TIME TO COME CLEAN NBC

In the recent article below:

http://tonyclarkeindependent.blogspot.com/2010/02/pinky-and-perky-get-their-sums-wrong.html

I explained that Lib Dem Leader of Northampton Borough Council Cllr Brian Hoare told us recently that we "might like" the efficiency savings they were making in this years budget, but that we were unable to judge at the time whether or not we would like them ,because there was no details given! What did they entail we asked?

"Things like savings on electric and gas" shouted Perky (Cllr David Perkins) as answer to what these efficiencies were. The audience at the time however not convinced with Perky's explanation asked how many redundancies would be involved, No answer was forthcoming.

Well now we know, after a trawl through the various "efficiency and reorganisation and restructuring plans we can reveal that at least 94 posts are proposed to be removed from the Councils workforce.

These are being 'Consulted on' with staff as we speak and some of those consultations finished on Monday and others continue right up until the day the Cabinet Set the budget next Wednesday, meaning that as Councillors we have to respect the privacy of those consultations by not revealing which posts are under threat.

So next week we will set a budget, the results from the public consultation, which took place in limited form won't say much because the Public were not told much. Alternative options from opposition Councillors will be few and far between because like the public, we have also mainly been kept in the dark, trying our hardest to glean information here or there but being told. "There are no redundancies planned as yet, only consultations"

Now don't get me wrong here, I never thought for one moment that the Council would be able to balance its books without some reductions in the workforce, and if asked I have plenty of suggestions as to what could be cut (The West Northamptonshire Joint Planning Unit for a start)
But Councils are supposed to be about elected members meeting to take part in full and robust debate on a range of options where we can make real choices and all strive to do what is best for the town.

They should not be about the ruling administration colluding with officers on secret plans, not disclosed to the public which are then presented as a Fait Accompli to backbench councillors and the public let alone the staff who may lose their livelihoods in the process. A Council is the whole sum of all its parts, administration and opposition, and on important matters such as this we should do more to act as one rather than the ruling party trying to play party politics by revealing the good news to us all whilst hiding away the bad from our eyes and ears.

I still can't tell you which jobs will finally go, as that would breach the confidentiality of the information which I have gleaned from the Council but expect less staff to be maintaining our housing stock next year, and less working in our parks and our cemeteries, and less cleaning of our streets, expect less neighbourhood management and less partnership working with the police on the anti social behaviour which troubles so many of our communities, expect less staff working on the recovery of our local economy, and expect less staff to manage our museums, expect less staff to manage or look after our community centres and expect at some time in the future for many of these services to be hived off to the private sector now that they have been made "procurement friendly" by hiding all of the on costs of managing such services.

But the Liberal Democrats will tell you that everythings fine, the public won't notice the difference, and then they will ask you to look at the marvelous new fountain on the Market Square and the not so shiny new paving slabs in Gold Street as proof of their "Improving Council"

It doesn't wash with me, and I don't believe it will with the public either because they didn't have the decency to inform them, instead you have to learn about it here, and wonder why they bothered in the first place to hold public consultations if they were hell bent on keeping the details from us.

If they had been upfront and honest then maybe there could have been some agreement between us as to how to proceed, maybe we could have put some alternative suggestions up for consultation? but their actions have been underhanded and their deception of the public unforgivable.

This lot are not Liberal and they are certainly no Democrats, they shame the very basis of their national parties founding aims and objectives, and those within their fold who know that what is not being said, but being done in their name should have the courage of their convictions and be as critical as the opposition are in their responses to next weeks budget, not just in their group meeting but in the Council chamber as well.

Look at the Size of my War Chest

An attempt through the "Call in" process by the Independent group on the Borough Council to stop the sale of Archway Cottages. Abington Park unfortunately failed and fell on deaf ears on Wednesday night, but the outcome of the meeting is well worth sharing with the general public of Northampton. These wonderful grade II listed cottages which date back from the 1670's were gifted to the people of Northampton by Lady Wantage in 1892 (as was all of Abington Park) but the current ruling Liberal Democrats on the Council want to sell them on to the highest bidder.

