Guide to the local election results

June 2010

What the coalition means for councilsmy Patch meets the c’llr neW councillor of the year

Supported by

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EditorAlan Pickstock

dEputy Editor Jane Sankarayya

dEsign www.whateverdesign.co.uk

CovEr piCturE Victoria McManus

Contributors Jasmine Ali is head of LGiU’s Children’s Services Network

david brindle is public services editor of the Guardian

Michael burton is editor of The MJ (Municipal Journal)

paul Collard is chief executive of Creativity, Culture & Education

Mark d’Arcy is a Parliamentary Correspondent with BBC News.

tracy gardiner is an LGiU policy analyst

Chris game is with the Institute of Local Government Studies

nina Jatana is policy manager, bassac

phil Jones is an LGiU policy analyst

Jon-paul Howarth is a councillor in North East Lincolnshire

victoria McManus is a freelance journalist

Chris Mead has recently retired as IT director of the City of Berkeley, California

Andy sawford is LGiU chief executive

Mark smulian is a freelance journalist

graham russell is senior associate with South West Councils and Chair of the South West Independent Remuneration Panel Chairs’ Group

Alan Waters is an LGiU policy analyst

dave Wilcox is chair of the LGiU and Derbyshire County Councillor

Charles Wright is a freelance journalist

The MJ is the leading news weekly for local government senior managers and members. Its publishers, the Hemming Group Ltd, also produce the Municipal Year Book, Surveyor, RDA News and the website LocalGov.co.uk For further information on subscriptions, editorial or advertising contact Amanda Murray on 020 7973 6668.

Local Government Information Unit22 Upper Woburn PlaceLondon WC1H OTB020 7554 2800cllr@lgiu.org.uk

Contents

3 The first wordA look at what’s in this issueReality Check – Dave Wilcox

4 A forward lookRobin Wales calls for more powers for elected mayorsAndy Sawford on the election pendulum

5 Chris Game’s A-Z of local governmentMichael Burton’s Viewpoint

7 Media WatchDavid Brindle – the death of council reporting

8 EducationJasmine Ali on the coalition’s plans for education

9 Public Health…How Hackney is tackling teenage pregnancy

10 My PatchThe c’llr new councillor of the year – Alex Folkes

12 PoliticsJasmine Ali on a bad day for the BNP

13 ProfileStaffordshire County Council leader Phil Atkins

14 PolicyAndy Sawford on the electoral pendulum

15 Local electionsWho’s who after the elections

16 Local elections The c’llr guide to the local election results

19 Town Hall to WestminsterMark D’Arcy talks to three new MPs with councillor backgrounds

20 CouncillorsWhat new councillors need to know

21 Councillors’ allowancesGraham Russell has advice for Independent Panels

22 WorklessnessAndrew Jones on learning from the Dutch

24 Children and young peoplePaul Collard on why culture is important to young people

26 Community engagementBringing councillors and communities closer together

27 Where are they now?Former Tower Hamlets councillor Steve Charters

29 CouncillorsElected at 18, Jon-Paul Howarth has found his political feet

30 Social mediaA new home for tweets

31 Another viewAlan Waters on governments and change

32 Postcard from Pleasanton, USAChris Mead meets the Tea Party

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This issue of c’llr went to press just before the Queen’s Speech.

REALITY CHECK

I was knocking on doors on Bank Street for the umpteenth time last month.

As the local councillor I’d been up and down Bank Street for 30 years for County and District elections as well as for street surgeries and to deal with double parking and speeding. For unaccountable reasons dog fouling doesn’t seem to have been a street issue.

Near the top of the hill, there used to live an old guy who’d confronted me when I’d first stood as a County Council candidate in 1977.

“Voted Labour all my life, but never again.” he’d exclaimed at the time. He told me the same tale for the next 20 years until he finally pegged out. I used to give him ten out of ten for consistency.

Nowadays the house has a single female occupant. She was on the record sheet as a Lib Dem. When I asked her about voting intention she told me “I’ve been a Tory all my life and I’m not going to change now.” So much for telephone canvassing and computerised record keeping I told myself as I moseyed down to the next house on the list.

A sixth sense suggested that this was a place that warranted vigilance. Maybe I’d had a close shave there before? There was no bark when the bell rang, but I was nevertheless cautious, pleased that the out-card was of sufficient strength that it would slip in without a supporting finger having to protrude beyond the bristles in the letter box.

The snarl and thud on the back of the door that tore the card from my hand confirmed my earlier fear.

One of our team uses a wooden spatula nowadays on which he places the party communication before slipping it through the letter box.

As I closed the garden gate behind me there was a glint of amusement on the face of the bloke with the clipboard. “Sorry about that Dave. It says “Rottweiler” here, but I thought that was the people in the house rather than the real thing.”

I gave him a growl.With a hung Parliament, the Dangerous Dogs Act

is something that could be re-visited in the Queen’s speech. MPs could have a free vote and councils could lobby for a dog droppings clause. It’d be guaranteed to keep the inbox full for a few months across all tiers of government.

Dave Wilcox is chair of the LGiU

THE FIRST WORD

Dog eat dog

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REMEMBER WHEN...

…we didn’t need a studio like the deck of the Starship Enterprise to cover the general election results. Back

in 1955 Richard Dimbleby and his team managed with a couple of wall charts and few piles of paper. And

they probably found out who won just as quickly.

When Alex Folkes took on the job of being Nick Clegg’s campaign photog-rapher, he probably had no idea that

the pictures he took would become part of the story of one of the most remarkable elections the UK has ever seen. Alex, winner of the c’llr new councillor of the year award, is the subject of our My Patch feature, so we look at his focus on local issues rather than his role in the national story.

But of course we can’t ignore the general election. Andy Sawford looks at what the coalition government might have in store for local government, while Jasmine Ali explores how the two parties’ education plans might evolve. In a separate article she also writes about the routing of the BNP. Mark D’Arcy talks to three new MPs with councillor backgrounds.

Getting back to local government, you’ll find a guide to the local election results in the centre of the magazine.

We’d like to give a special welcome to all the new councillors elected in May. We hope you enjoy the magazine – and there’s some timely advice for newcomers on page 20, next to an

article on the thorny subject of councillors’ allowances.

Everyone’s talking about the ‘new politics’ following the general election. Many commentators (and lazy journalists) tell us that the public voted for a hung parliament. We might have a hung parliament, but people voted for local candidates, with the added confusion of presidential election debates and newspapers that see personality as more important than policies.

Surely what matters to most people is how politics and the decisions of national and local politicians affect their lives, their neighbourhoods and, yes, their pockets. Robin Wales, elected in May for his third term as Mayor of Newham, makes a strong case for elected mayors to be provide the link between decisions and people. He has the popular support to back up his argument.

If you want to see the latest version of ‘new politics’ in the USA, turn to the back page and read about Chris Mead’s adventures with the Tea Party set. Is this a radical power-to-the-people movement? Or, as Chris suggests, is it just a bunch of ‘grumpy old white people’?

In this issue of c’llr

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ANDY SAWFORD

The Conservative’s have been dominating local government in recent years and their commitment to localism runs deep into the blue town halls which have led the party’s political revival. Conservative council leaders have been highly influential in shaping national policy, including many of the pledges to give more powers to local government.

The localism policies will now face the real test. Having fought so hard to win power nationally, will the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat Party really want to start giving power away again? Eric Pickles promises a localism bill and a big role in the Big Society, the removal of ringfencing and inspections, and bold new powers of general competence.

A funny thing happened on election day though. As parliamentary seats turned from red to blue, council seats were turning from blue and yellow to red with Labour gaining control of 17 authorities, and putting itself in the driving seat in many others in no overall control. This was Labour’s best result in council elections for 14 years. The electorate have shown consistently over time that they like to share power around, so Labour can expect to continue to do well locally, even while they are in the wilderness nationally. Will this dim Eric Pickles’s enthusiasm for localism? Will we see a return to the battles of the 1980s where Labour councils and the Conservative government were in conflict, with the added spice this time of the Liberal Democrats also being in power?

There will undoubtedly be some flashpoints but it is much more likely that pragmatism will rule as central and local government reach for a new settlement over their role, funding and freedom. Let’s hope so.

FORWaRD lOOk

GThere has been a lot of speculation about

what the results of the elections nation-ally really meant and what message the

electorate was trying to send.In Newham almost 65,000 voted for me to be

their mayor for a third term, so I think I can be very clear about what residents think – that they believe in their elected mayor and trust me to do the right things.

I was first elected mayor in 2002 and my return with an even larger majority is a clear endorsement of what I have been doing and will continue to do.

Electorates know their Mayors, popular or unpopular, far better than any council leader, and recognise where the buck stops for the decisions the council makes. Unlike the behind the scenes bargaining in councils with no overall control, people know who’s in charge and how to hold them to account.

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The electoral pendulum

Making the case for Mayors

Elected Mayors might still seem a relatively new idea, but Robin Wales has just been elected for a third term as Mayor of Newham. Mayors can provide a vital link

between residents and the decisions that affect them, he says, and argues they should have more powers.

It’s important to recognise that you are the representative of the community, not an organisation. It doesn’t matter who is there to provide a service – health, policing, housing – it’s our job as elected mayors to make sure it works for people. That also means it’s crucial to learn quickly how to balance the competing demands.

The biggest challenge is balancing the different roles: the community side of things like visits, surgeries, Question Times etc, with that of representing Newham and meeting ministers, working with businesses and so forth.

I am hugely passionate about this job and I believe the single most important benefit about being directly elected is the direct relationship with residents.

People know I am accountable to them and that I need to deliver the results that they value. I am fortunate to work with a strong team of councillors who share the same values and aspirations for Newham.

I am concerned that many people in this country don’t feel able to influence the decisions that matter to them. Elected mayors can bridge that gap because we offer the unique link between residents and decisions and have the strong mandate to achieve residents’ aspirations.

I hope we will see more elected mayors across the country, but it’s clear the mayoral system cannot just be applied anywhere in a one size fits all way – it is strong leadership that makes the system work.

I would also like to see more powers given to mayors. Problems can’t be tackled in silos – we must join up to make things work. With more powers, mayors would have a stronger opportunity and direct responsibility to bring people and organisations together to deliver real results for an area.

I am proud of what has been achieved in Newham and I hope this model of leadership will continue to evolve and grow.

the localism policies will now face the real test.“ ”

VIEWPOINTMICHAEL BURTON

Let’s be honest. Our voting system belongs with the dinosaurs. From the stubby pencils through to the manual count, exhausted council staff slumped in chairs, the way we elect our governments has got to change.

If anything gave this momentum on election night it was the spectacle of people queuing outside polling stations, or being turned away. Stories of shortages of ballot papers or insufficient staff may be exaggerated but the damage has been done.

I spent election night at Brent’s town hall in north west London. There were two constituencies being counted in the main hall, Brent North and Brent Central, the latter a marginal split between the Lib Dems and Labour. The parliamentary count also coincided with London’s all-out local elections. As a result the number of votes cast for the borough elections was virtually double the usual. A further complication was that three council wards were part of a highly marginal neighbouring constituency.

While Sunderland might have declared at 11.40 on election night, the two Brent seats finally declared at 10am the next morning. The 100 or so staff had worked through the night counting votes. Many had already done a full day’s work previously and others would return to work after the count.

During a quiet moment I spoke to Brent chief executive Gareth Daniel, the returning officer. He totally refuted the idea that somehow councils had been inefficient in manning polling stations. And referring to the TV coverage during the night he said “the knocking copy during the night has been outrageous”.

While no problems were reported in his patch he pointed out: “This is the most complicated election I’ve had here with a very high turnout, almost double in the case of the council elections and a big increase in postal votes. I’d say 99.9 per cent of the election has been run meticulously. This is a local government success story.” He also said that the public itself was also often confused. He had even had calls at 11pm, an hour after polling ended, from people wanting to know when they could vote.

Council electoral staff have worked in difficult circumstances with a system that has hardly changed in a century. It is time to fundamentally review it, harnessing technology to bring it into the 21st century. Michael Burton is editor of The MJ (Municipal Journal)

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The most important G must be Grant, fueller of local govern-ment’s great advances during

the 19th and 20th Centuries. And let’s hear it especially for General Grant – as President Lincoln must at some time have toasted General Ulysses S. Grant, his hard-drinking but military successful commander of the Union armies during the Civil War.

More recently and relevantly, though, the sentiment was echoed in the 2007 Lyons Report – which has, incidentally, over twice as many pages (600) as Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has words.

Until the arrival of the block grant in 1930, all grants were effectively specific, chiefly for education, police, and housing. Not until General and Exchequer Equalisation Grants in 1959 did general grant funding start to exceed that by specific grants, in the way that we came to take, yes, for granted.

Under Labour especially, that relationship was dramatically overturned. In 2007/08 (before Area Based Grant), nearly half of English councils’ gross income came from special and specific grants, compared to 14 per cent from the non-ring-fenced Revenue Support Grant and redistributed business rates.

Even ministers acknowledged that this scale of ring-fencing could be inefficient and completely distorting of local priorities, and Sir Michael Lyons agreed. The significant reductions he wanted in ring-fencing must surely be a key part of the national coalition’s commitment to ‘the radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government’.

