ROTWEILER SAYS NO TO MAYORS !

The last week or so I have been reflecting on the depths to which the IW Council leadership will sink, but have refrained from commenting here whilst others comment elsewhere.

One thing that made me laugh to night was the suggestion on another blog that we should look at having a Mayor for the Island again and that I would be a good candidate...............

As a reminder, I organised the successful 'No Mayor' campaign back in 2005 and I have not changed my views one iota. Just because we have a rubbish Council Leader doesn't mean that we wouldn't get a rubbish Mayor. And the latter are a lot harder to shift during their term of office than a Council Leader.

So any future referendum for a Mayor will be met by the same implacable opposition.

NO RE-ASSURANCES FOR CARE USERS, JUST WAFFLE

Full Council tonight - many apologies and hardly any public - I could see just two. And a very thin agenda that was all over after just over an hour. And no press other than the CP.......

Basically it was an opportunity for opposition councillors to hold Cabinet members to account in a little more depth and for one Tory to do their usual brown-nosing. The latter as ever seized their opportunity, but I'm not sure all the former took full advantage.

I went along with two areas to question: the absence of effective scrutiny after 9 months of this Council - the newish Independent Chair of Scrutiny agreed with me, as much of this is now the responsibility of Scrutiny Panel Chairs, who are loyal, payroll Tories. However, he will be making further endeavours to get his overarching Committee operating effectively......I wish him the best of luck.

Secondly with 2 questions for Cllr Cousins - but she was away doing far more important national business to trouble herself with the mayhem around her adult care portfolio on the Council. So the Leader covered for. I asked him to give some reassurance to care users and providers that from the 'dogs breakfast' they are making of social care personalisation they would prioritise getting it right. Some 10,000 words of waffle later I had to ask him again, but I got nowhere other than an invitation to join his Members on personalisation awareness sessions......

I also asked the Leader for some words of reassurance to my residents over the appointment of you know who as the Pan development contractors as it hasn't really gone down very well, but he preferred to lie (doesn't he always ?) that the 7 year funding of PNP is to be curtailed after the next and penultimate financial year. Yes the funding would be subject to a re-elected Labour government's comprehensive spending review with a probable positive outcome, but if the unbearable happens (a T**y government) it has about as much chance of surviving as a fish out of water.

Finally my most amusing moment was a question of Cllr Giles from the Tory for Newport Central asking when the parking review would be taking place as many of her residents are in 'dire straits' after the car park permit was abolished. But she voted FOR its abolition !!!

ARE THE TORIES TOO ASHAMED ?

I went along to the Riverside Centre stakeholders meeting yesterday morning. Concern within social care providers, like the Riverside, about the Council budget cuts and the rushed transition to personalisation remains unabated.

Of course this could have been an opportunity for Tory Councillors to reassure providers - and service users - that they have got it all wrong and that there aren't cuts at all, as they have been claiming.

But out of the 22 current members of the Tory group at County Hall, not one was able to answer the invitation. In particular the Council Leader and the relevant Cabinet member. In contrast obviously I was there, as were three Liberals and three Independents. Unlike the Tories we have nothing to be ashamed of......

SO IT'S BARRATTS.............

The Council last night announced that the new Pan developer will be Barratts, who will have to get started by the end of this month if £11m of government money for affordable housing isn't to be lost. Any start is likely to be fairly symbolic, with the real start sometime in late June/early July.

So the Island will have 254 new social housing homes by March 2015, which is to be welcomed.

Not sure about these developers though, which I am sure will lead to many groans of disappointment.......

Can I just stress that I had no involvement in the appointment, which was recommended to the 2 Tory Councillor decision-makers (Cllrs Bingham & Cousins) by a panel of 2 senior Council officers, a senior officer of Medina Housing Association's parent body, and the manager of PNP. That's not to say that the decision was not the right one - I just don't want to be associated with it !!!

CONSERVATIVE CONTEMPT

You might see a tiny piece in the CP today that tells us that former Tory Council Leader Andy Sutton is not to be expelled from the Tory Party after his standards board suspension. So when he returns to County Hall in August no doubt he wil be welcomed back into the ruling Tory group with open arms.

Just one word describes the Tory Party attitude to Council Tax payers - contempt.

JUST NOT ELVIS

I attended the Adult Social Care, Health & Housing Scrutiny Panel tonight. A rare event - two members of the public at a Scrutiny Panel, but they left soon after the Chair announced that the personalisation agenda item was not to be dealt with tonight (see my previous post). But they didn't leave until after I had made my very strong objections to this decision and the general demise of proper scrutiny on this Council.

Clearly the Tories are getting increasingly sensitive on the personalisation matter and the appalling way it is being implemented financially, with the Cabinet member (Cousins) now trying to suggest that I was one of those who did not understand the subject as I hadn't ever attended any of her informal policy briefings. I prefer not to listen to Tory distortions as I have a quite clear understanding, thank you.......She even tried to drag up my previous unhappiness about some of the Pan development consultations !!! Bonkers...

As for the rest of the meeting. Well this just isn't scrutiny as I know it and understand it. Presentations, consultations and performance review of old-hat data is frankly a complete waste of my time. And that of the other panel members. Its just insulting.

I will continue to attend to point this out to the panel chair at every meeting, but its like saying 'Elvis was rubbish' at an Elvis Presley convention.......

DID THEY KNOW WHAT THEY WERE DOING ?

After the Council Budget debate it was clear that many Conservative councillors had absolutely no idea what personalisation of social care means as they voted through particularly savage cuts to voluntary sector services for vulnerable people. So I was relieved to see that the subject was on the Adult Social Care, Health & Housing Scrutiny Panel's agenda for this Thursday. I thought it would be an opportunity for some light to be shed for their benefit.

Sadly though I was told yesterday that councillors will instead have a training session on this subject, and the matter will no longer be considered in public at this stage. I have challenged this, but the Panel Chair has confirmed the decision.

What is most worrying is that the ruling Tory group based much of its Budget cuts on the personalisation agenda when quite clearly very few of them have any idea what it involves. Its enough to make carers weep with disbelief.

WANTED: A LEADER WITH VISION........

With all the continuing concerns about the Council Leader I was giving some thought as to who would replace him if he did the decent thing and resigned. And to be frank it is clear that he is pretty much the strongest in a jar of Tory tadpoles. Looking at the rest of his Cabinet it is clear that the most the best of them (Bingham, Cousins) can offer is a similar level of 'bureaucratic' leadership rather than the political vision and strategic thinking the Island really requires.

Casting my mind back it is clear that IW Council leaders of the last 30 years have been a fairly uninspiring lot when it comes to vision and strategic thinking. Morris B (1983-98) was the ultimate machine politician who delivered 4 successive Liberal Council victories before standing down. I suppose you can't ask much more of political leadership ! Marc M-H (1998-2000) hardly stuck around long enough to make a difference - and the Council was hung and consequently paralysed. Shirley S (2000-05) nearly harmed herself holding together the Island First egos, whilst they bled the Council Tax payer dry.

To be honest the one leader in my opinion who had any political vision and any idea of strategy was Sutton (2005-07), but he lost sight of where he was supposed to be going as soon as the trappings of office had settled on his shoulders.

So all in all if Pugh were to go eventually his replacement won't have a lot to live up to........