Our challenge led by the Councils Heritage Champion and fellow Independent Cllr Jean Hawkins was based around real and evidential concerns that the Councils cabinet had not looked at all the other options open to it, and that their decision was directed and predetermined by the administrations own priorities. We argued that the cottages could be kept in public use and used for a variety of community purposes, or by the Council itself to house its Heritage team who are to be moved out of Cliftonville House. We also informed the committee that the Council had not followed published guidance from the government or English Heritage over the sale of listed buildings and that grants could be available for either the council or the Friends of Abington Park and or others who wanted to find a future public use for the properties.

As evidence of the above we presented information gleaned from a Freedom of Information request submitted by Jean which threw up some startling revelations. For instance we discovered that in October 2009 Phil Houston, the Youth Development Director for NAYC had made an approach to the Council about using the cottages for a "Youth drop in project" for local 13 - 19 yr olds. This idea was described as "a good potential use" by Cllr Andrew Simpson Lib Dem PPC for Northampton North in an emailed response copied into the portfolio holder Cllr David Perkins, but 'Perky' was having none of it. In a direction to officers dealing with the property he made the administrations position crystal clear when he wrote:

" We will only consider offers which releases capital back to NBC. I am sure that you will be aware that we are trying to establish a war chest of funds from the sale of non priority assets to assist us to manage our organisational change programme"

Despite the above evidence the call in committee decided that the decision to sell should stand and that our claim of a pre determined outcome was irrelevant.

The Borough Solicitor and Cllr Perkins summed up beautifully by telling us that there is nothing wrong at all about the administration on the Council having a set policy to sell assets and only consider options that they wish to consider, equally it was for others to come up with plans and apply for grants if they wanted to maintain the cottages in public hands, but of course following Cllr Perkins email we the public as owners of the cottages would have to buy them back from ourselves (or in this case the Council that is supposed to be looking after them for us) at the going rate in order that a capital receipt went back into the Lib Dem's said war chest.

And what is the "organisational change programme" which will be funded by this windfall? Well to you and me this means that the Council is building up a pot of money to fund the redundancy costs of staff put out of work as even more services are cut in future months.

So their we have it, all out in the open, Northampton Liberal Democrats champions of private market solutions and offloading valuable public assets in order to fund cuts in staff numbers, and all in their own words not ours.

The cottages will now be advertised and probably sold on at a knock down price because of the full cost of repairing years of neglect by the Council who where supposed to be custodians of Lady Wantage's gifted estate.

Doesn't it make you proud of our council? Lady Wantage will of course certainly be turning in her resting place, even the Tory grandees in charge of the Council when she made her gift were far more Liberal than this lot.

Silence is Liberal Yellow, not Golden!

Sometimes, just sometimes, the minutes of the Council say enough in themselves about the record of our Liberal Democrat administration on Northampton Borough Council and the sorry state we are now in !!

EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETING OF NORTHAMPTON BOROUGH COUNCIL HELD AT THE GUILDHALL, NORTHAMPTON, ON MONDAY 7 DECEMBER 2009 AT SIX THIRTY O’CLOCK IN THE EVENING:

"Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Hoare as the relevant Portfolio Holder “would the Leader agree to the contract between Legal and General and this Council being submitted for scrutiny (as private business if necessary) to ensure the Council’s decision is robust? If not why not?”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Hoare as the relevant Portfolio Holder “If agreement is given to close Bridge Street on a temporary basis on Friday and Saturday nights will a similar order be raised to open up the top end of the Drapery to traffic be sought for the same time? If not how will vehicles entering the Drapery from Gold Street leave the Town Centre.”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor P D Varnsverry as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Can the Portfolio Holder explain what assistance this Council has given to groups wishing to set up credit unions in the last year?”