Individually, the coalition parties were also committed to a general power of competence (Conservatives) or power of general competence (Lib Dems). The latter is much the commoner phrasing, prompting speculation as to why

COunCIllORS’ a TO Z

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the Conservatives chose the apparently weaker formulation, and whether it is actually about enabling councils to abandon current statutory duties.

It is hard to imagine these semantic differences actually bringing down the coalition, but it will be worth comparing any eventual Bill with the LGA’s Draft Local Government (Power of Competence) Bill, presented to Parliament in March.

Before that, though, we should see a potentially even more radical Great Repeal Bill, which features prominently in the coalition agreements document. It too has an interesting provenance, starting life as a Lib Dem idea, assembling in one Freedom Bill all the laws allegedly undermining civil liberties so that they can be collectively repealed. It has since gained a life of its own as a Wikiversity Great Repeal Bill, including a section specifically on Local Government Deregulation.

is for...

Date: Thursday 17 June Venue: Bloomsbury Hotel, London WC1B 3NN

Some free places available for governors.

The growing diversity of schools and pressure to ‘professionalise’ governance represent a serious challenge to the stakeholder principle of governance established in the 1980s.

This conference offers delegates the opportunity to consider the seriousness of this challenge and debate the pros and cons of the traditional model of governance and the current alternatives.

Speakers include: Fiona Millar, Journalist; Nick Chambers, Director, Education and Employers Taskforce Steve Acklam, Chief Executive, School Governors’ One-Stop Shop;David Marriott, Chair, National Co-Ordinators of Governor Services; Ron Kenyon, Chair, Djanogly City Academy

To find out more and to book a place go to www.lgiu.org.uk/events

Now that the local elections are over, the issues of how local councils engage with residents and facilitate local services in a time of anticipated public spending cuts are of key importance.

The Local Government Information Unit (LGIU), Urban Forum and Bassac have come together to host a seminar exploring new ways the local government and local third sector organizations can work together to develop civic participation and provide community based services.

StakeholDer School goVernance unDer threat: what’S worth fighting for?

the public-thirD Sector partnerShip: DeVeloping anD DeliVering a ShareD ViSion at the local leVel

to find out more and book a place go to www.lgiu.org.uk/events

Date: Tuesday 29 June 2010 Venue: LGiU, 22 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H 0TB

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Nothing to report?Councils complain local papers don’t cover council business. Editors

complain too many decisions are taken in private. David Brindle looks the evidence and a plan to put council reporting back on the front page.

The singer-songwriter James Morrison pens numbers with snappy titles like Wonderful World and Broken Strings. The journalism

academic of the same name eschews such brev-ity. His recent study is called Spin, Smoke-filled Rooms and the Decline of Council Reporting by Local Newspapers: the Slow Demise of Town Hall Transparency. You can’t say it’s not all in there.

In a previous life, Morrison, senior lecturer in journalism at Kingston University, followed the classic career path of a jobbing hack from a weekly paper in Devon to regional dailies and then the nationals. Like all of us of that generation, he did his fair share of municipal coverage. “While town hall debates were rarely dynamite,” he recalls, “there was a sense that, if it could be staffed, no local authority meeting should be missed – from the monthly musings of a sleepy parish council to full gatherings of major unitary authorities.”

As this column has noted regularly, things are now very different. The press table at council meetings is all too often empty. A survey last year by the Press Association (PA) news agency found that almost two in three local papers admitted to using fewer local government resources, such as meeting agendas and minutes, than a decade previously. Half of all editors agreed that their scrutiny of local authorities had been reduced.

Some critics would attribute this to relentless staff cuts in the regional press and the dumbing-down of editorial content. But Morrison argues that papers have been turned off local government by changes in the way it works, consequent upon the Local Government Act 2000.

Cabinet-style administration of bigger authorities has meant that all key decisions are taken by a minority of councillors, he says. Moreover, such decisions need be made in public session only if they affect two or more electoral wards and only if they require a vote of the cabinet as a whole. Matters delegated to individual portfolio-holders need not be discussed publicly at all.

Morrison tested his theory about cabinet government on 20 local editors. “When asked about its impact on their work, editor after editor criticised their local councils as secretive,

with several commenting that, despite nominally meeting in public, cabinets appeared to routinely take decisions privately beforehand.”

Cynics might say ’twas ever thus. Certainly my recollection of covering a metropolitan authority in the 1980s was that all the big decisions were made, and all the big arguments held, in private meetings of the controlling political group. But Morrison insists: “With council meetings downgraded to the status of talking shops, it’s little wonder that today’s local newspaper editors – faced with ever-tighter staff budgets and 24-hour copy deadlines for their web operations – are voting with their feet and ceasing to cover them.”

Some of the editors consulted by Morrison were more sanguine about things. One, from Kent, said the emphasis had shifted from reporting debate to using meetings to get ideas for follow-up stories. Another, from the north-east, said: “We have enough contacts gained over many years to ensure we hear about even those discussions held in private.”

But to develop good contacts does take knowledge and time. And the clear danger is that today’s young local journalists are not acquiring the first not being allowed the second. Is there a solution? One idea being floated is the creation of subsidised public-interest reporting agencies, covering not only councils but also NHS bodies and the courts and selling their copy to local media and other interested parties.

The scheme is being promoted by the PA and the Trinity Mirror newspaper group, but they have so far failed to find the funding to set up a pilot and commission an evaluation. PA editor Jonathan Grun remains hopeful, however. “We are increasingly aware of the gap in coverage of public institutions like courts and councils,” he says. “Without sounding too pompous about it, we think this is an idea worth trying for the good of the country.”

David Brindle is the Guardian’s public services editor.

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EDuCaTIOn

Schools test for the coalition

Jasmine Ali, Head of LGiU’s Children’s Services Network takes a look at the coalition government’s plans for education.

The coalition has started with a broad agree-ment on school reform: a pupil premium and a reduced curriculum. Some of the

parties’ most radical election manifesto propos-als relate to education, so what happens next to improve services for the most vulnerable children and deliver school improvement will surely be an acid test of the new government’s success.

There remains a contradiction between the Conservative’s flagship policy for free schools and the Liberal Democrat plan to return academies to local authority accountability. The Conservatives promised hundreds of free schools to open within the first year of a ‘Tory’ administration. Many parent groups are ready to set up new state funded schools that will be independent of town hall control and run by independent organisations.

The current absence of choice has led many parents to believe that free schools will force private companies to compete and therefore provide high quality of education to attract pupils. It is hoped that this will bring about a fairer admissions system. This movement towards a free school system has been imported from Sweden, where they have been in existence for some 15 years. They are underpinned by vouchers which are allocated to parents so that they can “spend” them in the schools of their choosing.

There is conflicting evidence about their success. Swedish Social Democratic Party leader Mona Sahlin told the Guardian that their free schools system is failing. They are also blamed for increased segregation, with pupils from the same social background concentrated in certain schools.

This may clash with the Liberal Democrats’ Equity and Excellence schools policy paper, approved at its 2009 spring conference. There it calls for £2.5 billion investment in a pupil premium. Devised as a means to increase the funding of the poorest children to private school levels, it developed so that schools could apply it as they see fit. Uses could include attracting the best teachers, offering extra one-to-one tuition, providing for after-school and holiday support and in principle allowing an average primary school to cut classes to 20 and an average secondary school

to introduce catch-up lessons for 160 pupils. The Tories and Lib Dems now agree on the

pupil premium in principle but when it comes to its implementation they appear to mean different things. For the Conservatives pupil premium is intrinsically bound to a free schools system. Yet the Liberal Democrats’ approach is to give local authorities greater control of all schools. This will be the driver to bridge the attainment gap between pupils from poor backgrounds and their counterparts.

There is a fear that the more popular schools will continue the trend to oversubscription, while the less popular ones are left without adequate means to improve.

Britain already has a range of fee-paying schools, selective grammar schools, technology colleges and around 200 academies which, like free schools, can be set up by independent bodies. So a cut and paste job of the two flagship policies is not beyond the realm of possibility.

But an increase of independent schools could undermine accountability. What happens to the role of school governors in a changing landscape of school reform is yet to be determined. How will school governors fit into the picture if there

are more free schools? New contracts could mean school governing bodies no longer appoint the head teacher.

Schools can expect freedom over the curriculum which should enable teachers to better meet individual needs of pupils and to engage them in learning. The Lib Dems could seek to temper the Conservatives’ taste for a more traditional approach in favour of a more modern curriculum shaped by local needs.

The fragility of the economy and subsequent cuts in services must not be allowed to widen inequality gaps between pupils. This is why the public want parties to work together. As councillors know, hung councils have been around for a long time and they can work.

The Queen’s Speech should throw light on many of these important issues.

Con-Lib Coalition AgreementSpecific issues relating to children and young people include:

•Promoting the reform of schools in orderto ensure that new providers can enter the state school system in response to parental demand; that all schools have greater freedom over curriculum; and that all schools are held properly accountable

•A ‘significant premium’ for disadvantagedpupils from outside the schools budget funded by reductions in spending elsewhere

•ScrappingtheContactPointDatabase

•Outlawing thefinger-printingof childrenatschool without parental permission

•Ending the detention of children forimmigration purposes

•ReductionstotheChildTrustFund

•Referring Jobseeker’s Allowance claimantsaged under 25 to a new welfare to work programme after a maximum of six months

•HighereducationproposalswillawaitLordBrowne’s final report into funding.

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Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education

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PublIC HEalTH

Pregnant pauseTeenage pregnancy has often been seen as one of the more intractable challenges for local authorities, particularly in the more deprived inner city areas. Initiative follows

initiative, but conception rates among the under 18s, while falling slowly, remain stubbornly high. Charles Wright finds out how Hackney has bucked the trend.

So what’s the secret in Hackney, in north east London? One of the poorest boroughs in the country, the area is now recording one

of the most dramatic falls in teenage pregnancy rates nationally. In fact Hackney is now outside the top 20 local authority areas for teenage preg-nancy, with an overall rate of 57.1 pregnancies per 1,000 under 18-year-olds.

It’s a remarkable turnaround, a reduction of more than a quarter since 1998, when teenage pregnancy rates were 77.1 per 1,000 – 65 per cent above the national average.

Perhaps surprisingly, *Cabinet Member for Children and Young People Councillor Rita Krishna is not however an advocate of a single issue approach. “The main thing is to take a broad view,” she says. “Of course teenage pregnancy needs to be high on the agenda for elected members, and it needs to be a strand in the Children and Young People Plan, but not necessarily a separate strand.

“It’s about having a vision for tackling the underlying causes of these things, and integrated working generally, putting professional silos and boundaries aside, as well as keeping a critical focus on targeted interventions.”

Hackney is not short of initiatives, from free condom distribution schemes, young people’s health website and drop-in advice clinic to the Young Families Support Service offering community-based support, information and advice on everything from benefits and housing to training and health, and an outreach nurse working one-to-one with teenage mothers, helping them avoid repeat pregnancies, if they wish.

But there’s also a clear focus on education.A team of specially-trained peer educators in

the voluntary sector ‘Clued Up’ project run up front role play and discussion sessions for 14 to 18 year olds in secondary schools as part of Personal, Social and Health Education.

Another project, ‘Meet the Parents’, runs drama workshops featuring teenage parents themselves, while for primary schools a special training scheme has helped teachers across the

borough gain extra skills for delivering sex and relationship education appropriate for younger age groups.

Young parents themselves can take part in the ‘Parents with Prospects’ accredited training programme.

The borough’s Teenage Pregnancy Coordinator Jayne Taylor says education has been placed at the heart of the approach because teenage pregnancy is seen as a social issue. “It is directly linked to health inequalities. It leads to lower life chances and fewer opportunities – that is why it is so important to change behaviour.”

For Councillor Krishna, this broad approach is key. “We have to pay proper attention to the

wider factors, particularly education, because improving education is the way we are going to keep on building the aspirations of our young people, so that they can imagine different possibilities for themselves.”

So Hackney’s five new academies opened since 2002, and now helping the borough achieve GCSE results above the national average, are an important element, boosting educational outcomes and encouraging parents to want more for their children.

Action on poverty is also vital. “That’s the single biggest issue we have, underpinning most problems in the borough,” says Krishna.

With so many factors coming into play, teenage pregnancy initiatives tend to operate in a target-driven, multi-agency arena, high on the agenda for strategic partnerships.

For Krishna, this is where elected members come into their own. “We have that integrated and broad vision for children’s services, of which teenage pregnancy is a part. And our strength is that we are non-aligned. We don’t have any professional vested interests, so we can provide the necessary challenge.

Education is at the heart of Hackney’s approach to tackling teenage pregnancy. (Library photo posed by model.)

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Education has been placed at the heart of the approach because teenage pregnancy is seen as a social issue

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”*Cabinet positions following the elections not known at time of going to press

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My PaTCH

Liberal Democrat councillor Alex Folkes, elected to Cornwall Council last June, impressed c’llr. judges enough to win our New Councillor of the Year award. So

how did he get noticed so fast? Victoria McManus went to Launceston to find out.

“I must have done something right in representing the people. We may be

rural but we shouldn’t be forgotten.”

Alex Folkes keeps himself busy. While he’s not chasing round the country after Nick Clegg (as the Lib Dem leader’s campaign

trail photographer), he’s running several campaigns of his own in his ward in Launceston, Cornwall.

