NO LESSONS LEARNT

I stood down from the Scrutiny Committee a couple of weeks ago to allow my Group colleague Deborah Gardiner our place for the final year. I'd had enough of political majority control of the committee - the antithesis of what the Tories said they would do with Scrutiny prior to this time last year.

Last night the Committee dealt with a 'call in' - the first one of the 'tickle my belly' scrutiny regime - of the Westminster Council 'communications' contract. The one that pays £137k for a Westminster consultant 3 days a week.

I see the County Press is reporting the meeting as being told that "human error was to blame for two mistakes made during the process" of letting this contract, but that "the committee decided the council had learnt from the mistakes made with the Undercliff contract".

Have they ? It seems to me that the lessons of the £2m investigation into the Undercliff - the one the police found no evidence for criminal charges - have been forgotten at the first serious hurdle.

Interestingly the Committee's recommendations last night included one,

"That all Cabinet Members be given procurement training as a matter of priority and until such time as they have attended such a session they should not be permitted to make any delegated decision in relation to the award of contracts."

that is pretty much an indictment of elements of the Council leadership. Time for a 'Westminster Enquiry '?

ELECTION WEEK

This week is local election week across many parts of the country, BUT not for our own Isle of Wight Council. The chance to kick out the Tories here will have to wait another year.

No doubt (as in 2004) Labour will get a good 'kicking' on the mainland and then recover (as in 2005) at the next general election. Sadly people are now encouraged by the media to vote at local elections NOT on the local issues, but as a kind of referendum on the national government. Consequently good Labour councillors will take the punishment that voters would currently like to give government, but are not yet hoodwinked enough to do so at a general election.

In some parts of the Island we do have elections next Thursday - but only for the new parish councils in Newport and Ryde. These elections have very rarely been politicised in the past - apart from Sandown Town Council - but for these elections the LibDems have decided to stand on political labels. Labour in Newport would have done the same if we had known, but decided against it as we did not want to be isolated. The IW Tories are - as ever - standing unlabelled or as some of the 'independents'.

Therefore, as a Labour IW Councillor in Newport I would be delighted to see the following Newport parish council candidates elected next Thursday to join Tony Coburn and I as town councillors :

Mary CRAVEN, Fairlee; Steve FALLA and Brian RUSHTON, Newport North; Laraine PASCOE, Newport South.

Whatever people vote, I really hope that we get a reasonable turnout for these elections.

AND ANOTHER 10,000 FOR THE FESTIVAL.........

Two years ago I blogged (see 8 & 14 April 2006) that 55,000 was too many for the IW Festival at Seaclose Park. On behalf of Newport TMC - the shadow Town Council - I made representations to the Tory Licensing Committee that they should retain the then limit of 40,000. They ignored us and accepted assurances from the promoter that he would not need any more than the 60,000 limit he was applying for.......

Last night the Tory Licensing Committee heard representations again from the TMC against another increase in the licensed numbers to 70,000. Once again they were not listened to. No doubt the promoter's assurances were similar to two years ago. It seems he can get exactly what he wants out of this Council.

I support the festival entirely, having been there in three of the last five years (paying for my own ticket), but feel strongly that there has to be a limit for this residential area - on both numbers and licensing hours.

TOFF NIGHT

Tonight was toff night at Full Council, aka Annual Council (see previous April posts).

Lots of Members missing (about 12) and you can't blame them for this one ! Lots of backslapping, funny costumes, celebrity gardeners, and I assume sword-swallowing. New Chairman of the Council elected (Taylor) with the Lady Pigot - who wasn't a 'Lady' on the ballot paper 3 years ago - appointed as Vice Chairman. The Leader was reappointed.

All the committee chairs (Scrutuny , Audit, etc) were re-appointed , and the Council also agreed to rush headlong into appointing another Chief Exec by July, probably because they like spending what I claimed was £1 million every two years on the position (that figure includes the salary with on-costs, headhunters fees and pension commitments, and is a conservative estimate). Labour, the LDs and the two defector/rebel Tories present were the only ones against these decisions. We all argued for deferral until after next year's elections, perhaps with Dave Burbage asked to continue as Interim CX until then.

After an early finish, I then left County Hall whilst many of the rest of them and various toffs went to the traditional new Chairman's drinks reception.

NB Can you recognise toffs 2 & 8 in the picture ?

THE LATEST 'CABINET'

Cabinet back at County Hall last night, which I always try to attend as you get the opportunity to ask questions as an opposition councillor. As is more often than not the case I was the only opposition member there, plus 4 'members of the public' - Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) Mark Chiverton, the Liberal PPC loser, the Tory candidate for Newport Town Council in Fairlee ward who claims he is now 'Independent', and the gentleman who makes asking questions about schools at Council and Cabinet his mission in life. Items on the agenda were - District Auditor's Annual Report; next steps for school reorganisation; and new dog control orders. Though I also added on the Kitbridge Middle School situation at the end.

From the District Auditor I got an entirely unsatisfactory response to my query as to whether the Council delivering double the Government's efficiency targets (by £12m over 2 years) was a good use of resources, when they then had to raid the reserves to the tune of £10m over the next 3 years. Apparently he is still looking into that as part of this year's review.........My referral of the Undercliff enquiry costs etc. to him in December is still outstanding due to the lack of appropriate information from the Council. He agreed that was not good enough and the Cabinet undertook to ensure he got the information he requires.

The timetable for the next steps of school reorganisation was agreed. Basically area meetings for schools in May to seek to achieve some consensus, and then formal consultation on definite Council proposals - on a school by school basis - from 3 June for 6 weeks. Cabinet meeting on 3 June will launch this process. I asked a question about schools that had not made submissions (demonstrating their value) during the informal consultation in Jan/Feb as they were not 'under threat' now being disadvantaged, but did not get a satisfactory reply.