Councillor P D Varnsverry declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Markham as the relevant Portfolio Holder “How many members of the Council’s staff have been affected by verbal or physical
violence in the last 5 years? In what locations did these events occur and what level of support has been given to those employees?”

Councillor B Markham declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor Perkins as the relevant Portfolio Holder “What professional fees, eg SOLACE etc, does NBC pay on behalf of its staff and what has been the annual cost of such over the last three years?”

Councillor Perkins declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Markham as the relevant Portfolio Holder “What is the total cost of maintaining the Council’s web site?”

Councillor B Markham declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Markham as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Why does the Council not have joint member/trade union liaison committee?”

Councillor B Markham declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Markham as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Re overview and scrutiny work of the Council: Is the leader satisfied that officers are acting on Member requests, so that reports intended for Cabinet should appear at meeting of Scrutiny committees for pre scrutiny before the items are dealt with by the Cabinet?”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor Perkins as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Would the Portfolio Holder list in table format the following information of each of the past four financial years for each Council directorate:
i. the estimated pension costs of staff employed;
ii. the percentage this represents of the directorate’s running costs?
Would the Portfolio Holder list in table format the following information of each of the past four financial years;
i. the number of employees for whom the Council has to make pension provision;
ii. the number of pensioners;
iii. the estimated pension liability of those currently employed;
iv. the annual cost of pension provision to those retired;
v. the percentage of total council expenditure spent on pension provision;
vi. the average annual pension for an employee who retired during the last financial year?”

Councillor Perkins declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor Perkins as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Given the naming in 2008 of at least a hundred companies in the Office of Fair Trading’s “bid-rigging” inquiry, does the Portfolio Holder know of any company who the Council has a link with that was named – firstly those in the group of companies who have admitted breaking the rules and secondly of the others named but have so far not admitted any responsibility? Given this, will the Portfolio Holder quickly investigate and then look to take legal action against such companies that have
caused Northampton Borough Council to pay more than was fair or expected for contacts? Will the Portfolio Holder act to change the rules on how the Council procures contracts given the recent findings, perhaps including clauses to cover exposure of this type of wrong-doing and suitable compensation payments to Northampton Borough Council from such colluding contractors?”

Councillor Perkins declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor Perkins as the relevant Portfolio Holder “How many public clocks are there in the Borough, how many are working and not working? and what is the total cost to the Council?”

Councillor Perkins declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor P D Varnsverry as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Will the Portfolio Holder set out in table format the running costs of the “one stop shop” in each year since 2007?”

Councillor P D Varnsverry declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Hoare as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Will the Leader of the Council comment on how the Guildhall may be made more welcoming to visitors who use the main staircase entrance into the building? In view of the total dearth of signage and welcoming reception desk, what could be provided at minimal cost to indicate that this is an open and democratic Council?”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Hoare as the relevant Portfolio Holder “What steps will be taken to ensure that all voters are made aware of the recommendations being made by the Council working party to the Electoral Boundary Commissioners?”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Hoare as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Would the Leader agree that the proposed reduction of Overview ans Scrutiny committees will lead to a weakening of the Authority’s ability to fulfil its statutory duty in view of the amount of Council business required to promote this Council in its journey towards 4* status.”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor B Hoare as the relevant Portfolio Holder “What tangible benefits accrue to NBC for their membership of the LGA and can the Leader give examples of where VFM and best practice has been achieved as a direct result of such membership taking into account the opportunity cost of attendance at conferences.”

Councillor B Hoare declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor Crake as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Can the Portfolio Holder confirm the number and location of all the public waste bins in Northampton, the collection rotas for each, and the plans for the future of such waste bins?”

Councillor Crake declined to answer.

Councillor Clarke asked Councillor Crake as the relevant Portfolio Holder “Are flood mitigation plans adequate to protect the Borough’s IT services in the event of this service being moved to Westbridge?”

Councillor Crake declined to answer.

end

So much for Liberal democracy I hear you cry!