A recent victory was stopping the Post Office being moved further out of town. And he is currently having a quarrel with the Conservative leader of the unitary council in Truro over recognition and inclusion of the towns in the east of Cornwall, including, of course, Launceston.

Back in medieval times, Launceston was the county town of Cornwall and became known for its wool industry and for straw hats. By 1900 it was a busy market town with a population of 4,000 and had two railway lines running through it.

“No trains now though. You’ll have to drive, I’m afraid,” Alex told me on the phone when I asked if I could come and take a tour of his ward with him.

He has caused more than a ripple of interest since he was elected last year, picking up the LGiU/CCLA/C’llr. Newcomer of the Year award and another award from Total Politics magazine for his blog, A Lanson Boy.

Lanson is how they say Launceston over the border – for Cornwall really is considered a different country by many of its inhabitants. Alex is Cornwall born and bred and it is this, together with his persistence and energy, that made him an instantly popular choice in last year’s council elections, in spite of having only recently moved back to the area.

We meet on a chilly spring afternoon in a Launceston coffee shop. Alex, who is 40, tells me how he got into politics: “I grew up in Truro and, as is the way with many Cornish kids, I

went away to university and stayed away. I lived on the Isle of Wight and also in London, but I decided to move back here to stand for Cornwall Council. It was my political ambition.

“David Penhaligon recruited me to the Lib Dem party in 1985 so I’m not new to it – I have been in politics all of my career, first of all as a political assistant in Kingston and then in Southwark for the administration, assisting the executive members.

“I moved to Launceston two and a half years ago and I stood for the Launceston Central ward. It was a two-horse race against a Conservative and I got 65 per cent of the vote. I campaigned very hard – we did 12 leaflets during the last few weeks.”

The election gave the Conservatives control of the new unitary council, with 50 seats. The Lib Dems got 38, with the rest going to Independents and Mebyon Kernow (The Party for Cornwall).

Launceston is split into three wards, all presided over by Liberal Democrat councillors. Launceston Central includes a large part of the town centre, the Ridgegrove housing estate and “just a couple of fields”. Alex says: “I work closely with my two fellow Lib Dem colleagues in town plus we have an Independent and a Conservative who represent two of the rural wards. We have been working together on issues like saving the Post Office from being moved out of the town centre.”

Launceston is an imposing town of tall 18th century houses and grey stone buildings marching down a steep hillside, topped by the remains of a Norman castle. At the bottom of the hill is a shallow river and the old station, now a steam railway museum. On the other side of the bridge the road leads sharply up another hill to a housing estate, the Ridgegrove. It is a large estate for a town of this size – 200 houses of council tenants and right to buy owners (Cornwall didn’t do stock transfers). Alex says it has a mobile population, not affluent, not many car owners.

We stop at the Ridgegrove to look at the view back across the valley to the town centre and castle, before climbing up to a small, unkempt play area on the estate. Alex, who is a keen rugby player, points out the broken matting and says: “Play areas are a huge issue. Because we are on hills and also because we have no good road crossings, play areas need to be local and accessible. The town council ones are well run but the Cornwall Council ones are all on housing estates and are therefore very run down as the money is spent on housing. It is a huge battle to get people to recognise that we need more safe play areas.”

Cornwall needs 1,200 new affordable

homes a year but is only managing 800.

self-build projects can’t get mortgages

at the moment

“

”

11

My PaTCH

He explains that one of the problems is that Section 106 money is currently being spent on school transport. Currently children from this estate have a choice of two primary schools – Launceston School, which is a half-hour walk, or St Stephens down at the bottom of the hill, but there is no pavement for a large section of the way and there are few safe crossing places. These schools are also full.

Alex continues: “At the same time there are falling numbers in the village schools in the surrounding area, as second homes are a problem and there are few children resident in the villages. So what’s happening at the moment is that the kids from the poorer estates in Launceston are being bussed out to the schools in the villages.

“Their parents often have no cars, so they can’t get to PTA meetings and their kids can’t stay on for after school clubs. We really need another more accessible primary school here in Launceston.”

Equally important, he says, is to target building in the villages to reinvigorate them. “Cornwall needs 1,200 new affordable homes a year but is only managing 800. Self-build projects can’t get mortgages at the moment. There are a few Community Land Trust schemes but they are very small.”

Back in the town centre, we wander round the narrow streets that lead to the market square. Alex says: “We have a great butchers, independent clothing shops, banks and a Post Office – and lots of independent stores. We have to keep people using them. One of the Lib Dems’ biggest local campaigns is trying to implement a 10p charge for the first hour parking policy so as to stimulate trade for local shops.”

He is also active in campaigning for more pedestrian crossings, more for young people to do and keeping weekly bin collections (as it is not a huge recycling area). And he is vocal in urging the unitary council not to allow services to become

too centralised, recently accusing the council of being “Truro-centric”.

Alex is very determined to make his ward in Launceston a better place to live. “I am a full-time councillor. I was working as a fundraiser for a charity but the council work was taking over so I gave it up. My background is as a photographer so I supplement my councillors’ allowance with photography earnings, but I want to put my all into this.”

And he is chuffed about the award: “I got nominated by somebody – they investigated what I have done. It was fantastic and I am delighted to have done so well. I must have done something right in representing the people. We may be rural but we shouldn’t be forgotten.”

See Alex Folkes’ blog at lansonboy.blogspot.com, find him on at www.facebook.com/alex.folkes or follow him on Twitter twitter.com/alexfolkes.

What’s happening at the moment is that

the kids from the poorer estates in Launceston

are being bussed out to the schools

in the villages.

“

”

Vict

oria

McM

anus

12

ElECTIOnS

Bye bye BNP? Many aspects of the May elections confounded expectations,

not least the complete failure of the BNP to build on its base of European and council seats. Jasmine Ali reports.

Few elections of recent years have cap-tured the public imagination in quite this way.

On the national scene: a close battle, a series of strangely compelling TV debates, a sudden Lib Dem surge evaporating equally suddenly, queues turned away at polling stations, a long and seemingly inconclusive election night. Then a dramatic weekend of will-they won’t-they negotiations, Brown’s attempted coup de theatre and finally – with weird inevitability – the trip to the palace and the installation of our first Con-Dem Coalition.

On the local scene, a bit of a contradiction, with key authorities falling to Labour. And alongside all of this, a sideshow that could not pass unnoticed: the virtual annihilation of the BNP.

Britain’s well publicised far-right party fielded a record 362 candidates. They lost 263 deposits. Their leader Nick Griffin failed to take their national target seat in Barking and Dagenham – and they lost every single one of their 12 seats on the council.

The cameras did not lie as they captured Griffin and his lieutenants’ deep disappointment, drawing drew loud jeers at the count and a triumphalist tour de force from Labour’s Margaret Hodge.

The result was as decisive as it was apparently unexpected. The BNP had focused its resources on Barking and Dagenham and on Stoke Central. These areas had been carefully selected for their long term economic decline and strong signs of potential support from disillusioned white people. Rising unemployment and above average numbers of people with no qualifications helped create what many commentators referred to as a “perfect storm” for the BNP, whose campaign directed anger at poor housing, education and job opportunities against the local immigrant population.

Before polling day, Griffin talked up his hopes of being returned as a first BNP MP – among the BNP’s increasingly motivated opponents fears of an historic breakthrough were running high.

Yet in the end, voters turned away from the party in large numbers. Indeed they failed to

make any impact in the general election – with a small rise in their vote compared with 2005 masking a relative decline in proportion to the overall numbers of votes cast, and a precipitate decline of nearly 50 percent when compared to last year’s European elections.

In Barking and Dagenham they had been just 14 seats short of winning the council and anticipated a clean sweep in their battleground wards. Griffin needed a 16 per cent swing to beat former culture minister Margaret Hodge, and a feared surge in the BNP vote was a persistent worry for John Cruddas in the borough’s other constituency. The BNP’s approach was described by Searchlight magazine as a “ladder strategy”, starting with council seats which the BNP thought of as easy targets, moving on to European parliamentary constituencies (two seats since 2008) and then a parliamentary seat.

Their failure was caused by two main factors. One was the innovative work of activists like Nick Lowes from Searchlight who distributed

80,000 Hope Not Hate newspapers across Stoke on Trent, where their two councillors lost their positions. The energetic campaign of Margaret Hodge and her election manager Darren Rodwell was instrumental in securing a Labour victory in Barking and Dagenham.

Nevertheless, the overall national picture explains the fundamental reason behind the BNP’s defeat. In their target areas there was a strong resurgence of support for Labour. This phenomenon is perhaps the true unsung feature of this election. It reduced a Conservative advance which only six months ago had been expected to deliver a very large majority to the ‘most hung’ Parliament in living memory; it obliged the Conservatives to accept the Liberal Democrats into formal coalition; it returned boroughs like Southwark to Labour control and saw Labour take seats from the Lib Dems in Birmingham and – almost as a by-product – it set back the advance of the British far right … at least on the electoral terrain.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge uses her victory speech to attack the BNP leader Nick Griffin (second left), after winning the Barking seat.

John

Stil

lwel

l/PA

Wire

13

PROFIlE

Phil AtkinsMark Smulian meets Staffordshire County Council

leader, Phil Atkins who took the county with a landslide from Labour last May.

the previous Labour administration having put the homes’ future in question without having decided what that future should be.

He says: “It had got to the point where there were demonstrations about care homes outside every council meeting, and Labour just wanted to close them. Rather than do that, we developed the extra care model.”

This sees Staffordshire work with social landlords to develop specialist housing for older people. The council, having contributed land, gains some nomination rights.

“Extra care creates a village setting with private, rented and share ownership homes in urban areas where people can easily reach shops and services,” Phil says.

“There are staff there, but not in the numbers you would have in a care home.”

Potholes were also a major election issue, and one where it is notoriously difficult for any highway authority to tackle its backlog before fresh ones appear.

Phil says his administration raised £30m to tackle this through “an innovative financing method”.

This took the £1.5m already allocated to the work, topped that up savings expected from carrying out planned repairs, rather then reactive ones, and then used the total sum to borrow against, raising £10m a year for three years.

He complains of having inherited a ‘silo culture’, which inhibits the search for efficiencies.

One example, he says, came when the council talked to young people and found their main concern was transport, as “it is all very well putting on events and services for them, but not if they cannot get there”.

The county is trying to pool its separate schools and care services transport and subsidised bus network budgets to see if it can find efficiency savings that can be reinvested. “We think we can end the silo culture we inherited,” he says.

Phil had long been an active Conservative but only entered politics seriously at 35 when he won a by-election in 1987 in Uttoxeter Rural, which he still represents.

“I got fed up with what ‘they’ did, but then realised that ‘they’ were only other members of the public,” he says.

He has also served on East Staffordshire District Council and describes himself as “a committed two-tier man”.

“I think back office services will be increasingly consolidated between councils but delivery and representation should remain locally based,” Phil says.

“Staffordshire sits between the city regions of Birmingham, Manchester and the ‘3 Cities’ of Derby Leicester and Nottingham, and our role is to get the maximum benefit from that, and not just be a rural hinterland.”

Away from politics Phil still keeps sheep on a 160 acres farm at Rocester and cultivates wheat and oilseed rape.

“I still enjoy sitting on a tractor to get away from it all,” he says.

“

”

the result was not a surprise to me,

though it was probably to anyone outside

the county.

Staffordshire provided a moment of startling political drama even by the standards of the 2009 local elections, during which the Con-

servatives almost swept the board in England’s county council elections.

A Tory win had been widely forecast, but Labour crashed from 38 councillors to three while the Tories took 49 of the 62 seats.

It was though no shock to council leader Phil Atkins, who is now a year into his administration.

“The result was not a surprise to me, though it was probably to anyone outside the county,” he says.

“We had been preparing as a group for a long time, built up our manifesto and decided that there would be no ‘no-go’ areas for us.”

Tory candidates had the responsibilities of the role impressed on them, as each would have a £10,000 councillors’ budget to spend in their local patch.

“You cannot give them the whole budget but the £10,000 gives them a hugely responsible role and they can get a lot done with that money by working with volunteers and partners,” Phil says.

Some of the new administration’s priorities were relatively uncontentious – such as wider use of 20mph speed limits in residential areas and keeping school facilities open after hours for community use.

But a particularly emotive issue was the future of the county’s care homes.

Phil attributes part of his party’s victory to

Will Pickles bring the ‘new politics’ to local

government?After intense negotiations the new government has issued a statement on how they will reconcile policies and priorities. LGiU Chief Executive

Andy Sawford looks at what this means for local government.

Eric was my hot tip to become the new Communities Secretary following the election. Eric has long been a champion of

localism and he was the architect of the Control Shift White Paper.

The surprise, given the Conservatives’ dominant poll lead in recent years, is that Mr Pickles and his colleagues will be sharing power with the Liberal Democrats. This makes the policy agenda of the incoming government more complex, fluid and difficult to predict.

The new government has said it represents a ‘new politics’ in Britain. The LGiU of course fully supports political and democratic reform where this will lead to a new settlement between government and the people it serves. The starting point for this reform must be a radical commitment to localism so we welcome the bold statement from the incoming government that it will promote devolution of power and financial autonomy to local government. It is also good to see a commitment to a “full review of local government finance”. The LGiU will be

publishing a major contribution to this review and we hope that it will lead to real change, rather than gathering dust alongside the Lyons Review.

