Monday 24th Oct – the Royal Family is discussed at the and of the day

Monday began with preparation for a meeting of informal cabinet at 1000. Some interesting points came out during our discussions. Always good to have an understanding across the councils business.

Next up was a regular meeting with my deputy. Some important planning and reflection. Always a good discussion.

Then I attended a pre meeting for Cabinet which took place on Tuesday. This is a run through of the agenda, with officers, to make sure all is in order.

I then hosted one of the most important meetings that we have. This is the child protection and safe guarding briefing. The senior officer is able to brief the chief exec, cabinet member and myself on any matter affecting child protection or safe guarding. We take this matter extremely seriously and it is only right that that the head of service has a direct link into the decision makers sat the very top of the organisation. There is always a robust two way discussion designed to allow any potential issue to be exposed.

I then shot off to HDC to meet with the LEP Chairman together with senior embers of HDC. We discussed a number of Enterprise Zone issues including governance.

Then it was back to Shire Hall to meet with Hugh Duberly, the Queens representative in the County, including Peterborough. We discussed a number of exciting opportunities involving the Royal Family.

Tuesday – Cabinet Family support and children – fantastic

Two of the papers before Cabinet today were truly excellent. The first was a paper on Parenting Strategy and Early Intervention Family Support and the second was the placement strategy for looked after children with an emphasis on keeping families together.

This was the stuff Councillors go into politics for. Both these papers felt very different to the image of a council. They were not black and white. You don’t qualify for help / now you do.

These papers were about providing support to families in the grey area in between struggling to cope and family breakdown. Some intervention, keeping the families together, offering respite but not full time, will result in less children in care, happier families and less cost to the Council.

Great work by officers and Cabinet member.

Tuesday Cabinet – general

Good to see the Park and Ride scheme being so well used. We approved an expansion of up to 600 additional spaces at the Babraham site.

An update report on resources and performance showed we are on target to meet our savings targets with the exception of Community and Adult Services. Part of this overspend is as a result of our decision to support the library service and put them at the Center of our community hubs, wherever possible.

We looked at sharing buildings and pooling assets with other authorities. This is always a complex area. The paper was very pragmatic in that is allows us to strive for a theoretical coming together of public assets, which we would all benefit from but could take a long time to put in place, together with “getting on with it” on a case by case basis where opportunity presents itself.

We were able to welcome and endorse the plans for Public Health being reformed and transferring to the County Council. This is a large chunk of new work, for the County, that will be bigger than a District Councils budget !!!

A new short stay car park in Swavesey was approved to support the ever popular guided busway.

We gave approval for the Cambridge Future Transport Initiative to go ahead. This is a new way of thinking to provide public transport for Cambridgeshire and involves a franchise model. Put simply, if we channel the CCC money we spend on moving people around the county into franchises and allow them to pick up commercial traffic we could end up with much better public transport. This is a trial using minibuses. The first two trials should be up and running before the end of the year. One trial will link into the Whittlesford train station, the second into the guided busway around Swavesey and Longstanton and the third will be general community led. These are trials to see if it will work and to learn. It could all go wrong of course !!!!!

We approved a scheme for highways minor improvements for 2012/13 and put in place for licensing tables and chairs on the highway.

Cabinet – Windfarms

A previous decision by Cabinet not to allow any more wind farms on County land was called in by the Overview and Scrutiny committee and referred back to Cabinet.

We always seek to take into account, wherever possible, the views of O & S committees. In this case we re-affirmed the original decision to defer wind farm developments on the County Farm Estate but did agree to the preparation of guidance for a case by case approach to single and small clusters of small turbines.

To be clear, this was a technical alteration to allow for new technology and very small turbines should they ever become viable. We are still not going to allow the huge turbines that dominate some of our skyline, some higher than Ely Cathedral, to be built on our land.

Tuesday – Cabinet – where was the opposition?

Today was Cabinet. A full agenda with 19 items on it, some very significant to the people of Cambridgeshire.

