The Cabinet today had several papers but no interest from the public or the press. It was interesting today on radio 4 listening to the managing director of the Mirror Group blaming Councils for the demise of local papers because local councils publish 4 magazines or papers a year. I think thats now three cabinet meetings on the trot when the local paper have not been present to hear what is said. She was also blaming the BBC for having a good web site. Rather than blaming everyone else she needs to look at why her national and local papers are failing and it is probably down to the content I would suggest.

The Conservative Cabinet was considering several important papers – on the West of England Multi Area Agreement I called on them to pull out as in my view it is not meeting our needs. They have decided to delay signing up because of the tension over the Regional Spatial Strategy housing numbers.

On the police plan I asked them to add two extra parts basically urging the local police to keep stationing beat teams in the community and to do some work on developing the PACT process. They ignored these requests.

The rest of my contributions can be read in the attached document. Only two members of the public turned up to hear our Conservative cabinet consider these papers. In marked contrast to the planning application on one of their traffic schemes that went through a similar empty cabinet meeting a while ago.

As politicians we need to find ways to get communities to engage when plans and ideas are being developed and not only when the planning phase comes at the end of the process.

Well this system wont allow me to load up a Word Document for some reason so here it is in line text

Cabinet B&NES July 8 2009

 

Community Strategy

On behalf of the Liberal Democrat group we welcome this productive refresh of the Community Strategy commenced in 2002. The Community Strategy plays an important part in modern local governance bringing as it does a number of public service providers, residents and the Council together in a shared objective for our area. Our staff are to be complimented on the work to date and its progress and implementation. For me the key word in the title is SUSTAINABLE. This must really underpin all the work we do.

 

I particularly welcome the fact that addressing climate change is emphasised as a cross-cutting theme throughout the strategy and the LSP.

However, I note that the children and young people chapter doesn’t have anything in the box for “how does this help address the causes and effects of climate change”, which does seem a little odd. Renewable energy, Healthy Schools and improvements under building schools for the future all have an impact in addressing climate change.

 

It is good that the LSP will be looking to provide community leadership on carbon reduction – good to be looking beyond ‘putting our own house in order’,.

 

The Liberal Democrats believe that this Council should be looking to be a beacon for environmental policies. The Council has been innovative in the past e.g. first to adopt zero waste, farmers’ market and our local residents are very keen on environmental issues e.g. transition movements, keen on recycling. The Council shouldn’t be afraid to aim to be in the vanguard of introducing innovative policies.

On a general point I would like to see more goals and targets in addition to aspirations. It is only by setting challenges that we can measure against that we will truly be able to judge value for money in the work we do. And value for money is one of the main concerns of many residents in these difficult financial times. There’s also the issue of the language of the report – some sections are quite full of jargon and bullet points with no explanations.

For me a key determinant on whether we have made our area a better place by 2026 is whether or not we have “closed the gap” or in terms that everyone understands have we delivered a community where the life chances at birth for all our residents are fair and equitable – in life expectancy, in educational opportunity, in the ability to live here and work here.

In developing our communities in the future one thing is for certain – more of our residents are better informed and want to be included in the decision and policy making process. This citizen engagement is not only being driven by the internet in all its forms but also by resident groups and forums who want their say and want to be heard.

On a cautionary note I would advise against the aspiration to be one of Europe‘s fastest growing economies. This takes us down the boom’n’bust road and raises expectations and fuels inflation. We should be aiming for a diverse economy with a range of employment opportunities and an economy that builds on the strengths that two universities and two colleges bring.  Is it good that the economic section of this report is based on the growth projections from the RSS? Especially as in other areas we challenge these growth targets as unrealistic.

Can I again commend to you the work that the Re:Generate Trust are doing in the Whiteway Community as mentioned twice in this report.. You will recall that three summers ago when we were having a number of issues in the community we agreed as an LSP to look for a new way of working and that following a tender process Re:Generate was selected. At the time there was some doubt as to what could be achieved but nine months on we are starting to see some fantastic outcomes in the community from the model of work that Re:Generate use. I think this is a model of community building and empowerment that we could well uses in several other communities across our authority area – from Radstock to Keynsham to Foxhill.

With those broad comments I welcome this paper..

 

 

Performance report 2008/9

When this current Cabinet took control of the Council it inherited a well performing Council that was moving forward in most areas and delivering good services. With this report we start to see the rise of complacency.
This is something that must not be allowed to continue.

I would urge that your recommendation 2.1 be much stronger  and that poor performance must be addressed and improved and that merely discussing progress is an inadequate response to hide behind.