There has been much talk of reforming the voting system and the Conservatives, despite their firm support for ‘First Past the Post’ have agreed to Liberal Democrat demands for a referendum. Initial announcements on this suggest it will be confined to parliamentary elections, but the Lib Dems will call for PR for local council elections, as is already the case in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, in line with the PR systems used for their devolved government elections.

The coalition government has made clear that Conservative plans for deficit reductions now, rather than later, will be implemented. Local councils and other public service providers are already facing severe financial constraints and will want to know how the commitment to find £6 billion of savings within this financial year will be implemented, what share of savings they will be expected to absorb and if, as we are assuming, this is coming on top of existing efficiency targets? An emergency budget has been set for 22 June but already departments have been told to review spending decisions dating back to 1 January this year. A leaked memo to civil servants at the Department for Communities and Local Government says to prepare for 40 per cent of the budget to be challenged.

Together the coalition partners are sticking to major financial commitments, including real terms increases for the NHS, a guaranteed minimum rise in the state pension of at least 2.5 per cent year on year, a ‘significant’ premium for disadvantaged pupils, and tax cuts. While these are things that many people will welcome, the agreement says they will be paid for by ‘savings elsewhere’, which will cause real concerns that there will be an extra squeeze on local government budgets and other non protected areas of spend. The real

GEnERal ElECTIOn

14

We welcome the bold statement from the

incoming government that it will promote

devolution of power and financial autonomy to

local government.

“

”

Eric Pickles: Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government

15

GEnERal ElECTIOn

terms increase for the NHS is a major ring-fencing which may lead to reductions in other vital and related areas of spending such as social care, which is notably not mentioned in the document.

The proposed Comprehensive Spending Review to be published in the autumn will shed light on these issues, and while the need for urgency is clear, there must be time for effective consultation across government nationally and locally.

Looking ahead there will be other policy battles. How will the coalition partners reconcile their very different views of the local authority role in schools? This must be resolved quickly if a Schools Bill is to be published within 100 days as promised. The Liberal Democrats have proposed an extension of the role that councils play, such as by becoming responsible for academies, but the Conservatives oppose this. (See Jasmine Ali’s article on page 8 for more on this.)

On welfare and unemployment, it is good to see that the parties have agreed to reform the funding mechanism to reflect the fact that initial investment delivers later savings in lower benefits. This was at the heart of recent LGiU proposals advocating a new, incentivised role for local authorities in supporting people back to work. (See Andrew Jones’ article on page 22.)

On immigration, the proposal to end the detention of children will mean that local authorities must house them in children’s homes and separate them from their parents. Wouldn’t it be better instead to radically speed up the immigration system? On policing there is much common ground, including support for direct elected police sheriffs, but this is not popular amongst councillors from either party. What of housing, planning and environment policy? It is certainly interesting that the avowedly anti nuclear Lib Dems are in the Cabinet driving seat on the environment.

The LGiU will be following the emerging policy agenda closely and keeping our member local authorities informed. Look out for briefings and updates on our blog.

C’llr interviewed Eric Pickles for our January 2008 issue. We started that piece: “As a councillor, Eric Pickles was a risk-taker, challenging the accepted wisdom and accepted ways of doing things…he was keen to involve sections of the community that many council services had by-passed.”

Pickles told us: “I took the basic view that if someone paid rates they were due a service in return.”

Good news for councillors is that as a former Bradford council leader, Pickles knows running a council is a tough job. “Bradford remains one of the most challenging things I have done. It was very exciting and very physical. City politics is very demanding.”

He said he thought the role of the councillor was vital, but was concerned that the roles of councillors and officers were becoming merged. He said: “A good councillor should be about showing the sense of direction for the authority, centred around the needs of residents and electors. A councillor should look to residents to judge success, not the government. I’m tired of hearing councillors say they have a nice letter from a government minister saying how well they are doing.”

“

”

the proposal to end the detention of children will

mean that local authorities must house them in children’s

homes and separate them from their parents

A leaked memo to civil servants at the

department for Communities and Local

government says to prepare for 40% of the budget to be

challenged.

“

”

Andrew Stunell: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Bob Neill: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Baroness Hanham: Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Grant Shapps: Minister for Housing and Local GovernmentGregg Clark: Minister for Decentralisation

16

The c’llr guide to the 2010 local election results

Approximately one fifth of all local councillor seats were up for election on Thursday 6 May 2010 in 164 councils across England. The tables over the next three pages show you

who won, who lost and how the picture of local government changed on 6 May.

lOCal ElECTIOnS

Local authority Electing Control Arrangements Pre-election Leader Result New Arrangements New LeaderAdur Halves Conservative Neil Parkin (Con) CON No Change Neil Parkin (Con)Amber valley Thirds Conservative Alan Cox (Con) CON No Changebarking and dagenham Whole Labour Liam Smith (Lab) LAB No Change Liam Smith (Lab)barnet Whole Conservative Mike Freer (Con) CON No Change Lynne Hillan (Con)barnsley Thirds Labour Stephen Houghton (Lab) LAB No Change Stephen Houghton (Lab)barrow-in-Furness Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Jack Richardson (Con) NOC No Change Lab 16 (+8), Con 11 (-5), Others 9 (-2)basildon Thirds Conservative Tony Ball (Con) CON No Change Tony Ball (Con)basingstoke and deane Thirds Conservative Andrew Finney (Con) CON No Change Andrew Finney (Con)bassetlaw Thirds Conservative Mike Quigley (Con) CON No Change Mike Quigley (Con)bexley Whole Conservative Teresa O’Neill (Con) CON No Change Teresa O’Neill (Con)birmingham Thirds NOC Conservative minority Mike Whitby (Con) NOC No Change Con 45 (-4), Lab 41 (+5), LD 31 (-1),

Respect 3Mike Whitby (Con)

blackburn with darwen Thirds NOC Con/Lib Dem/Independent coalition Colin Rigby (Con) NOC No Change Lab 31 (+3), Con 19 (+1), LD 9 (-2),Others 5 (-2)

bolton Thirds NOC Labour Minority Cliff Morris (Lab) NOC No Change Lab 30 (+2), Con 22 (-1), LD 8 (-1)bradford Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib Dem coalition Kris Hopkins (Con) NOC No Change Lab 39 (+3), Con 32 (-4), LD 14 (+1),

Green 3, BNP 2Ian Greenwood (Lab)

brent Whole NOC Lib Dem and Conservative Paul Lorber (LD) LAB gain Ann John (Lab)brentwood Thirds Conservative Louise McKinlay (Con) CON No Change Louise McKinlay (Con)bristol Thirds Liberal Democrat Barbara Janke (LD) LD No Change Barbara Janke (LD)bromley Whole Conservative Stephen Carr (Con) CON No Change Stephen Carr (Con)broxbourne Thirds Conservative Ken Ayling (Con) CON No Change Ken Ayling (Con)burnley Thirds Liberal Democrat Gordon Birstwistle (LD) LD No Change Gordon Birstwistle (LD)bury Thirds Conservative Bob Bibby (Con) NOC Gain Con 23 (-3), Lab 20 (+4), LD 8 (-1)Calderdale Thirds NOC NOC No Change Con 21, LD 15 (+2), Lab 8 (+2),

BNP 1, Other 2Cambridge Thirds Liberal Democrat Ian Nimmo-Smith (LD) LD No Change Ian Nimmo-Smith (LD)Camden Whole NOC Lib Dem and Conservative Keith Moffitt (LD) LAB Gain Nasim Ali (Lab)Cannock Chase Thirds NOC Lib Dem Minority Neil Stanley NOC No Change LD 15 (-2), Lab 13 (-1), Con 8 (+3),

Others 2Castle point Thirds Conservative Pam Challis (Con) CON No Change Pam Challis (Con)Cheltenham Halves NOC Lib Dem minority Stephen Jordan (LD) LD Gain Stephen Jordan (LD)Cherwell Thirds Conservative Barry Wood (Con) CON No Change Barry Wood (Con)Chorley Thirds Conservative Peter Goldsworthy (Con) CON No Change Peter Goldsworthy (Con)City of Carlisle Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib Dem minority Mike Mitchelson (Con) Lab 23, Con 22 (+1), LD 5 (-2),

Others 2Colchester Thirds NOC Labour/Lib Dem/Indpendent coalition Anne Turrell (LD) NOC No Change LD 26 (+3), Con 24 (-3), Lab 7,

Others 3Coventry Thirds NOC Conservative led Ken Taylor (Con) LAB Gain John Mutton (Lab)Craven Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Carl Lis (Ind) CON Gain Chris Knowles Fitton (Con)Crawley Thirds Conservative Bob Lanzer (Con) CON No Change Bob Lanzer (Con)Croydon Whole Conservative Mike Fisher (Con) CON No Change Mike Fisher (Con)daventry Thirds Conservative Chris Millar (Con) CON No Change Chris Millar (Con)derby Thirds NOC Lib Dem Minority Hilary Jones (LD) NOC No Change Lab 17 (+2), LD 16 (-3), Con 16 (+1),

Others 2Harvey Jennings (Con)

doncaster Thirds NOC Labour mayor Martin Winter (Lab) LAB Gain Martin Winter (Lab)dudley Thirds Conservative Anne Millward (Con) CON No Change Anne Millward (Con)Ealing Whole Conservative Jason Stacey (Con) LAB Gain Julian Bell (Lab)Eastleigh Thirds Liberal Democrat Keith House (LD) LD No Change Keith House (LD)Elmbridge Thirds Conservative Roy Taylor (Con) CON No Change John O’Reilly (Con)Enfield Whole Conservative Michael Rye (Con) LAB Gain Doug Taylor (Lab)

Table complied from information available at the time of going to press.

17

lOCal ElECTIOnS

Local authority Electing Control Arrangements Pre-election Leader Result New Arrangements New LeaderEpping Forest Thirds Conservative Diana Collins (Con) CON No Change Diana Collins (Con)Fareham Halves Conservative Sean Woodward (Con) CON No Change Sean Woodward (Con)gateshead Thirds Labour Mick Henry (Lab) LAB No Change Mick Henry (Lab)gloucester Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Paul James (Con) NOC No Change Con 17, LD 11, Lab 8 (no change)gosport Halves NOC Lib Dem Minority Mark Hook (Con) CON Gain Mark Hook (Con)great yarmouth Thirds Conservative Barry Coleman (Con) CON No Change Barry Coleman (Con)greenwich Whole Labour Chris Roberts (Lab) LAB No Change Chris Roberts (Lab)Hackney Whole Labour Jules Pipe (Lab) LAB No Change Jules Pipe (Lab)Halton Thirds Labour Tony McDermott (Lab) LAB No Change Tony McDermott (Lab)Hammersmith and Fulham

Whole Conservative Stephen Greenhalgh (Con) CON No Change Stephen Greenhalgh (Con)

Haringey Whole Labour Claire Kober (Lab) LAB No Change Claire Kober (Lab)Harlow Thirds Conservative Andrew Johnson (Con) CON No Change Andrew Johnson (Con)Harrogate Thirds NOC Conservative Minority M Gardner (Con) CON Gain M Gardner (Con)Harrow Whole Conservative David Ashton (Con) LAB Gain Bill Stephenson (Lab)Hart Thirds NOC Conservative/Independent coalition Keith Crooks (Con) Con Gain Keith Crooks (Con)Hartlepool Thirds NOC Independent Mayor Stuart Drummond (Ind) LAB Gain Jonathan Brash (Lab)Hastings Halves NOC Conservative Minority Peter Pragnell (Con) LAB Gain Jeremy Birch (Lab)Havant Thirds Conservative Tony Briggs (Con) CON No Change Tony Briggs (Con)Havering Whole Conservative Michael White (Con) CON No Change Michael White (Con)Hertsmere Thirds Conservative Morris Bright (Con) CON No Change Morris Bright (Con)Hillingdon Whole Conservative Raymond Puddifoot (Con) CON No Change Raymond Puddifoot (Con)Hounslow Whole NOC Conservative/’Community group’ party

coalitionPeter Thompson (Con) LAB Gain Jagdish Sharma (Lab)

Huntingdonshire Thirds Conservative Ian Bates (Con) CON No Change Ian Bates (Con)Hyndburn Thirds Conservative Peter Britcliffe (Con) NOC Gain Con 17 (-1), Lab 14 (+2), Others 4 (-1)ipswich Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib Dem coalition Elizabeth Harsant (Con) NOC No Change Lab 23 (+2), Con 18 (-1), LD 7 (-1)islington Whole NOC Liberal Democrat minority Terry Stacy LAB Gain Catherine West (Lab)Kensington and Chelsea Whole Conservative Merrick Cockell (Con) CON No Change Merrick Cockell (Con)Kingston upon Hull Thirds Liberal Democrat Carl Minns (LD) LD No Change Carl Minns (Lab)Kingston upon thames Whole Liberal Democrat Derek Osbourne (LD) LD No Change Derek Osbourne (LD)Kirklees Thirds NOC Labour minority Mehboob Khan (Lab) NOC No Change Lab 24 (+2), LD 20 (+1), Con 19 (-2),

Green 4, Others 2Mehboob Khan (Lab)

Knowsley Thirds Labour Ron Round (Lab) LAB No Change Ron Round (Lab)Lambeth Whole Labour Steve Reed (Lab) LAB No Change Steve Reed (Lab)Leeds Thirds NOC Lib Dem/Conservative coalition Les Carter (Con) NOC No Change Lab 48 (+4), Con 22 (-1), LD 21 (-2),

