Business rates to be retained locally

At the LGA conference we heard from Nick Clegg that business rates will be retained locally rather than going to central government as they are now. Interestingly, he looked nervous and spoke poorly. I heard the comment “dead man walking” which had a ring to it.

In theory this should be very good for Cambridgeshire, retaining business rates not Nick being a deadman walking. (hmmm). If we can hang on to these business rates we can use them to invest to promote business. More business, more business rates. It rewards councils who succeed.

Of course the reality is our central grant will be cut, at the outset, so to see the benefits we will have to work hard, a challenge I relish.

So what could possibly go wrong? Well, Nick Clegg said it might not come in for three years, which seems a long time. Worse, Lib Dems can’t help themselves. He signalled it would be distributed centrally which sort of suggests a series of floors and ceilings to make sure their are no losers. If their are no losers then it makes being a winner so much harder. Take this to its conclusion and we end up with the current grant formula.

Life isn’t fair, let’s support success for the good of all.

Senior Management Restructuring – Environment Services

Yesterday the Council’s Appointments Committee met and interviewed candidates for the two Service Director roles within the reshaped Environment Services senior team.

The following Appointments have been made:
* Service Director, Strategy and Development: Graham Hughes
* Service Director, Infrastructure Management and Operations: John Onslow

Very sadly, with the reduced number of senior roles in Environment Services, two able and talented senior officers were not successful yesterday.

The new arrangements will start to take shape to coincide with Alex Plant taking up his Executive Director role on Monday 4 July.

Busy day in the office

The day started at 0800 in Shire Hall going through my diary for the week with my PA. This was followed by a full and frank discussion with a fellow councillor who needed some guidance on how best to perform as a councillor.

At 0930 I chaired the Leaders and Chief Officers group. These are leaders from our district councils, health, fire and police. A great meeting where issues that affect all of us in Cambridgeshire were discussed. We had updates on health and the new police structures including the new elected police chief’s. The issue of sharing data between public organisations was also raised. This seemed sensible if it is in the interest of the individual and is a force of good not evil.

At 1200 I chaired an informal gathering of my cabinet to discuss some up and coming issues and opportunities. These informal meetings are fantastic to ensure all activities between different portfolios are coordinated. This is particularly important as policy is being developed as it gives time to ensure policies are joined up and unintended consequences are avoided where ever possible.

At 1400 I sat for 6 hours on an appointments panel for very senior positions within Environment Services. This was long and thorough as the two appointments we had to make were from four existing posts. Making people redundant and appointing the right people is a serious matter. We heard presentations from all four applicants.

Finally at 2000 it was time to leave for Birmingham for the LGA conference.

A good day.

Armed Forces Day

On Monday I was honoured to be invited to ceremony to celebrate Armed Forces Day. it was held outside Shire hall.

I was there, with the chief exec, cabinet and the leader of the labour group. No Lib Dem leader though.

School children and members of the British Legion were present.

There were cadets who carried out the drills and were subject to an inspection by Captain Victor Lucas RN (retired) who is also a county councillor. He looked magnificent in his uniform as did the cadets. The school children certainly enjoyed waving flags and were delighted when Victor showed them his sword.

The Chairman of the Council presided over the event, which was a great success.

Meeting with Ministers – Grant Shapps

On Tuesday I was invited to London to meet with Grant Shapps. It seems that new and young councillors were being gathered together to help identify barriers that councillors face. Clearly I only met the criteria on new not young despite my new tag as “new kid on the block” in the local press.

The minister was especially interested in my experience of becoming leader after only two years as a councillor and asked me to speak on this to the other 20 councillors. Where do you start on a subject like that?

I was able to raise a number of issues:

On one hand government is promoting localism yet every so often it feels it knows best and issues an instruction from the centre to over ride local decisions.

Removing red tape is good but allowing it to creep back in is bad. Recent case law from Birmingham, around the issue of formal community impact assessments, is likely to take a good idea and then swamp local authorities with process and procedures.

The role of local councillors is not really understood. I represented the county council in a room full of unitary and district councils. We are very different beasts yet are thought of in the same way. The county council is responsible for over 1 billion pound of spending which dwarfs even the largest district council budgets. Our role as a strategic authority is growing not reducing. We are about to take on the responsibility for public health from the health service. This is huge.

My cabinet are effectively full time employees. I have been working 12 hour days for the last 6 weeks. No one is complaining but that is in stark contrast to ministers views about volunteers turning up for a couple of evening meetings a week for a couple of hours. If we want effective councillors, who have the ability and time, to make a real difference to how the council works we need to recognise this. Or do we only want people who are of independent means, retired or with no experience of managing a considerable organisation?

Rod Craig memorial event

I was very pleased to have been part of a memorial event for Rod Craig. This was held at Shire Hall on Wednesday for colleagues and friends from the council and other partner organisations.

It was informal and had a happy rather than sad feel to it. Everyone seemed content to be celebrating the life of Rod rather than dwelling on the loss.

Mark Lloyd and I both paid tribute to Rod, Mark as always summing up so perfectly. But more importantly there were a number of people who, without any preparation, spoke from the heart. A true reflection on how he was held in high esteem by all.

Rod, rest in peace.

GCP – surprising Lib Dem vote

You will have read the blog about the GCP. In order to return the public money to the public purse a vote at the full board was required. Firstly, we would need to vote down the transfer of the money to a shell company, that we knew nothing about, and then vote on a new proposal.