The debate amongst Cabinet was good but ………. Where were the usual questions and requests to speak from the Lib Dems? Is there a trend developing that they are not engaging at all? Apart from a contribution from Cllr Whitebread on wind farms, a member led review presented by Cllr Wilson and a local member input from Cllr Stone supporting our plans for Cambridgeshire Future Transport not a peep was heard from them.

The Lib Dem opposition leader sat there, head down in his laptop, for the whole meeting and
said ……………. Nothing! It was clear he had not read the papers in advance and seemed preoccupied. Now I know what he found so interesting. Nothing to do with looked after children, park and ride sites, public health, family support services or any of the huge number of agenda items.

He needs to learn to be discreet because visitors tell me he was busy writing emails for a day of action in Ely to support his campaign on members allowances. He ought to ask himself if he should be drawing his Leader of the Opposition allowance if that is his sole contribution to this council.

Where are the Lib Dem policies? Where is the contribution to shaping policy? Nothing.

Members allowances

Much has been said about the members allowance debate. It is worth just laying out a few points to reflect on.

The rules state that our allowances have to be looked at at least every four years by an independent panel. We are overdue. This does not deal with inflation but is expected to give transparency to the scheme and make adjustments for work loads and structures.

Members then have to vote to agree the results of the panel review, something I think is wrong. But those are the rules set nationally. As the Leader of the Council it falls to me to table the report to enable it to be debated what ever my thoughts on the matter, on behalf of the council. The trouble about voting your own allowances is that people feel awkward about it and it can seem to the outside world that we are self serving. The trouble is that is the system. I am sure we will all be looking to see if anything can be improved before the next review in 4 years time. Yes, we do it all again every four years.

I believe that recommendations from an independent panel should be accepted in full unless there is a very significant error.

Cambridgeshire County Council Is responsible for something like £1billion of spend. A district or city council has a budget of between £10m and £30m. Hugely important work at district but nothing like as complex as managing the counties roads, adult social care or children’s services. Comparing district council allowances and county allowances is missing that point.

Cambridgeshire County Council allowances are right at the bottom when compared to other county councils.

I have heard that this is not a good time. Can someone tell me when would be a good time? I am inclined not to make such judgements but to stick to the rules in this case and carry out the review every four years as we are supposed to. Please all feel free to lobby government to change things.

I have heard much about the 25% increase in the basic allowance. Or of course those that want to inform the debate could say just under £2000 before deductions. Or to put it another way £9500 for approximately 2.5 days work a week. But I guess if you want to make a sensation out of a small number percentages sound much bigger. We must not forget that councillors are people as well, with families and financial commitments just like everyone else.

There are some flaws in our current allowances scheme that don’t match good practice. For example, if a councillor is suspended then he still gets his allowance! Work carried out by the adoption panel members is not recognised despite it being a heavy work load.

Councillors work hard for there communities, under the huge pressure of public scrutiny and often have to deal with abuse and language that would not be acceptable in any other walk of life. I am expecting that all those people who are critical of councillors to sign up for elections in the future to see if they can improve things. We will welcome the help.

I have lost two cabinet members since May, with allowances playing a significant part in those decisions. Both females, who are under represented, both very able. I am also aware of another female, also extremely able, who will not be standing for election in 18 months time because of her financial situation. If the public is to be represented effectively it needs councillors of calibre and I am afraid money is part of it. The purists may disagree but it is the real world we live in. Most people work 37 hours a week for a full time salary. Cabinet members work many more hours than that for a part time allowance. High calibre councillors, high calibre services.

During the debate, which I thought was thoughtful and informed, I noticed that apart from the 40 seconds of introduction that Kilian Bourke made, not a single Lib Dem spoke during the debate. I couldn’t work out at the time if this was cowardice, in letting others decide on their allowances or some political ruse. I had been reassured by Kilian that it would be a free whip as it was in my group. However, I have never seen any debate take place, in the chamber, without Lib Dems taking advantage of being able to speak in public. This was very odd. If felt like some sort of whip had been applied. Good input from Labour and the Independents and a mix of thoughts from my own group.