Green 2 (-1), Others 6 (+1)Keith Wakefield (Lab)

Lewisham Whole NOC Labour Mayor, NOC cabinet Steve Bullock (Lab) LAB Gain Steve Bullock (Lab)Lincoln Thirds Conservative Darren Grice (Con) NOC Gain Lab 16 (+2), Con 16 (-2), LD 1Liverpool City Council Thirds Lib Dem Warren Bradley (LD) LAB Gain Joe Anderson (Lab)Maidstone Thirds Conservative Christopher Garland (Con) CON No Change Christopher Garland (Con)Manchester Thirds Labour Richard Leese (Lab) LAB No Change Richard Leese (Lab)Merton Whole NOC Conservative minority David Williams (Con) NOC No Change Lab 28 (+1), Con 27 (-2), Residents 3,

LD 2 (+2)Milton Keynes Thirds NOC Lib Dem Minority Isobel McCall (LD) NOC No Change LD 24 (+3), Con 17 (-3), Lab 9,

Others 1Mole valley Thirds Conservative Tim Hall (Con) NOC Gain Con 18 (-4), LD 17 (+3), Others 6 (+1)newcastle-under-Lyme Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib Dem coalition Simon Tagg (Con) NOC No Change Con 23 (-1), LD 18 (-1), Lab 12 (+2),

UKIP 5newcastle-upon-tyne Thirds Liberal Democrat John Shipley (LD) LD No Change John Shipley (LD)newham Whole Labour Robin Wales (Lab) LAB No Change Robin Wales (Lab)north East Lincolnshire Thirds NOC Lib Dem/Conservative coalition Andrew de Freitas (LD) NOC No Change LD 15 (-4), Con 15 (-1), Lab 10 (+6),

Others 2 (-1)north Hertfordshire Thirds Conservative John F Smith (Con) CON No Changenorth tyneside Thirds Conservative Linda Arkley (Con) NOC Gain Lab 29 (+8), Con 27 (-7), LD 7 (-1)nuneaton and bedworth Halves Conservative Marcus Jones (Con) NOC Gain Lab 17 (+2), Con 15 (-2), BNP 1,

Other 1oldham Thirds NOC Lib Dem Minority Howard Sykes NOC No Change LD 27 (-3), Lab 27 (+5), Con 5 (-1),

Others 1 (-1)Howard Sykes (LD)

oxford Halves NOC Labour Minority Bob Price (Lab) LAB Gain Bob Price (Lab)pendle Thirds NOC Lib Dem Minority John David (LD) NOC No Change Con 17 (+1), LD 16 (-3), Lab 13 (+2),

BNP 2, Other 1peterborough Thirds Conservative John Peach (Con) CON No Change Marco Cereste (Con)plymouth Thirds Conservative Vivien Pengelly (Con) CON No Change Vivien Pengelly (Con)portsmouth Thirds Lib Dem LD No Change Gerald Vernon-Jackson

(Lib Dem)preston Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Ken Hudson (Con) NOC No Change Lab 24, Con 22, LD 8 (no change)purbeck Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Bill Trite (Con) NOC No Change LD 12 (+1), Con 10 (-1), Others 2reading borough Council Thirds NOC Labour minority Jo Lovelock (Lab) NOC No Change Lab 19, Con 17 (-1), LD 9 (+1),

Green 1 (+1)Andrew Cumpsty (Con)

redbridge Whole NOC Alan Weinberg (Con) NOC NO Change Con 30 (-1), Lab 26 (+12), LD 7 (-6) Keith Prince (Con)

Table complied from information available at the time of going to press.

18

lOCal ElECTIOnS

Local authority Electing Control Arrangements Pre-election Leader Result New Arrangements New Leaderredditch Thirds Conservative Carole Gandy CON No Change Carole Gandy (Con)reigate and banstead Thirds Conservative Lynne Hack (Con) CON No Change Lynne Hack (Con)richmond upon thames Whole Liberal Democrat Serge Lourie (LD) CON Gain Nicholas True (Con)rochdale Thirds Liberal Democrat Alan Taylor (LD) NOC Gain LD 26 (-6), Lab 22 (+4), Con 8 (+3),

Others 1 (-1)rochford Thirds Conservative Terry Cutmore (Con) CON No Change Terry Cutmore (Con)rossendale Thirds Conservative Tony C Swain (Con) CON No Change Tony C Swain (Con)rotherham Thirds Labour Roger Stone (Lab) LAB No Change Roger Stone (Lab)rugby Thirds Conservative Craig Humphrey (Con) CON No Change Craig Humphrey (Con)runnymede Thirds Conservative John Furey (Con) CON No Change John Furey (Con)rushmoor Thirds Conservative Peter Moyle (Con) CON No Change Peter Moyle (Con)salford Thirds Labour John Merry (Lab) LAB No Change John Merry (Lab)sandwell Thirds Labour Darren Cooper (Lab) LAB No Change Darren Cooper (Lab)sefton Thirds NOC All Party Tony Robertson (LD) NOC No Change LD 28, Lab 23 (+2), Con 15 (-2)sheffield Thirds Liberal Democrat Paul Scriven (LD) NOC Gain LD 42 (-2), Lab 39 (+3), Green 2 (-1),

Others 1Paul Scriven (LD)

slough Thirds Labour Robert Anderson (Lab) LAB No Change Robert Anderson (Lab)solihull Thirds Conservative Ken Meeson (Con) NOC Gain Con 23 (-2), nLD 19 (+1), Lab 7 (+2),

Green 1, Others 1south Cambridgeshire Thirds Conservative Ray Manning (Con) CON No Change Ray Manning (Con)south Lakeland Thirds Liberal Democrat Brendan Jameson (LD) LD No Change Brendan Jameson (LD)south tyneside Thirds Labour Iain Malcolm (Lab) LAB No Change Iain Malcolm (Lab)southampton Thirds Conservative Alec Samuels (Con) CON No Change Alec Samuels (Con)southend-on-sea Thirds Conservative Nigel Holdcroft (Con) CON No Change Nigel Holdcroft (Con)southwark London borough Council

Whole NOC Lib Dem and Conservative Nick Stanton (LD) LAB Gain Peter John (Lab)

st Albans Thirds Liberal Democrat Robert Donald (LD) LD No Change Robert Donald (LD)st Helens Metropolitan borough Council

Thirds NOC Lib Dem and Conservative Brian Spencer (LD) LAB Gain Marie Rimmer (Lab)

stevenage Thirds Labour Sharon Taylor (Lab) LAB No Change Sharon Taylor (Lab)stockport Thirds Liberal Democrat David Goddard (LD) LD No Change David Goddard (LD)stoke-on-trent Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib Dem/Independent

coalitionMark Meredith (Lab) NOC No Change Lab 27 (+13), Con 8 (+1), BNP 5 (-2),

LD 5, Others 15(-12)stratford-on-Avon Thirds Conservative Les Topham (Con) CON No Changestroud Thirds Conservative Frances Roden (Con) CON No Change Frances Roden (Con)sunderland Thirds Labour Paul Watson (Lab) LAB No Change Paul Watson (Lab)sutton Whole Liberal Democrat Sean Brennan (LD) LD No Change Sean Brennan (LD)swale Thirds Conservative Andrew Bowles (Con) CON No Change Andrew Bowles (Con)swindon Thirds Conservative Rod Bluh (Con) CON No Change Rod Bluh (Con)tameside Thirds Labour Roy Oldham (Lab) LAB No Change Roy Oldham (Lab)tamworth Thirds Conservative Jeremy Oates (Con) CON No Change Jeremy Oates (Con)tandridge Thirds Conservative Gordon Keymer (Con) CON No Change Gordon Keymer (Con)three rivers Thirds Liberal Democrat Ann Shaw (LD) LD No Change Ann Shaw (LD)thurrock Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Garry Hague (Con) NOC No Change Con 23 (+1), Lab 22 (-1), BNP 1, Other 3tower Hamlets Whole Labour Lutfur Rahman (Lab) LAB No Change Vote for first elected Mayor in October Lutfur Rahman (Lab)trafford Thirds Conservative Susan Williams (Con) CON No Change Susan Williams (Con)tunbridge Wells Thirds Conservative Roy Bullock (Con) CON No Change Roy Bullock (Con)Wakefield Thirds Labour Peter Box (Lab) LAB No Change Peter Box (Lab)Walsall Thirds Conservative Mike Bird (Con) CON No Change Mike Bird (Con)Waltham Forest Whole NOC Labour/Lib Dem coalition Chris Robbins (Lab) LAB Gain Chris Robbins (Lab)Wandsworth Whole Conservative Edward Lister (Con) CON No Change Edward Lister (Con)Warrington Thirds NOC Lib Dem/Conservative coalition Ian Marks (LD) NOC No Change Lab 27 (+5), LD 24 (-4), Con 6 (-1)Watford Thirds Liberal Democrat Dorothy Thornhill (LD) LD No Change Dorothy Thornhill (LD)Waveney Thirds Conservative Mark Bee (Con) CON No Change Mark Bee (Con)Welwyn Hatfield Thirds Conservative John Dean (Con) CON No Change John Dean (Con)West Lancashire Thirds Conservative Ian Grant (Con) CON No Change Ian Grant (Con)West Lindsey Thirds Conservative Adam Duguid (Con) CON No ChangeWest oxfordshire Thirds Conservative Barry Norton (Con) CON No Change Barry Norton (Con)Westminster Whole Conservative Colin Barrow (Con) CON No Change Colin Barrow (Con)Weymouth and portland Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib Dem coalition Nigel Reed (Con) NOC No Change Con 18, LD 11 (+1), Lab 5, Other 2 (-1)Wigan Thirds Labour Peter Smith (Lab) LAB No Change Peter Smith (Lab)Winchester Thirds Conservative George Beckett (Con) LD Gain Kelsie Learney (LD)Wirral Thirds NOC Lib Dem/Labour Coalition Steve Foulkes (Lab) NOC No Change Con 27 (+2), Lab 24 (+4), LD 15 (-5)Woking Thirds Conservative John Kingsbury (Con) NOC No Change

(defections)Con 18, LD 17, Others 1 (no changes)

Wokingham Thirds Conservative David Lee (Con) CON No Change David Lee (Con)Wolverhampton Thirds NOC Conservative/Lib coaliton Neville Patten (Con) NOC No Change Lab 29 (+1), Con 26 (-1), LD 5Worcester Thirds NOC Conservative Minority Simon Geraghty (Con) NOC No Change Con 17, Lab 13, LD 3, Others 2

(no changes)Worthing Thirds Conservative Paul Yallop (Con) CON No Change Paul Yallop (Con)Wyre Forest Thirds Conservative John-Paul Campion (Con) CON No Change John-Paul Campion (Con)

Table complied from information available at the time of going to press.

19

Lessons from local government

Mark D’Arcy meets three new MPs whose experience as councillors gives them a head start in getting to grips with life at Westminster.

Among the more gleeful stories being retold in Westminster as the new Parliament assem-bles is the tale of an election candidate who,

confronted with their opponent’s long record as a local councillor, told a constituency hustings meet-ing: “I didn’t waste my time in local government.” That candidate lost.

One of the sharpest distinctions already obvious among the new intake is between the new MPs with a local government background, and those without it. Experience of committees, party groups and, above all, casework, give new MPs who’ve served as councillors a flying start as they get to grips with life as a parliamentarian. And with deep and rapid spending cuts looming, they will also be able to deploy their experience of local services in Commons debates and in lobbying ministers. So what will they be saying?

Bob Blackman, the new Conservative MP for Harrow East, is one of the veterans of London local government – he was a Brent councillor for 20 years and led the council. He fears town halls may be seen as a soft target for spending cuts – and he thinks ministers will need to remember that most local authority activity is mandated from Whitehall.

He does detect huge scope for savings from re-engineering local bureaucracy. Until his election he was leading Brent’s efforts to make its Housing Benefit operations more efficient. A study revealed that it took an average six visits by claimants to sort out their benefits. An exhausting merry-go-round of submitting information, which is then queried, leading to further documents, and further queries. If the system was changed, so claimants dealt directly with the officers processing their cases, Mr Blackman believes they could be resolved with an average of two visits. The service would be both better and cheaper. And that is just the local authority end of the system. Simplifying the rules for Housing Benefit could cut out a vast swath of bureaucracy, and yield major savings – as could a clampdown on fraud, particularly organised fraud by criminal gangs and corrupt landlords.

Gordon Birtwhistle, the former leader of Burnley, and now its Liberal Democrat MP, plans to remain a councillor, to keep firmly in touch

with his constituency. He fears that if the cuts are too deep they could kill Burnley’s fragile regeneration. If central government wants to make major savings, he thinks it should sweep away the quangos dealing with regeneration projects – RDAs, Multi Area Agreements and so on – and deal directly with local authorities. His frustration with the cat’s cradle of organisations which have to sign off on any scheme is palpable. Without them, he argues, the system would be faster and cheaper.

Simon Danczuk, the new Labour MP for Rochdale shares some of Mr Birtwhistle’s fears about cuts to the local regeneration budget. He was the Labour candidate pictured with Gordon Brown on the national news, during his now notorious encounter with the Rochdale pensioner, Gillian Duffy. But despite that, he went on to take Rochdale from the Liberal Democrats.

