up for the panel meeting but it was disappointing that not one opposition councillor was in attendance later in the evening for the 2014 Tenant Awards.

The panel meetings were also the first opportunity for both councillors and tenants to discuss the planned council rents for next year, even know there was a lack of Tory councillors at the panel meetings I am sure it will not stop them criticising us when the subject of council rents comes to full council.

Interesting to see if the Lib Dems turn up for Scrutiny this week!

On a more positive note, it was good to join 6th Formers from Northgate School on Saturday as they planted fruit trees on a piece of land near Sidegate Lane. The pupils with help and funding from the Borough Council and the Area Committee have turned a piece of waste land into a small community garden.

My week ahead 16 - 22 June 2014

Monday – 16 June, 4pm – Culture Portfolio meting,
6pm –Labour Group campaigning session

Tuesday – 17 June, 6pm – Ipswich Borough Council – Executive Meeting, Grafton House

Wednesday – 18 June, 10am - Ipswich ‘Angle’ Board meeting, Grafton House

Saturday - 21 June, 10am, Labour campaigning, South East Ipswich
2pm – Suffolk Pride Festival

Tuesday may give her us an early warning on how the opposition are going to go about council business over the next 12 months. The Tory Leader, Cllr Cenci will be attending her first Executive meeting as an opposition member.

We have offered the Tory group a place on the Executive since we took back control of the council but up to this point they have always refused. We only thought it was right to offer them a place as we had attempted to have our leader elected as a member of the executive when we were in opposition and even when we were the largest group the Tories and Lib Dems still refused to allow us to be represented.

When it comes to Scrutiny committees, ‘Best Practice’ is to allow the opposition to chair the committee, again the Tories and Lib Dems refused probably leading to the disastrous way such topics as the Kiln Meadow were handled. Once we were in power we have had both the Tories and Lib Dems chair Scrutiny, both have not (in my opinion) been the best chairs we have ever seen but we still believe it should be an opposition member who is chair and I am sure Cllr Harsant will make a far better chair than the last two holders of the post.

Tory run Suffolk County Council do not seem to wish to have any opposition when it comes to Scrutiny, they do not offer to opposition the chair on any of their scrutiny bodies, and their leader Mark Bee seems now to not wish to have any Tories chair Scrutiny if they are not 100% loyal to him.

The latest Suffolk Cabinet meeting indicated again that Mark Bee is now spending most of his time attempting to hold onto power and crush his own rebels. Time that should be better spent trying to sort out the mess that the Tories have made of education in the county.

My week ahead, 8 - 15 September 2013.

Monday 9 September, 4pm – Culture Portfolio meeting
6pm – Labour Group Meeting

Wednesday 11 September, 6pm – East Ipswich area Housing Meeting, Reg Driver Centre

Thursday 12 September, 6pm – Overview and Scrutiny meeting, Grafton House

Saturday 14 September, 10am – Labour campaigning, South West Ipswich

Now we know the summer is over! Meetings almost every night with the big one being scrutiny this week. We will be looking at a report on the refurbishment work at Crown Pools.

But even though most of the week is spent on meetings it is important that we continue to campaign and meet residents, it seems that Ben Gummer and (some) Ipswich Tories realise that they have not done much since the last General Election and are now belatedly going out and talking to residents, not sure a fleeting visit to the multi- cultural event counts!– they have continued to lose council seats, on both the Borough and County and did very little campaigning in the Police Commissioner election last year. We are also looking at new ways to campaign and meet residents but when it comes to knocking on doors, we have a 3 year head start on the local Tory lot.

The Lib Dems? Your guess is as good as mine!

Away from that Ipswich was blessed with another great event this weekend with the Sky Ride, the Suffolk Coastal Pro race and a Sportive- all just a few weeks after Maritime Ipswich and with the Ipswich half-marathon also this month to look forward to. We do have a fantastic events team and glad to see that they will be involved over the 4 years we will be remembering the sacrifices many made during the First World War, their expertise will be of a great help.

My week ahead 18 - 23 March 2013

Monday 18 March, 4pm – Culture Portfolio meeting
6pm - Labour Group meeting

Tuesday 19 March, 6pm – East Area Housing panel

Thursday 21 March, 7pm – North East Ipswich Area Committee, St John’s Church, Cauldwell Hall Road

Friday 22 March, 7pm – School quiz, St Helen’s Primary School

Saturday 23 March, 10.30am – Labour campaigning, South West Ipswich

With no Full Council this week the highlight will be the next North East Area committee meeting, we have had some success in getting things done for residents but I hope over the next 12 months we can focus on our North East Action plan and work towards achieving some positive outcomes for our three main priorities.

To achieve this it will require all nine councillors from the area, IBC Officers and residents working together, my concern is that some of the Tory councillors still wish the Area Committees to fail or just see them as a means of moving council money to their own pet projects.

