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?

My week ahead 31 July - 7 August

August is the month with few meetings but I will be spending the first few days of the week catching up on case work and then a short city break to Lisbon

This week started with campaigning in Great Cornard and the hard work paid off as Tracey Welsh won the parish seat for Labour on Thursday. This could help make Cornard a winnable seat when it comes to the Suffolk County Council election in 2013.

Yesterday we were campaigning in Holywells and Alexandra Ward in Ipswich. Informing residents the good news that their support has helped our campaign to get Tory led Suffolk County Council to recruit a new lollipop person for Foxhall Road.

Like Rosehill Library, the local Tories have always stated that the crossing patrols are safe now Hill/Pembroke have gone. But we have had mixed messages from the County.

First Cllr Bee told us that all crossings would continue (where there is a need) but no mention of Sidegate Lane, Hawthorn Drive or Foxhall Road where the crossings had not been replaced (County imposed recruitment ban). then we were told that all would be saved with the County paying for them, that soon changed again to be told that the County would undertake assessments to see how many children crossed unaccompanied and that some patrols could be scrapped.

We were then told that the Hawthorn Drive crossing would not be replaced and that it was unlikely that the Foxhall Road crossinmg would see someone appointed as no youngsters were seen crossing the road. Then we got the good news - they would recruit a new patrol for Foxhall Road.

Ipswich Tories accuse us of misleading residents about the Library and Crossing patrol situation but they should ask their County colleagues why so many mixed messages are being sent out. We are told this week by Ipswich Tories that Rosehill Library is now safe, implying that it was not safe before??

Back to crossing patrols, we hope that the County can recruit a new patrol before September, if you are interested in the post or know someone who is- contact Mary Jarrett on 01473 265006 or email: mary.jarrett@suffolk.gov.uk

No 2 AV - Nasty campaign!

For once in my life, I can be described as 'undecided' - still to be convinced one way or the other on AV. Part of me wants to give Clegg another bloody nose and vote 'No2AV' but then part of me thinks that AV may be a way of getting the trust of the electorate back.

But I may now be voting 'Yes' and the reason? The nasty campaign being run by the Tory Party/ 'No2AV' campaign.

The latest advert below was the last straw, soldiers do need body armour (not bullet proof vests) and they will continue to get them issued, but there is no doubt that our Forces will face a shortage of equipment (and men) over the next few years, but not because of the cost of funding AV. No, the lack of equipment will be down to the severe cuts that Cameron and Dr Fox are forcing upon our Armed Forces, that coupled with an ill thought out plan for Libya are the reasons why our men and women on the front line will go short of vital equipment, not implementing AV.




Next they will be blaming AV for the scrapping of School Crossing Patrols!

Battle lost bur War can be won

Last night we had our annual budget debate at Ipswich Borough Council, not my favourite meeting as we normally end up having our annual attack on Gordon Brown and the last Labour Government by John Carnell and he will then be seconded by Lid Dem Cllr Atkins who will spend 10 minutes talking about local taxation, but this year it was slightly different, we still had Carnell’s attacks on the last Labour Government but Cllr Atkins did not mention local taxation (another Lib Dem promise shelved? Or yet another compromise made so they could get their ministerial posts? )

The other big change was Tory and Lib Dem Cllrs (some who I had hardly ever hear speak before) rushing to speak to distance themselves from the Tory led County Council cuts, and explaining why last week (with a big Tory majority) they felt they could vote with Labour ‘Tory rebels’ but 6 days later they were back in the fold voting to scupper the Labour amendment that would have seen all School Crossing Patrols in Ipswich saved plus the 3 libraries that are under threat.

The Lib Dems (especially those who are also County councillors) were also very quick to say why they had also found that in 6 days they had gone from voting to save crossings to voting against the Labour amendment.

Cllr Atkins also used a quote from my blog to show why ‘locality budgets’ are the way ahead, he forgot to mention that the post he quoted was over 3 years old! Also interesting was that Lib Dem Cllr Chambers abstained – maybe being up for election in May was the reason she did want to be seen voting against an amendment that could have secured the future of Rosehill Library.

So we lost the vote, but the war is far from lost, if we win the election in May we will bring to the Council again the plans to save the School Crossing Patrols and the libraries.

Now it is obvious that the Tories and Lib Dems will know that the public will not be pleased with their actions, so we now see a number of panic measures as they try and wiggle their way out of this mess. Cllr Harsant has had the Chief Executive of the Council write to Andrea Hill (half a page written yesterday afternoon) explaining that we are not happy with the proposed closure of the libraries . Not sure why she did not just tell her fellow Tory Cllr Judy Terry, who as well as being a Borough councillor is also the County Portfolio holder for libraries. She maybe could have told Judy Terry that our own Tory MP thought the Library consultation was poor. There is a meeting at Endeavour House tomorrow where Judy Terry will meet those protesting about the closure of libraries in Suffolk, not sure Ms Hill would have had time to invite Cllr Harsant as she may have only seen the letter from IBC this morning.

School Crossing Patrols – we said instead of giving each councillor a locality budget, we should just use the money to save the School Crossing Patrols, They all said ‘no’ they could save School crossing Patrols by….....using their locality budget! But as the rabbits kept appearing from the hat we were told that the Tories and the Lib Dems were close to announcing a sponsor who would save the School Crossing Patrols, trouble is by this afternoon the Evening Star was quoting Cllr Harsant in saying that ‘some’ of the School Crossing patrols may be saved.

So we lost the amendment, but we will continue to campaign with residents to save both School Crossing Patrols and the three libraries under threat.
But what upset me, and left me wondering if there was any hope left was when the Tory Cllr Cenci declared ‘that being unemployed “opens up lots of opportunities” and that “unemployment is the best thing that happened to me”.’

I was still angry over that comment this morning and that mixed with Cllr Chambers abstaining did make me think very long and hard about what I wanted to do, and after talking to those who are close to me it was obvious the only thing to do was fight even harder for what I believe in, so every spare minute between now and May will be spent fighting to get rid of this Tory and Lib Dem Council, with the cuts being forced on us by both the Condem Government and the ideologically focused Tory County Council, this town needs a Labour run Council fighting for it’s residents more than ever before.