A veteran of eight years on Blackburn with Darwen BC, and then a consultant for several years, helping to gauge public opinion for a variety of North West local authorities and public bodies, he plans to use his economic development

expertise to help Rochdale’s regeneration efforts. He points to his former council’s good record in attracting new investment, and pioneering PPPs and local strategic partnerships. His new patch has the worst unemployment in Greater Manchester, and the town centre has 50 empty shops. Mr Danczuk wants to lobby on behalf of Rochdale, to bring in more public and private investment, and crucially, he wants a bigger role for the local private sector in attracting business. Business people, he argues, are best placed to convince other business people that Rochdale is the place to be. As a Labour MP working with a Lib-Con council, he can build a cross party consensus around good ideas to revive the local economy – backing a recent Conservative suggestion that parking should be free on a Saturday, to attract more shoppers.

Of course no MP sets out to be a voice for local government – but these three, and plenty of others in the new intake, do bring a councillor’s perspective to bear in a Parliament that can be dismissive about the grassroots.

Mark D’Arcy is a Parliamentary Correspondent with BBC News.

GEnERal ElECTIOn

Gordon BirtwhistleBob Blackman Simon Danczuk

20

Brave new worldFollowing the local elections, more than 4,000 councillors are getting to grips with following up issues that raised on the doorstep, as well as receiving phone calls or

emails from new constituents. It can be a confusing time for new councillors, but old hands should be offering help says LGiU policy analyst Tracy Gardiner.

Not only are many new councillors get-ting stuck into their new role, but they are getting involved in the new local

and national political landscape. While most elections were by thirds, in London they were all-out and some districts held theirs by half. The authorities which hold their elections less frequently saw the most significant change.

The biggest shake up was in London, where Labour gained approximately 400 net seats and Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost 120 and 140 net seats respectively. The local elections resulted in 15 net councils changing control with Labour making all the net gains. The Conservatives lost a net eight councils and the Liberal Democrats lost control of net four; fewer councils than previously were left with no overall control.

In councils with no overall control, new councillors who have such a lot to get to grips with from the very first moment of being elected may even have the task of being involved in negotiations to decide on who should take political control of the council and lead the executive. The new parliament has brought into focus the ways politicians need to work together and to take important decisions without having had time to reflect on their new role.

Often there is not much time to consider how to carry out the duties of being a councillor prior to election or to have any formal induction process. Campaigning is understandably the key priority. However once elected, it can be a baptism of fire. New councillors will be seeking ways to have a significant impact on behalf of their constituents from day one.

Returning and existing councillors can be extremely supportive for new councillors. New members say that the most valuable induction for them is to have a councillor mentor, someone with whom they can talk and share their learning. If you are an experienced councillor you may be able to offer your support to new colleagues either as a mentor, or, less formally, as a ‘buddy’. New councillors may need help from a buddy to:• find their way around the organisation • tell them who the key people are• help them know how best to deal with officers

and other councillors• get advice on dealing with what can be a big

workload in terms of time, paper and emails• share experiences on working with constituents• think about being on external bodies and

using their influence• handle meetings confidently• deal with issues of standards and conduct as a

councillor.Practical information and advice is important

too. Councillors need a source of information that they can turn to which helps them make best use of the time that they have. The LGiU

COunCIllORS

once elected, it can be a baptism of fire.

new councillors will be seeking ways to have a significant

impact on behalf of their constituents

from day one.

“

”

has produced a series of four practical booklets which cover topics that new councillors find invaluable such as managing your workload; representing your constituents; communications; conduct and behaviour; working with officers; being accountable for the council doing a good job. The booklets are for available at a discount to LGiU affiliated authorities through the LGiU’s website.

Councillors find the LGiU’s independent policy briefings an incomparable resource that they can turn to outside of their own authority. Signing up to receive policy briefings by email through the LGiU website provides members with information, analysis and in-depth comment direct to their in-box. It keeps councillors up to date with the national agenda and local government thinking so that members as well as officers can focus on the implications for each local context.

Finally, the LGiU has a programme of events and learning and development on topics of importance to new and existing councillors. Full details are available through our website www.lgiu.org.uk and enquiries are always welcome.

Making allowancesCouncillors’ allowances can be a difficult subject, but Graham Russell, Senior Associate with South West Councils and Chair of the South West Independent Remuneration Panel Chairs’ Group, says help is at hand

from new guidance for Independent Panels.

Councillors are currently making brave and robust decisions on local spending priori-ties and resource management issues. It is

therefore perhaps not the best time to be writing an article about councillors’ allowances and expenses.

However, these challenging times for councillors are reflected also in the work of the independent panels that make recommendations to local authorities about councillors’ allowances.

Panels make their recommendations against a constantly changing background. New councillor roles are being developed. There is wide variety in the way those roles are performed. Councils have different expectations of their councillors.

Councils are sensitive about affordability. Yet despite this varied framework of change, there has been no support for panels in the form of guidance from central government or from within the local government family. Added to this, panels have to interpret vague and often ill thought out evidence from councillors and their authorities.

A major new initiative has therefore been launched by South West Councils. They have produced comprehensive practical guidance specifically for these independent panels and their advisers. Looking at things from the panels’ point of view, the guidance deals among other things with the legal framework for allowances, the roles of councillors, the methodology of reviewing allowances, accessing comparative

COunCIllORS

data, evaluating evidence offered by councils and councillors, potential issues and challenges panels might face and managing areas of risk.

South West Councils have for many years led the way in developing good practice on members’ allowances. An annual survey of all the region’s councils takes place, which not only provides useful comparative data but the information provided is analysed so that issues of concern can be identified and best practice shared.

It also hosts an annual meeting of the region’s Independent Remuneration Panel Chairs and their advisers – an initiative it has shared with its equivalent body in the south east, South East Employers, who last month launched their equivalent annual meeting.

South West Councils is now working closely with South East Employers to expand the database of comparative data, to share best practice and to broaden access to the new guidance.

Available online, this guidance and best practice is being announced and made available to councils throughout the UK.

Readers will see that there is now a lot happening among independent panels to broaden their understanding of modern local governance and the expectations of them. The effective engagement of independent panels with local councils has helped to ensure that elected councillors’ allowances are transparent in their purpose, apportioned sensibly and claimed honestly.

Councillors need to play their part on two fronts. First, they should ensure that quality evidence is provided to panels on which they can base their recommendations. Second, councillors must recognise that panels have a legitimate concern about the efficacy of local government in respect of its support for all their local communities.

If local schemes of allowances are found to contain inherent financial barriers to some in standing as local

Councillors should ensure that quality

evidence is provided to panels on which they can base their recommendations.

“

”

councillors, for example where the overall level of allowance is significantly below that for equivalent comparable councils, panels will not be backward in highlighting this.

The guidance can be found at www.swcouncils.gov.uk/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=6012&tt=swra.Where IRP Chairs are seeking help for panels, particularly where there is a need for training or for ongoing help throughout a review, South West Councils can also provide independent advice through the chief executive or one of her senior officers and associates. Contact David Bowater for more information. david.bowater@swcouncils.gov.uk Tel: 01823 425242

Graham Russell is the author of the guidance and can be contacted at grahamrussell31@blueyonder.co.uk or on 07816 144 396.

21

22

WORklESSnESS

Time to go Dutch for jobs

None of the three main parties put forward credible policies for dealing with entrenched worklessness,

argues LGiU policy officer Andrew Jones. But he suggests that if we learn from the Netherlands, local

authorities could make a real difference.

Over the past thirteen years, central government directed much activity at tackling the problem of entrenched

worklessness. Although the numbers of those traditionally defined as unemployed had fallen rapidly since the early 1990s until the onset of the current crisis, there has also been a steady rise of those claiming ‘inactive’ benefits.

The upward trend began in the late 1970s, with the rise especially steep in the 1980s and early 1990s. Some limited success in reversing the upward trend has become evident recently through reforms whereby more people are dawn into an ‘active’ job-search regime. But many observers have wondered why progress has not been faster.

In the recent election campaign, the Conservative Party distinguished itself from Labour mostly by promising to be tougher on non-compliance. The Liberal Democrats had relatively little to say about welfare reform, instead pinning its hopes on a better tax deal for the low paid. But the truth is that the policies of

the main parties on welfare reform fail to get to grips with the real barrier to progress, which is in the top-down nature of delivery.

There has been much rhetoric on giving more responsibility to private and voluntary providers of back-to-work services, but the reforms fall far short of the level of devolution required. Responsibility should be devolved to local authorities, which are capable of co-ordinating the range of resources required to address the multiple barriers facing people trying to get into work.

In making this argument, inspiration can be derived from the Netherlands, where financial responsibility for welfare and back-to-work budgets was shifted from central government to the municipalities after 2004. If a Dutch municipality is successful in getting people back to work, it can keep the savings made in the benefits bill. This financial incentive has motivated many municipalities to re-orientate their services to support the goal of getting people into work, and many Dutch social services departments in local government have re-named themselves as departments of work and income. According to an independent evaluation, the arrangement appears to have had a real impact in reducing the level of benefits dependency.

In this country, local government’s involvement in this area was the subject of a review by Stephen Houghton, Leader of Barnsley Council, published early last year. He pointed out that local authorities can offer a range of services that can potentially ‘wrap around’ the basic provision offered by Jobcentre Plus to support people in getting into and keeping jobs. The list he produced included community outreach services, adult social care, adult education, and support in drug and alcohol rehabilitation.

Adding to Houghton, it could be argued

that if local authorities were given sufficient financial incentives and greater freedoms, these services could be further re-aligned, Dutch fashion, into helping people escape poverty through work. Further, the financial benefits could be re-invested in supporting the economic resilience of local communities, rather, than as now, disappearing into private sector profits.

To be fair, the outgoing Labour government did enter into a serious dialogue with local government about the further devolution of back-work services. It sponsored a number of schemes such as the City Strategy Pathfinders and the Working Neighbourhoods Fund which greatly enlarged local government’s role in this area. But further devolution has been agonisingly slow. Faster and more radical devolution of powers and resources is required to make a real impact on the tragedy of long-term worklessness and the ballooning fiscal deficit required to support it. It’s time to ‘Go Dutch’.

The full case for ‘Going Dutch’ is made in the recent LGiU document: Local Work: Empowering Local Government to Tackle Worklessness, available to download from: www.lgiu.org.uk

if a dutch municipality is

successful in getting people back to work,

it can keep the savings made in the

benefits bill

“

”

“

”

Financial benefits could be re-invested

in supporting the economic resilience of

local communities

23

WORklESSnESS

Newham has long suffered from high levels of worklessness. However, the borough is undergoing major regeneration, including hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Gamesin 2012. To ensure these changes make a real impact on people’s lives, local people must be able to access the opportunities available in the local economy.

WorkplaceWorkplace is Newham’s flagship employment service. It is designed to provide a one stop shop to support residents in looking for work.

OpenedinMay2007,Workplacehasthreepremises in the borough and six Hubs where Workplace services are delivered from partner’s premises. Workplace also offers outreach services in locations such as Surestart Centres andLibraries.

Partnership is the key to success. Although Workplace is largely funded by Newham Council, it also receives support from Jobcentre Plus,theLondonDevelopmentAuthorityandNewham College.

Workplace is voluntary and open to all residents. It offers a seamless service that can be personalised to meet individual needs. It offers careers advice, jobs brokerage, help finding childcare, training or education courses and advice on business start up.

SinceopeninginMarch2007,ithashelpedover 4,000 residents find work – at a cost per job of £2850, representing excellent value for money.

The Mayor’s Employment ProjectFor the hardest to help, the Mayor of Newham set up the Mayor’s Employment project which works with the long term unemployed and those from workless households. Delivered as part of Workplace, the MEP offers a holistic service to address all of the barriers that prevent people from moving into work.

OnjoiningtheMEP,customersareassigneda personal advisor, allowing them to build an understanding of the various issues that the customer faces and address them in a co-ordinated way.

Because many residents are worried about being worse off in work, MEP offers expert benefits advice and the guarantee – backed up with the offer of a housing benefit top up – that residents will not be worse off in work.

MEP advisors also have a limited amount of discretionary spend to help their customers move into work. There are also incentive payments of £500 paid to customers who sustain in work over a period of 13 weeks.

The MEP has placed almost 1,000 long-term unemployed residents into work who have been on average £350 a month better off in work. The MEP has achieved impressive levelsofsustainabilitywith78%ofcustomersfinding work in its first year remaining in employment for at least 13 weeks. For more information, contact Joseph.Dromey@newham.gov.uk

Rotherham’s Local Ambition ProgrammeFollowingasuccessfulpilot,Rotherham’sLSPlauncheditsLocalAmbitionProgrammeinMarch2010.Thepilotwas aimed at a targeted neighbourhood level and the level of disparity at such a small neighbourhood level supported the need for a more targeted and personalised approach. However, there were also some common themes shared amongst the three chosen areas such as the economic disengagement of young people.

The programme delivers intensive, locally focused activity with a dedicated co-ordinator in each neighbourhood, targeting around 1500 residents.

The programme will add value to other activities in the target areas to improve the economic outlook and tackle the ingrained worklessness and low skills and the social barriers which exist.