This week at Scrutiny we looked at Area Committee’s, and from the start we could see that at least one member of the Tory group was more interested in scoring political points, in a leak to Ipswich Spy from the Tory Group they indicated that they were not happy that some of the Area Committee Chairs were on the Scrutiny committee, they also indicated that the chairs were refusing to stand down from the committee, if the Tory Group are going to leak information to Ipswich Spy they should leak the truth. The Tories had not mentioned that they were unhappy about myself and two of my colleagues sitting on Scrutiny, they did not actually mention it till the start of the meeting. Fortunately we had already approached the Legal Officers at the council and were told that we were able to sit on Scrutiny.

Questions for the Tory Group:

1. Why did they not ask the legal officers at the council about the issue before the meeting?
2. Why did they not raise the matter at the Scrutiny Steering meeting? – This may have been difficult as no opposition councillors turned up for steering- and the Tory member on steering is the Tory Group leader!

Area Committees are here to stay and if all councillors’ work together we can see achieve positive results in our own wards – let’s hope the Tories come to the meeting on Thursday with an attitude of getting things done for their residents rather than attempting to score cheap political points.

My week ahead 19- 25 March 2012

Monday 19th March 5pm- Rushmere Youth Club, committee meeting
6pm - Labour group meeting

Tuesday 20th March 7pm - St Johns Church, Cauldwell Hall Rd

Wednesday 21st March 10am - Planning committee
6pm - Ipswich Borough Full Council Meeting

Thursday 22nd March 5pm - Sidegate Primary School, Finance meeting

Friday 23rd March 7pm - Ipswich Labour Party attending 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists' at the New Wolsey

Saturday 24th March 10.30am - Labour campaigning in East Ipswich

As you can see from above a very busy week ahead, Tuesday will give us a chance to introduce Area Committees to the residents of North East Ipswich. I hope a number of you can come along to the meeting.

On Wednesday as well as the Full Council meeting, I will be attending the planning committee to speak on behalf of residents about the Golden Key planning application, there has been a lot of rubbish written about this application but for me the main issue is the proximity of the proposed shop to a busy roundabout and a busy garage.

This week I attended a scrutiny meeting, we were meant to receive a presentation from an officer of Suffolk County Council but only a few hours before the meeting we received a written report (via email). This is not the first time that we have received this sort of response from the County Council. But to make this matter worse, the presentation was meant to be on what Suffolk is doing to improve skills of our young people and the Cabinet Member responsible for that portfolio is Cllr Judy Terry - who is also a member of our Scrutiny committee, no surprise then that she also failed to turn up for the meeting as it would have been quite embarrassing for her to explain why the Officer she is responsible for had failed to turn up in person.

Scrutiny call - in - Locality budgets

Ever since I was elected to be Rushmere Ward councillor, I have sat on Overview and Scrutiny. The first three years were as a member of the opposition. The first two years were wasted as the chair of Scrutiny used the committee for his own personal reasons. Then along with most of the Tory/Lib Dem Executive failed to turn up for training. Scrutiny improved in 2010 under the chair of Gavin Maclure. We saw the use of task and finish groups and we managed to achieve results and even undertook joint scrutiny with the County Council.Gavin even seemed as critical of the Tory executive as we were at times.

But much of scrutiny was taken up with call-ins. We, the Ipswich Labour Party Group found the call-in procedure the only way to get our message over as we were refused a seat on the executive (even though we were the largest party).

This week we had our first taste of a call-in by the Tory opposition, some may say time we learnt how it felt to have a decision called in, the difference of course is that the Tories were offered a seat on the executive but refused to take it up.

There is also another difference with Scrutiny under Labour, as is recognised 'best practice', we have given the chair of scrutiny to the opposition.

This call-in was about the Labour decision to stop the implementation of locality budgets for Borough councillors.

Tory councillor Nadia Cenci called in the decision and gave her reasons on her blog. Though they may no longer be in a coalition in Ipswich, she seemed to be supported by the Ipswich Lib Dems - here.

There main argument seems to be now they feel Libraries in Ipswich are safe and that we have also been told that we will retain all our school crossing patrols, the money Ipswich Labour put aside is not needed. They even got Tory County Leader Mark Bee and Ben Gummer to meet the press at Rosehill Library and plead for the locality money to be introduced as they never meant to close any libraries.

Well first off Mark Bee would have been better off using his talk with the press to call on his fellow Waveney Tory councillor Andrew Draper to resign after assaulting a police officer. But we still wait to hear him mention that but what Cllr Bee also forgot to mention is that we are still waiting for the re-introduction of school crossing patrols at Alan Road and also near Sprites School.

We will also not even know till November, when the Tory County Cabinet sits that the libraries have been saved.

But let's say that they are safe, of the £240,000 saved by not introducing locality budgets, £186,000 was to go into IBC reserves. That money is still needed as we have found gaps in the last Tory budget including not receiving as much money from the Tory Government in the form of the 'New Homes Bonus' as the Tory budget had us down to receive. So it is only sensible to keep that money in reserve.