The dog control orders were approved - nothing is ever rejected or revised at public Cabinet - and the atmosphere was considerably lightened as members declared whether they liked dogs or not. I am a responsible dog owner, the lead Cabinet member on this is, but the Council leader admitted to being a little nervous around dogs. I would have thought a pack of rabid rotweilers would be preferable to some of the Tory Group meetings in recent times !

At the end I asked why the news about the proposed 'closure' of Kitbridge Middle School and subsequent merger with Downside Middle School had not been better managed - see my previous post. The Director for Children's Services apologised for that, said it was not what he had planned for before going on leave last week, and undertook to ensure the press were properly and accurately briefed, and that letters went out urgently to parents and staff at both schools. Horses and stable doors, but what else can he say ?

MERGER NOT CLOSURE

Six weeks ago Council education chiefs asked the governors of Downside Middle School (pictured) to consider merging with Kitbridge Middle School under Downside's superb Headteacher's leadership, due to Kitbridge being assessed by Ofsted as requiring special measures, but 'without the capacity to improve'.

After 4 weeks of careful consideration and absolute confidentiality we agreed unanimously to do this, subject to the careful management of how staff and parents at both schools were informed. It was agreed that the Council's intentions should be made available around 31 March (i.e. a week before the end of term), thus allowing our Head to take interim charge after the current 2 week school break.

By the 3 April this had not happened and our governors & Head decided that they did not want the Council's intentions released just as the schools were breaking up. Sadly education chiefs decided to ignore us, put the proposed decision into the public domain on the last day of term - at 3.30pm - and seemingly ran. Unsurprisingly yesterday BBC South had the story, which will have been the first time most staff and all parents at both schools will have known anything like this was being proposed. I shudder to guess at what they are thinking today.

When Downside governors (of which I am the longest serving) made their decision to support merger on 26 March I warned that I had no confidence in the Council getting the communications strategy on this right. Sadly I have been proven correct.

ANOTHER U-TURN

It hasn't escaped my notice that the recent changes to the membership of the Council's Scrutiny Committee have left the Tory ruling group without the majority the leadership claimed to require in April last year.........see my post of 27.04.07 "Opposition Scrutiny lost after one year".

Out of the 14 full voting places on the committee (excluding the school people) the Conservatives are entitled to just 6 places as they use the rest of their entitlement to give a place to independent Muriel Miller so that she can Chair, and two co-opted places to Sue Poston and Charles Rogers. And of course some of the Conservative members of the committee are not good attenders !

I wonder how long this balance will last..................

ELECTED UNOPPOSED TO PARISH COUNCIL

Well the nominations deadline for the new parish council elections came and went yesterday, and Tony Coburn (pictured) and I were elected unopposed to represent Pan on Newport Town Council for the next two years. This is the only uncontested ward in Newport and I hope it shows that we both have done pretty well for Pan over the years. 14 years between us at County Hall.

We decided along with our Labour colleagues in the rest of Newport not to stand on political labels for these parish elections. The Tories haven't either - though one Newport Tory activist had had the cheek to label himself as an 'independent'; shame on you Mr P! - but the Liberals have decided to do so. That's a pity as the TMC has not been a party political body over the last 2 years, even with me as Chair, and it seems to run contrary to what Liberal members of the TMC have been saying.

Of course this has given us an opportunity to see how weak the Liberals are in Newport currently with just three of their five candidates living in Newport, and three of their candidates hedging their bets until Wednesday as to where they intend to stand; where do they have more chance of being forgiven ! Particularly when one is the former Liberal leader of the IW Council......

LIBERALS GET HEADS OUT OF SAND

Some EIGHT MONTHS after I was widely reported as saying the Undercliff enquiry was both a vindictive fishing trip and a waste of public money, the County Press today bizarrely gave coverage to the Liberal parliamentary candidate - the Brighstone Loser - suddenly reaching the same conclusion, but without remarking on the time it has taken her !!!!!

Of course, since one of her councillor buddies sat on the Investigatory Committee for the duration of its existence WITHOUT reacing the same conclusion unti the very end, we shouldn't be surprised.

END OF A CHAPTER

Last night saw the final meeting of the Newport Town Management Committee (TMC) after 2 years existence. The TMC has been a sort of 'shadow town council' until a proper Town Council is elected on May 1st, and has consisted of the 8 IW Councillors in Newport and Carisbrooke and up to 8 properly appointed co-optees.

Formal emparishment of Newport is a consequence of the IW Council's decision to charge a local precept on local households back in 2006, whether local people wanted a parish council or not. This lead to a 'no taxation without representation' petition for a local council the following summer, which was then approved by central government at the end of last year. The same has also happened in Ryde, Northwood and Whippingham - with Newport the last bastions of non-parishment on the Island !

For the last 2 years I have chaired the TMC and it was good to reflect last night on what we have achieved in that time (though pretty small scale), and to receive the warm 'thanks you's' for my leadership from the other members of the TMC - of all parties and none. Disappointment was also pretty clear at the meeting that the Island's MP has continued to support the rejected petition for a separate Carisbrooke parish council without ever approaching us to explain why.

So now there will be formal elections to the new Town Council on 1st May. Two town councillors will be elected for each of the 8 Newport wards and I really hope that there is plenty of interest in being elected and a reasonable turnout to vote. I personally have decided to seek election to the new Town Council for the Pan ward and will be standing with my IW Council predecessor and friend Tony Coburn (who was a co-optee on the TMC). Hopefully we will both get elected and be able to continue putting Pan at the heart of Newport, not on the fringes.