TheLAPdoesnotcomewithapotofmoneytotargetinterventions. The success of the project will depend on acting as a catalyst to ensure that already existing projects and activity are delivered within the target neighbourhoods to the most deprived members of these communities.

Taking such a targeted neighbourhood level approach means that there is a key role for local stakeholders, elected members, local people, local businesses and voluntary/community groups in shaping priorities and identifying personalised and practical solutions

By Summer 2010 individual ‘Local AmbitionNeighbourhoood Improvement Plans’ will be implemented based on known and identified need. An 18 month period of intense local delivery will then begin.For more information, contact catherine.dale@rotherham.gov.uk

Employment Support in Newham

PA/P

A Ar

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ess

Asso

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Imag

es

24

Joining the culture club

Cultural experiences are vital in enabling children and young people to unlock their talent and realise their potential.

Paul Collard, Chief Executive of national charity Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) explains how the Find Your Talent

programme is bringing children and culture together.

Cultural experiences can play a vital role in achieving the Every Child Matters outcomes by contributing in powerful

ways to personal development, enhancing life skills as well as building confidence. Culture can also enrich communities by strengthening families, increasing community cohesion and of course through potential for social and economic regeneration.

Local authorities can play a vital role in developing culture in their local communities and in helping to include children and young people from a wider range of backgrounds, helping to harness the potential of these experiences for widening horizons and raising aspirations.

Over two thirds of young people aged 11-15 in England are already enjoying cultural activities, in and out of school, for five hours a week or more. There has been a range of national initiatives such as A Night Less Ordinary that provided free theatre tickets for under 26 year olds and free admission to national museums,

which have aimed to stimulate demand. However, access to these opportunities are still only taken up by some young people and not others, and in some areas of the country but not others.

The Find Your Talent pilot programme was set up to help widen access to creative and cultural activities. Managed by national charity Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE), the pilot has worked with ten very different ‘pathfinder’ areas across England to look at how to ensure that all children and young people have the chance to try out different cultural and creative activities in their local area. The programme aims to help young people to discover new things, to express themselves, to develop a passion and to make the most of their talent. Whether it is music, art, film, theatre, dance, digital media, exploring libraries, museums or heritage, Find Your Talent is for every child and young person, whatever their age

and whatever their ability, both in and outside of school.

In the last year, the pathfinders have successfully been trialling different ways of providing a cultural offer in their areas, building on existing investment and opportunities currently taking place, as well as developing new projects. The pathfinders have been working on a variety of programmes which all take into account the cultural needs of their local area.

For example, Find Your Talent in North Somerset has reached over 12,000 young people and funded more than 200 projects. Throughout the area they have adopted a cultural hub structure to deliver a more strategic programme of work which is responsive to the needs and issues of the locality. Each of the five hubs are made up of schools, extended services, youth centres, young people and the cultural sector and aims to provide coherent delivery structures across formal and informal settings. A pool of 40 Cultural Partners has been recruited from leading regional cultural organisations, some national players such as Royal Shakespeare Company, Rambert Dance and the London College of Fashion and individual local practitioners. Those partners have been placed within the Hubs to facilitate projects and new partnerships. The Hub model is already encouraging joined up thinking and the culture offer is beginning to be seen by senior leadership at North Somerset Children and Young People’s Services as an intrinsic part of what the local authority does rather than being an add on.

In comparison, Leeds Find Your Talent, is working on expanding its cultural opportunities in the city and trialling different approaches in three of the city’s diverse areas. This includes extending the reach of the ‘Breeze Card’ – a discount card for young people to include arts and cultural activities.

CHIlDREn anD yOunG PEOPlE

A child’s engagement in culture is

dependent on the academic qualifications

of parents.

“

”

25

CHIlDREn anD yOunG PEOPlE

Through the work of the Find Your Talent pathfinders and other research, we have learnt more about the factors that are vital to successfully providing cultural access to all children at a local level.

In our own research ‘Parents views on a Creative and Cultural Education’ by Ipsos Mori we found that 64 per cent of parents indicated that their child had participated in cultural activities both at school and with the family. However, a child’s engagement in culture is dependent on the academic qualifications of parents. 70 per cent of children of parents with no educational qualifications spend less than three hours per week on cultural activities. 42 per cent spend none. This includes reading a book or “doing creative things on a computer”.

As expected, some barriers to accessing cultural activities are practical and linked to family finances with many parents concerned about hidden costs such as providing food or worrying about children wanting to stop at the gift shop on a day out. However, much of the testimony from parents in qualitative research carried out by CCE revealed more emotional reasons for not taking part. The majority displayed a lack of knowledge of their area and many were unsure of what to expect of new experiences and what might be expected of them in new situations. Work to reduce these barriers through group experiences, or taster sessions in familiar settings can all

Creativity, Culture and Education (www.creativitycultureeducation.org):

Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE) is the national organisation which aims to transform the lives of children and families by harnessing the potential of creative learning and cultural opportunitytoenhancetheiraspirations,achievementsandskills.Ourvisionisforchildren’screativity to be encouraged and nurtured in and out of school and for all children to experience and access the diverse range of cultural activity in England because these opportunities can have an enormous impact on their life chances.

CCE delivers the following cultural and creative programmes and initiatives:

•CreativePartnerships–England’sflagshipcreativelearningprogramme:www.creative-partnerships.com

•FindYourTalent–isthepilotschemetoencouragechildrenandyoungpeopletoparticipatein cultural activities, both in and out of school: www.findyourtalent.org

•Shine–theannualcelebrationofthetalentofallchildrenandyoungpeople:www.shineweek.co.uk

help to make cultural activities more inclusive, especially of those parents who may have little similar experience themselves, and reasons to be fearful of the unknown.

Local authorities are vital in making this happen in practice. The recent paper, ‘A Place for Culture’, from the Department of Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS)recognised the important role that local authorities play as “the glue that is needed to hold the individual offerings of schools, local authorities and cultural sector together.” Securing local authority leadership can bring together services, provide the overview of what is happening where and more importantly establish where the gaps are.

Schools and local arts and cultural organisations all play a role in delivering an accessible cultural offer but it is essential that local authorities maximize their input in helping to develop and shape the local activities on offer and to ensure that culture is accessible for all

some barriers to accessing cultural

activities are practical and linked to family finances with many parents concerned

about hidden costs such as providing food or

worrying about children wanting to stop at the gift

shop on a day out.

“

”families and young people in the local area if we are to ensure that access to culture becomes the norm for all children and all families.

For more information on Find Your Talent visit www.findyourtalent.org

the majority displayed a lack of knowledge of

their area and many were unsure of what to expect of new experiences and what might be expected of them

in new situations

“

”

26

COMMunITy EnGaGEMEnT

Building relationships - inspiring democracy

True local democracy depends on good links between councillors, community organisations and citizens. Nina Jatana of bassac explains how a new

initiative is helping to create and strengthen those links.

Fewer than one quarter of our commu-nity organisation members have a ‘good’ relationship with their local councillor,

according to a survey we recently carried out. They know this situation has to improve and to that end, bassac is working with local council-lors, national local council networks and other national community sector organisations to improve the links between councillors, com-munity organisations and citizens. We believe that our members have a pivotal role to play in strengthening these relationships.

bassac (British Association of Settlements and Social Action Centres) members have a long and rich history of social action within some of the most deprived areas of the UK. They have a wealth of experience in the delivery of services to meet community needs and are well-known and trusted by the communities they work in. They host smaller groups, provide public services and respond to local needs. Yet one of the biggest challenges they face is to articulate the needs of their community and feed this into local political decision-making.

We estimate that our members have contact with more people than turned out to vote at the local election this May, and that contact is in-depth and sustained. Birmingham Settlement, for instance, held more than 1,500 detailed consultations over the past year through its

money advice service alone, rescheduling £6 million of personal debt. Its total footfall for the year was around 25,000 people.

Because we believe community organisations are perfectly placed to be a link between local people and their elected representatives, we have launched Inspiring Democracy, a project that seeks to improve this link. We are kicking off with the first in a series of three seminars on 29 June at the LGiU in London. Hosted by

bassac and Urban Forum, and part of the LGiU seminar series, it focuses on the community sector and local government working together to meet local needs in the coming period, encouraging self help and resilience, and improving communication with residents.In addition to the seminar series we will be:• running training seminars for community

organisation staff and councillors in participatory approaches and democratic principles. These will help both to review existing approaches and develop new approaches to determine local priorities

• holding roadshows for black, asian andminority ethnic communities to increase BME community engagement with representative processes

• producing a bassac/Urban Forum handyguide of practical examples showing how community groups make democracy work in their area and how they work with councillors to achieve change. This is due out in summer 2010

• conducting two research projects: the first toexplore and describe the complex relations between citizens, community organisations and local policymakers, with a focus on councillors, and the second to investigate the extent to which our members adopt and articulate innovative standpoints and campaign on local issues.

We know that a lot of councillors work well and effectively with community organisations. Both sectors occupy a considerable amount of common ground and the case studies in our forthcoming guide are evidence of this. They demonstrate where community organisations can be advocates for change and how they enable councillors to deliver change and support active citizenship.

We believe relationships between community organisations and local councillors need to become more strategic to meet government priorities locally. Councillors will be under increasing pressure to scrutinise the value of local services and the way they meet government priorities, and our members are equally under pressure to demonstrate their impact. The need to work together has perhaps never been as important as it is now.

If you would like to get involved with any of bassac’s activities, contact Nina Jatana, policy manager: nina@bassac.org.uk

bassac is a membership body supporting community organisations across the UK. Our vision is to support the creation of neighbourhoods in which people can thrive and fulfil their potential, whoever they are and wherever they live. We offer advice and representation at national policy levels, enable networking and support our membership of over 100 independent community-based organisations.

one of the biggest challenges we face is to articulate the needs of communities and feed this into local political

decision-making.

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”

27

Steve ChartersMark Smulian finds out how a former councillor has made

the journey from a radical local government ‘experiment’ in London’s east end to French champagne country.

Plenty of people would no doubt like the sound of Steve Charters’ job – professor of the management of champagne. He holds

this unusual academic post at Reims Manage-ment School, in France, having become a wine academic while living in Australia.

But Steve was once part of one of the most radical experiments ever carried out in UK local government when, nearly 25 years before the current vogue for localism, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets’ functions were devolved to neighbourhoods.

The route from his native Wiltshire to east London, Australia and the champagne country was one of chances and opportunities, but has given him two interesting careers, in politics and wine.

As a politically-aware teenager, Steve became involved in the old Liberal party through his aunt Maggie Clay, at one time chief executive of the Association of Liberal Councillors and a councillor in Leeds, and later Stockport, until her death last spring.

He read history at Oxford then moved to London to qualify as a solicitor, and sought his aunt’s advice where he might involve himself with an active group of inner city liberals. She suggested Tower Hamlets. In 1982 Steve won at his first attempt in a ward that had been Labour-held for decades.

Four years later the party took control of the borough on a platform of devolving services and budgets to seven neighbourhoods, each of which was to be run by the councillors concerned, thus leaving some controlled by the Labour opposition.

He recalls: “I chaired the policy and resources committee, which was one of the few central committees left. It allocated money among the neighbourhoods and dealt with really big policy issues like London Docklands, and I later chaired one of the neighbourhood councils.

“I think the idea for decentralisation came from a belief that Tower Hamlets had been better when it was the three old boroughs before the 1964 reorganisation, and that coincided with the growing belief among liberal community politicians that power should be pushed down to local level.

“By 1986 we had really thought the whole thing through and knew what we wanted to do, and amazed everyone by rewriting the entire standing orders at our first meeting in control.”

Steve concedes it is hard to know what influence this experiment might have had on subsequent thinking about localism. Labour scrapped the

neighbourhoods when it regained control in 1994 and no-one has since attempted devolution on the same scale.

“I think within Tower Hamlets it gave people the idea that they really could take part in exercising local power, but in the national debate it was assumed that when the Lib Dems lost in 1994 it was because the decentralisation experiment failed, when it fact it was more to do with demographic change,” he says.

He stood down in 1990 but worked part-time for the Lib Dem group as political advisor, and it was during this period that he gained a basic qualification in wine “just for interest”.

Steve and his partner had applied successfully for residence in Australia, where she had previously lived, and went there in 1994 “for a lifestyle change, the experience of living in another country, nothing to do with politics or work”, he says.

On arrival he began working in a wine shop in Sydney, which was “fun but not very intellectually challenging, so I started studying for Master of Wine”, a demanding course that includes the production, marketing and tasting of wine. He passed, slightly to his own surprise, and with a first child due had to find work.

A call from an acquaintance took him and his family across Australia to Perth where he began to teach the business of wine. “I found I enjoyed being a wine academic and did a PhD in public attitudes towards wine, how people engage with it as a product,” he says.

Four years ago the family decided to return to Europe when his present job came up, and he now teaches masters’ level business students about the champagne industry in what he admits is still less than perfect French.

Steve is long out of active politics, and says he has enjoyed the experience of being able to observe Australian and French political life without the constraint of party loyalty.

He concludes: “I still support the Lib Dems, but I find the more MPs they get the more they seem nationally to become a respectable establishment organisation, and it would be good to see some of the old radical attitudes about the distribution of power come back.”

WHERE aRE THEy nOW?

We rewrote the entire standing orders

at our first meeting in control

“”

New approaches to public service delivery will be vital if we are to deliver ‘more for less’.