I think the Council should give more credit to the work of the 58 Councillors not in the Cabinet. An example of this is where credit is claimed on page 7 for the work of the Children’s Society in a restorative Justice programme. Work that came directly for myself and Cllr Romero being in with the community and working forward to a resolution both with the community but also with the police and the Children’s society.

Again in this report as with the last – several references are made to the Re:Generate project and the outcomes are there for all to see – 300+ community volunteer hours in the Keep Clean part of a Deep Clean Keep Clean exercise. This in marked contrast to the disaster from the previous time when Charles Gerrish, myself and Dine Romero had to work with the community to quickly sort it and also hold our hands up and apologize for the planning failure. The use of third sector in these innovative ways is to be applauded and the LSP as a whole and the Council in particular need credit for this innovative scheme.

On the down side I am very concerned at the lack of progress for our looked after children, the support to carers, lack of real progress on waste. Samer Day collections are a good step forward even if later than originally planned. It is not working in all neighbourhoods yet and the publicity drive needs to be maintained to make a success of this. On congestion I believe that increasing evidence is against the P&R solution which is looking increasingly like a solution from the 1990s and certainly the BRT should be shelved at this time. There are far better solutions than this expensive mile of highway to hell. Lets get more people cycling for a start – CYCLESCHEME NOW please – lets look at village hub parking and improved bus connectivity. Lets look at the school run with far more intent on solving this problem as the main way of tackling congestion.

In looking at one of the big ideas of “reducing the gap” Fuel Poverty NI 187 and S20 Get ACtive will be crucial. By promoting these two strands and linking in with a healthy lifestyle approach in particular we will do more to have “Reduced the Gap” by 2026.

I welcome that NI 175 has not been changed to NI 176 – a softer target as discussed in March. Presumably this was as a result of GOSW negotiations.

To conclude the LAA is on track but there is no room for complacency and the Cabinet should look to ways of ensuring that all Councillors are involved in this. After all the LAA is a Council committment and not just a Cabinet scheme.

 

 

WEP MAA

The Liberal Democrat group remained concerned about the increasing use of the West of England as a delivery forum for services and investment for our community. We regret that at the last cabinet the decision to put our LSC share into an WEP pot was taken rather than bringing it back to Banes. I agree with Daviod Cameron’s stated desire to reduce the number of quangos and do not want to see WEP evolve into one.

We consider that the Council should be looking ata greater range of partnering opportunities rather than just concentrating on WEP. For example we consider that on waste we have more csynergy with Somerset and on housing and consequent congestion the impact of Wiltshire on us is far more significant than Bristol or S Glos.

On the economy we do not support the expansion of Bristol airport which we think will adversly affect our rural areas. BUT we do support the ability of Bristol Port to service our country now and into the future and are greatly concerned that the WEP decided to support the Government proposals to investigate the large barrage. This inability of the WEP to proceed on design inovation for our region through a variety of new tidal solutions and opt for a three barage consultation show in our view that WEP does not deliver good economic outcomes for the region and has a priority set different to ours.

On skills we consider this better done from within Banes by developing our resources.

All in all this document leaves too many unanswered questions, not enough firm targetting and not enough assurance that we will get anything positive out if it. It puts too much pressure on us setting our agenda according to the needs of other authorities.

We suggest that the Cabinet should seriously consider withdrawing from this process.

 

Community Safety Plan

The Liberal Democrats welcome this plan but would ask the cabinet to consider 2 extra recommendations

2.2 The Avon and Somerset Police be urged to continue and expand the practice of stationing Beat teams in the Community
and
2.3 The Avon and Somerset Police in partnership with the LSP look at ways to spread best practice of PACT meetings so that they can develop across the authority as effective community forums.

We welcome this plan and the pledge from the police that is contained within it. The reason we are asking you to consider two extra recommendations is firstly that the stationing of beat police teams with the community has proved highly effective and productive. It ensures that were this is happening the team is close by the community and therefore is more easily identified and recognized. It also means that more of the police time is spent within the community as opposed to traveling to and from the community.

The plan itself highlights the PACT process  and we believe that PACTS are currently a forum that is working with varying degrees of success and/or failure. In some wards it is not working at all and in some it is developing into an effective forum.  O&S are regulalry scrutinising the PACT process. If the PACT is to work then we need to develop what works well in the first place and not have rigid targets to meet. In Southdown the PACT is working because the Councillors, Council, Somer and the Police Beat Team are working together to make it work well. This means consultation and preparation and co-operation between all. With reference back to my suggested amendments, to earlier papers and comments about ReGenerate could this  be a task that they are commissioned to take over and develop for us.

 

In conclusion this is a good plan with good priorities although again we would welcome more clarity in terms of targets and outcomes.