Politics is about trust and the common good believe it or not. Trust that public sector organisations act in the best interest of the public and can act together to achieve this. There was complete agreement, before the meeting, from all the councils, health etc that the money should not be used for this shell company, for obvious probity issue.

When I became Leader of the County Council, I was warned “never trust a Lib Dem” they will always let you down. That they are followers of fashion not leaders. Having not been in politics very long I have a much more open mind. I try to see the best in people and situations.

However, mindful of the words of warning, I set out to build a working relationship with the Lib Dem Leader of the City Council. We both support business and have a significant role to play in supporting it. I had a meeting to discuss the GCP residual money and struck an agreed way forward. We would vote for the money to be given to the LEP and seek to ring fence it for use in the old GCP geographic area. Seems sensible. To avoid any “confusion” a document was prepared by the city council, which we both agreed to setting out this position.

How was it that at the vote, all councils, health, chambers of commerce and some business voted against giving the money to the shell company yet the Leader of the City Council turned her back on our agreed position and voted against us.

Don’t ever let the Lib Dem Leader of the city council ever lecture anyone ever again about openess, transparency, democracy or safe guarding public money.

I have learnt my lesson. One I was warned about. NEVER TRUST A LIB DEM.

GCP wound down – where did all the money go?

With the change of government regions are no more. Also to go are the economic sub regions which sit below them. In our case we have the Greater Cambridge Partnership ( GCP).

The GCP is an odd organisation with a complex structure. It has the full board, that member organisations sit on ( County council, City Council, Chambers of Commerce etc etc) and an operating board that sit below. This operating board, who are also the directors, are a mix from the public and private sector. The public sector are derived from the member organisations and the private selected by a tap on the shoulder. Before being elected as a county councillor I was on the operating board.

Funding for the GCP has been almost exclusively from local authority or EEDA (East of England Development Agency) a government quango.

A lot of the work carried out by the GCP seemed to be about rebadging work carried out by other organisation.

So to my area of great concern. The GCP, funded from the public purse, was to be wound up. Obviously, you would have thought, the residual money would be returned to the tax payer or at least be put into the LEP which replaces EEDA but doesn’t cost anything like as much.

But no. The operating board recommended to the full board ( still keeping up?) on thursday that the remaining money should be given to a shell company to support clean tech activities.

It seems that the remaining GCP staff, including one highly paid director, are to be made redundant and paid for out of the GCP residual funds ( public money) and then the next day start work in the new clean tech company funded by the residue of the GCP funds (public money). This fails my test of good use of public money. This fact had to be extracted from the individual concerned by two questions from a colleague, which were swerved like a racing car, until I final had to raise the point directly.

Worse, guess who made the presentation to the members board recommending the residual funds were transferred into the clean tech company – you got it, the highly paid director who worked for the GCP, gets redundancy pay and then starts work at the clean tech company.

Now let’s be clear. I support business. I think the clean tech sector is very exciting and should be supported.

That is not the issue. The issue is all about the use of public money and the perception, if not the reality, of individuals feathering their own nest.

So let’s turn to the proposal. Where was the information about the new company? A shell company we are told. Who are the share holders? Who are the company officers? What are the aims of the company? Where is the business plan? Why does it’s first member of staff have to be a highly paid director? If the public purse is to support this sector is this the best way to do it?

All the points above I raised publically so now expect to be off some Christmas card lists. Along with nearly all the public sector organisations present I voted against handing over £70k of our money to the clean tech company which seemed to have the preservation of one directors job as a significant consideration. What’s that funny smell???

Vicky Ford – MEP good catch up chat

In my attempt to stay on top of things, at all levels, I meet local council leaders and MP’s on a regular basis. It is not always as easy to track down our MEP’s as they are responsible for a much larger geographic area.

Monday was my lucky day. I had a one to one with Vicky Ford in the morning and then joined Vicky and Alex Plant late afternoon for a wide ranging discussion.

We swopped ideas, attempted to find pockets of funding hidden in the dark recedes of Europe and shared thoughts on a range of subjects. We are both excited about trying to bring the science of Cambridge and some of the finest growing land in the world (in the fens) together more effectively. The whole GM debate has slowed our thinking in this area which is a shame given food security is likely to be a growing problem in the coming years.

Me thinks we can do better in this with our obvious talents, perhaps some European money and our fine land in the north of the county. Mental note to add this to my growing list of things to rummage around in.

Children’s locality team Huntingdon

I was invited to visit the Huntingdon Youth Center. I had a look around the excellent facilities most of which has been decorated and arranged by the young people. I heard what I think was music coming out of one of the two sound studio’s ( no offence this is generational thing).

I also met with a number of locality team members. During the discussion the locality manager did her best to stick to the timings and agenda but failed on all counts. What we had was a really good debate around many subjects, some of which were actually on the agenda. I over stayed my time and could easily have stayed another couple of hours. Apologies for mucking up the plans.

Again, dedicated, focussed staff entirely devoted to children and their families. One area that I couldn’t understand was the separation between the locality team work and the social care team that I had met in the morning. Combining the two around a locality seems the way forward but I must pause and think that through with colleagues before saying much more.

Having 6 children of my own, all now in their 20′s I recognised what a difficult area this is. The trouble is if parents and children can’t make it work it seems to fall to the authority to sort things. All work we can do on early interventions make a lot of sense and I was pleased to hear about a number of projects that are pushing this.