This national LGiU conference, held in association with NCVO, will explore new models of service delivery, and share thinking and best practice examples of how best to respond to the new economic and political environment. Join policy makers, public, private and third sector providers, to examine what the general election result means in reality - discussing what works, and what does not - with leaders from across the sector sharing best practice and potential strategies.

rethinking public SerVice DeliVerYa national one-DaY policY conference29th June 2010, weStMinSter

Register online and find out more at www.rethinkingpublicservices.org.uk, email contactus@rethinkingpublicservices.org.uk, or telephone 020 7592 9490.

supported by

29

An independent mindJon-Paul Howarth was elected, aged 18,

in 2008. He explains that finding his feet as a councillor also meant re-thinking his

political allegiances.

I have been an elected member for two years, half of my 4 year term, and I must say it’s been quite a ride, (I have the grey hairs to

prove it!).I was elected at 18, one of the youngest

ever in the Yorkshire and Humber region and became something of a mini celebrity straight away, which was quite hard to deal with and whilst an immensely proud moment, it was quite difficult to become immediately recognisable and responsible for all of North East Lincolnshire Council’s faults.

It was quite difficult and there was an immediate choice maybe subconsciously of whether I defended the council as I was now a representative, or do I stand by the people that elected me and openly criticise the council, at the risk of alienating myself in meetings and in the corridors of the Town Hall.

After around six months, being in the Lib-Dem group in a power sharing arrangement with the Conservatives, my patience was starting to be tested on the changes that I had wanted and that I had promised the electorate I would fight for. And, being budget setting time, I found that when asking questions and giving pleas and asking for funding for new initiatives, the non winnable and easy defendable excuse of “we would like to do it, but we haven’t got the money” was being constantly thrown at me and was completely demoralising.

I found myself joining the Labour Group, and all was fine for the first six months as it gave me the platform to fight for my ward in the public arena, instead of in the group rooms.

However like many public bodies the council invested money into the failed Icelandic banks, and then came the toughest choice of my very short political career. The Lib-Dems and Conservatives had fallen out, so the Lib-Dems had minority control of the council, so the scheming began, and I got my first taste of the shadier world of politics.

We were asked by our group leader to vote on a motion to remove the leader and deputy leader of the council, and was put to the whip. If all Labour and Conservative councillors voted in favour, the leader and deputy would be removed. However I disagreed with the argument for removal, as I felt it was more about personalities than politics, and I asked myself whether I blamed the leader and deputy for the failed investments.

I did not, so at Full Council I made the difficult decision to vote against my group and made a speech that forever sent me to oblivion, I said that “when I was elected people said I was too young, and maybe immature, however what I have seen tonight has shown me that the immaturity of the world of politics is far worse than that of the playground”.

…the leader and deputy survived thanks to one vote!

COunCIllORS

the scheming began, and i got my first taste of

the shadier world of politics.

“

”i made the difficult

decision to vote against my group

and made a speech that forever sent

me to oblivion”The thing is, as a younger person, I have ideas,

I want change, and some other politicians are scared of change and see it as a direct challenge to them, so then disagreements happen and the world of politics gets a shade darker.

However it can change and I am in no doubt that it will, it just needs politicians to remember that they are there to represent the people, not the colour ribbons they wear in May.

This piece may seem all doom and gloom, but I can say that for all the grey hairs and proverbial black eyes, the reward of helping someone with a problem no matter how small, is so great that it outweighs all the negatives that come with the world of politics.

“

Tweets find a homeWith more new councillors ready for action following the local

elections, Arun Marsh explains how the well-named TweetyHall can help them keep in touch with local people and local groups. And

some prolific TweetyHall users say why they use it.

Councillors are always looking for new ways to engage with as many different and diverse groups as possible. The

‘usual suspects’ are all well and good, but how can we look to reach out, hear new voices and address new concerns?

TweetyHall, a web project based on the microblogging site Twitter, sets out to use technology to allow members to talk and listen to a wider range of citizens – including those who perhaps don’t have the time or the inclination to go to council meetings, but who would like to take part in local democracy and make an informed decision come polling day.

Residents can search for councillors by name or location and can find out what issues they

have been talking about and connect with them on Twitter to start a discussion, interact and converse with them.

The project has been welcomed by, among others, the last government’s new media spokesperson Kerry McCarthy who believes it can help open up the democratic process. “Social media – including using a Twitter forum such as Tweety Hall – can help bring more constituents into the conversation, including those who would never go along to local meetings or surgeries.

“This allows real debate to take place on local government issues, as well as making councillors more accountable and responsive to the people they represent.”

TweetyHall co-founder, Dominic Campbell explains: “For voters TweetyHall is an easy way to find out what the people who represent us are up to and for councillors and candidates it’s a simple way to tell people why they should vote for them.”

TweetyHall is looking to give members the chance to tell their stories of what it is like to be a local politician and, in particular, how they are using the internet to reach out and engage with local communities in ways that were previously not possible.

If you would like to be involved send an email to tweetyhall@

futuregovconsultancy.com. You can include photos, videos, or

just a quick bit of text explaining how you are connecting with local

residents online or the difficulties you are finding and the frustrations

you are facing. www.tweetyhall.co.uk

SOCIal MEDIa

Councillor Simon Cooke, Bradford Council“I first started using Twitter through my work with a regeneration charity as we were looking to increase engagement and participation. I have since started using it personally and as a councillor. It currently drives about 20 per cent of the traffic I get to my blog, although I think Facebook is currently more of a force in local politics, given that it has more users. Localresidents are now creating facebook pages on local issues, which as councillors we need to keep an eye on.”

Councillor Richard Kemp, Liverpool City Council and Lib Dem LGA leader“The advantage for me is that unlike traditional communication methods I get swift responses towhatIputout.SowithmyLGAroleIcansay if I’m meeting a minister and councillors get back to me with questions and points to put to them.“To any councillors thinking about getting online, I think Twitter is a great way to do it. Not only is it quick – it only takes 30 seconds to write a tweet – but there is also little room for 140 characters to be misquoted or taken out of context.”

Councillor Tim Cheetham, Barnsley Council“Interactive ways to use social media, like Facebook or Twitter give further opportunity to let people know about the work you do, but also to hear about how other councillors and local government workers are dealing with similar issues. Twitter can be particularly useful for instant feedback.“The real joy of social media is that you are reaching the people who you don’t get at public meetings or during regular hours. The generation that lives online are the most difficult to engage with in the traditional ways and working families, younger people and those who operate in unusual hours are all among the new demographic that you can reach through social media.”

30

31

Landmark or business as usual?

Will the 2010 election herald a turning point for local government, or will the new government simply continue the trends of the last 30 years?

Alan Waters has been looking at past elections for clues.

The last time a majority Liberal Govern-ment was elected into office was 1906. The Conservatives had been in power

for more than a decade and there was palpable excitement at the prospect of change. It was one of those watershed elections like 1945; 1979 and 1997. Hilaire Belloc, the newly elected Liberal MP for Salford was sceptical that it meant much difference:

The accursed power which stands on Privilege(And goes with Women, and Champagne and Bridge)Broke – and Democracy resumed her reign;(Which goes with Bridge and Women and Champagne) (The Great Election 1906)

An elegant variation on the old anarchist saying: “whoever you vote for the Government always gets in”. However the four general elections in the 20th century which could be said to have changed the weather have each had a significant impact on local government. In 1906 the return of a reforming Liberal ministry was good news; it heralded a further expansion of local government powers which had been steadily growing during the final decades of the 19th century.

Local government in the 1870s was described as “a chaos of areas, a chaos of authorities and a chaos of rates”. The reorganisation of local government by the beginning of the 20th century on rational principles and operating on democratic lines opened up a golden age for what we now call localism. Existing functions were transferred from other local government bodies and new functions given to local councils. ‘Municipalisation’ – essentially the takeover of private enterprise provision by local authorities in areas like public transport, gas, electricity and water supply – was given a further boost through private acts of Parliament sponsored by local councils to establish a wide range of municipal enterprise including banks, a telephone system, river ferries and civic theatres.

By the 1930s the term ‘all purpose council’ concisely expressed the comprehensive range of activities undertaken by local government.

The second great landmark election in 1945 created a number of nationalised industries and services, most notably the NHS, which meant that local government lost some of the key functions it had provided before the war. What was not disputed was that these activities should remain in the public domain. Aneurin Bevan captured the mood when he wrote:

“In almost all types of human society different forms of property have lived side by side… But it is requisite of social stability that one type of property ownership should dominate. In the society of the future that should be public property” (‘In Place of Fear’ 1952).

This ‘mixed economy’ ended with the watershed election of 1979; beginning a process which has yet to run its course of putting as many eggs as possible in the basket of private ownership to deliver the ‘good society’. This period has also marked a fundamental decline in the role and influence of

anOTHER vIEW

For local government the next decade of the 21st century may begin

to bear an uncanny resemblance to the

weak and fragmented local government of the

mid 19th century.

“

”local government. Today its main function is as a mechanism for creating competing markets in the provision of public goods and vested with a weak supervisory role to ensure some degree of public accountability. Furthermore the complex governance and partnership arrangements developed in the last two decades begin to resemble some of the features of 1870s before local government was sensibly rationalised.

1906, 1945, 1979 and perhaps 1997 were turning points which had an major impact on local government. Time will tell whether the 2010 General Election will be in the same league or, as is more likely, a continuation of trends established 30 years ago. For all the ‘modernising’ rhetoric designed to ring the changes British politicians look back as well as forwards. For local government the next decade of the 21st century may begin to bear an uncanny resemblance to the weak and fragmented local government of the mid 19th century.

Hilaire Belloc (right) – sceptical of the ability of government to make changes

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POSTCaRD FROM PlEaSanTOn, uSa

Time for teaChris Mead takes his notebook to a Tea Party rally looking to find out more about this new political movement. What he

found was a bunch of ‘grumpy old white people’.

Over the years your correspondent has spared no effort in writing this column, and he can always be found in his down-

town condo slumped in front of the computer, mouse in one hand, gin and tonic in the other, pinching stuff off the internet. But not this time! No Siree Bob, as we Americans say. The editor asked for an article on the Tea Party movement but the trouble is that here in San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in the country, Tea Partiers are as rare as polyester plaid jackets. So off I went to Pleasanton, a suburban town thirty miles to the east, for a Rally.

The bash took place at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. When California was populated by rural communities, county fairs were a big deal. Now the pigs, cattle, and goats were replaced by large people arriving in SUVs and pickup trucks. Your correspondent hid his rented Prius at the back of the parking lot and cautiously approached the crowd.

To be fair, everyone was very nice and eager to explain why the President is a communist, or a fascist, or perhaps both. The Tea Party movement is of course named after the iconic 1773 event when hooligans protested a new tax by throwing tea into Boston harbor. So what’s their beef? Too much government control, too much spending, and too much tax they told

me. But, says you, didn’t W oversee a major erosion in civil liberties while running up the deficit? And didn’t the Democrats enact a big tax cut as part of the stimulus package? Ah, I can tell you don’t watch enough Fox News, dear reader.

I was particularly looking forward to one featured speaker, Orly Taitz, a dentist/lawyer/real estate agent (don’t ask) who is a leading light in the “Birther” movement that claims that Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen of the USA and hence cannot be president. Give her a quick google, I promise the scales will fall from your eyes. (The fact that two Hawaii newspapers carried birth announcements the day after Obama was born just shows the depth of the conspiracy.) To my disappointment Ms Taitz had been disinvited; apparently the organisers did not want the rally to appear to be too extreme. Good luck with that guys.

The vacuum left by Orly’s absence was ably filled by one Brian Sussman, a former TV weatherman who now broadcasts on talk radio. Mr. Sussman has written Climategate, a snip at $24.95, that exposes global warming as a fiendish commie plot. Here’s a line from the introduction: “The tentacles of Marxism have been steadily reaching into the United States for decades…” Did I mention that Climategate is available for just $24.95? Sussman did about 400 times in the course of his twenty minute address. He also informed us that Earth Day occurs on the same date as Lenin’s Birthday. Coincidence? Don’t be naive.

For a crowd so set against government spending there seemed to be an awful lot of people who

have their lips firmly affixed to the public teat: plenty of retirees (pensions, Medicare, subsidised prescription drugs) and military veterans (pensions again, veterans hospitals, subsidised education and loans). There was another striking quality. “Doesn’t everyone seem, well, terribly white?” I asked one attendee. In a crowd of two or three thousand I had seen about a dozen people of color. Her eyes narrowed. Had a pinko perpetrator snuck by security? “Perhaps they’re not interested” she finally replied. Or perhaps ‘they’ can distinguish between a bouquet of roses and a consignment of manure.

Despite Tea Party claims of political independence, virtually everyone I spoke to described themselves as a conservative Republican. And there’s the rub, this is not a new political movement, it’s a bunch of grumpy old white people who do not like having a black president, or having government money spent on anything except themselves. My prediction is that the phenomenon will fade as quickly as it appeared, and in the future you will only find Tea Partiers in their natural habitat at the cash register of Bob’s Big Boy Restaurant, arguing about 25 cents on the bill for the senior special.

22 Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H OTB020 7554 2800 • cllr@lgiu.org.uk

Everyone was very nice and eager to explain

why the president is a communist, or a fascist,

or perhaps both.

“

”