Cllr Cenci gives her view of the meeting here, not so much a report on the meeting but just her opening statement. After she and Cllr David Ellesmere had given their views it was then a question and answer session. Big difference to Tory run scrutiny is that the questions came from both sides. Under the Tories only Cllr Debman used to ask questions with the remainder of the Tories sitting still then voting against Labour at the end.

Paul Geater from the Evening Star was at the meeting so Tories, Liz Harsant and Kim Stroet decided instead of asking questions to make prepared political statements. We did eventually get down to some serious questioning with Cllr Cenci creating some laughter with her answers about council reserves and Labour propaganda.

Then when that part of the meeting was over, and the press had left. We should have then debated the decision and there is a debate needed. For example, should even County Councillors still have locality budgets when the County is about to shut care homes and close Youth clubs?

But there was no debate, the Tories put it straight to a vote- with Liz Harsant stating, 'now the press has gone let's just get on with it'.

This statement more than any showed that the whole meeting had been a charade, they had no interest in debating the decision. The vote was lost and locality budgets will not be introduced this financial year.

There was also a sub plot - big hitting Tory, Judy Terry is a member of scrutiny but a sub replaced her. Instead we expected to see Judy Terry be called to give evidence as a County Cabinet member with the responsibility for libraries. But she never turned up - I asked Cllr Cenci, why? The answer given was that she had been advised not to turn up. 'By whom?' I asked. Cllr Cenci said she did not know who by.

So Ipswich Conservative group, two questions:

1. Who advised Cllr Terry not to turn up?

2. Why did she take that advice, has she something to hide?

Ipswich buses - Hell on Wheels!

Spent this evening at a meeting of Ipswich Borough Council Scrutiny committee, tonight we looked at transport in Ipswich.
What the meeting showed is that the Tory run County Council and the Tory run Borough Council aren't even talking to each other when it comes to transport.This week the local press were full of the new transport development that you can now buy bus tickets over your mobile and guess what? The Tory Borough Council did not know anything about it till Tuesday this week, so much for a joined up transport policy.

But it was later in the meeting that the Tories showed their real views on public transport, a leading Ipswich Tory councillor declared that traveling on Ipswich Buses was like "Hell on Wheels",

Obviously he has never been on the 13 route up to Chantry, with the buses that were ordered under a Labour Council.

6 weeks in, finding my feet now!

6 weeks as the Labour Councillor in Rushmere and I am now finding my feet. It has been a busy few weeks but now I am able to help residents far quicker as I learn which Council Officers to ask and which departments deal with what.
So far I have sat on the Planning Committee (as a substitute) had a Licensing training session- did you know that a number of the laws on Street Trading date from 1871? No nor did I!
I attended my first Overview and Scrutiny meeting and I have had 3 sessions of Councillor Induction - with one to go! I have also managed to have a meetings with Officers responsible for roads and also planning. Away from Grafton House, I have had a Long meeting with the Police Inspector responsible for North East Ipswich and I have also attended the North East Forum. With an interest in sport I have also been able to see the Ipswich Wanderers v Antigua and Barbuda game and yesterday I watched the Great Britain women's Gymnastics team take on Romania at the Pipers Vale Gymnastics Centre. So quite a lot for 6 weeks, and of course I have continued to attend Labour party meetings and deliver leaflets. But the most satisfying aspect is that I have been able to help residents on a number of issues, from informing them of the proposed housing development on the Bristo's site, to dealing with anti Social Behaviour, getting some trees pruned and various other issues. the most common complaint from residents has been about the state of the roads not only in Rushmere but over the whole of Ipswich. This issue will be one of the key issues that the Ipswich Labour Party will be campaigning on over the next 5 months. I will keep residents of Rushmere informed both through this website and also by our regular "Rushmere Rose".
It may have been 6 weeks hard work but it all is made worthwhile if I can help the residents of Rushmere make this - "our" ward a decent place to live in.
Not all aspects of council work have been as rewarding as helping residents, I was looking forward to attending my first Overview and Scrutiny meeting, as with the current way many councils do business- with most aspects of policy being dealt with by a small executive, it is important that the Overview and Scrutiny committee make sure the executive are held responsible for their decisions and that the O & S committee ask the right questions. The meeting started with the election of a councilor from the ruling administration, where 'best practice' recommends that the committee should be chaired by an opposition member - so much for democracy there. Then at the end of the meeting there seemed to be a desire by the Tory and lib Dem councilors to make sure the next meeting is kept short as it clashes with the 'Mayor at Home' function. Now I believe that the Civic events are important but not so much that the O & S meeting should be scrapped or the agenda just be limited to one matter. It is as if the executive do not wish any of their decisions to be scrutinised - I wonder why?