In a free vote making opinions known in the debating chamber is how votes are won and lost. Lib Dem silence in the Council Chamber did them and their fellow Councillors a dis-service. And after their disrespect for democratic process, they now decide they want to speak on the issue by bringing the matter back before Council in December. Speaking up on Tuesday was the right thing to do and they failed again.

The vote was taken with a close result for approval. Councillor Heathcock, Lib Dem, voted for the approval, some of my group voted against and the independent Councillor Nichola Harrison said her decision to support it had been swayed by the debate. It is a scandal that the Lib Dems did not enter the debate.

Worse, it now seems that we are to repeat the unedifying spectacle of debating our own allowances again in December because 14 Lib Dems are calling for the decision to be rescinded. Why did they not engage in the debate? This is weak, opportunist behaviour from a group that has no policies and sees opposing everything, good or bad, as effective politics. It is not. In a recent press release for Kilian Bourke to claim they had “firmly opposed” is hypocrisy at best.

Remember, it was my duty to table the motion and to speak to it in a positive way. All the party leaders wanted the allowances review. Democracy is served if effective councillors are elected which is why it is my responsibility to help remove as many barriers to that as possible. The current allowance scheme is one of them.

If any mistakes have been made, and yes that does happen from time to time, in appointing the independent panel I am sure they will be corrected. Apart from agreeing that the review should take place, with other group leaders, and being interviewed by the panel, I have deliberately stayed as far away from the review as possible to ensure I had no influence over it. I am so pleased that one of the panel was a senior boss at Archant, the publication company that owns the Cambs Times and Wisbech Standard.

Now back to sorting out the adult social care overspend.

Friday

Friday started at 0730 preparing for a meeting at 0800 to  review progress on reducing the overspend in adult social care. This was followed by a meeting with the chair of the Police Authority to discuss a range of issues including the transition from Police Authority to the new Police Chief.

I then  had a meeting with the new Chairman of Cambridgeshire Community Services.

This was followed by a meeting with Shailesh Vara MP.

A couple of admin meetings ended a busy week.

Wednesday

Up early to be at the BBC radio Cambridgeshire studios for 0750 to talk about the allowance for members.

Then back for a 0900 final budget prep meeting before the budget workshop at 1000. This is a really important workshop where politicians and officers thrash out some of the detail around the budget and key policies. A really good meeting and one that is usually a pleasure to chair. This was no exception. We are blessed with excellent senior officers and an active and engaged Cabinet.

A quick lunch was followed by some admin. Then onto the Resources and Performance Overview and Scrutiny Committee where Ian Bates and I were being questioned as a result of a Call-In of Cabinets LPSA reward grant decision. It was a shame that this call in seemed to be politically motivated by three Lib Dems as scrutiny is not normally political.

It was interesting that the public benches were filled with charities and that Councillor Bourke seems to be playing to them like an 1970s American court room drama lawyer. He had failed to grasp a number of the key facts which effectively invalidated the call-in. He also spent at least four shots at trying to overturn the Chairmans view that the charities should not speak. This decision seems sensible as we all would agree that charities are good, that the ones present were valid and worthwhile and that they would be able to spend as much money as we could give them.

That was not the point of the call-in which seemed to be about the definition of projects in the Cabinet paper, and if that meant all projects or some of them that could have completed. It failed to convince the committee and sent entirely the wrong message to charities. I was able to reaffirm my desire to work with the third sector more not less, where services can be delivered better or more cost effectively. It felt like the charities were being used as a political football which is not right. I apologised to a number of them afterwards.

My final meeting of the day was a 4pm with a Venture Capitalist. Understanding what is happening in this area is important so that we can better support the growth of business.

Tuesday – full council

The day started at 0800 with preparations for full council. I attended the official pre – council briefing at 0930 before entering the chamber at 1030. There were reports from the police and fire authorities, 8 motions and the independent recommendations on members allowances.

The debates were mostly good. I was pleased to see three members of the armed forces attending to hear the debate on the armed forces covenant. All members voted for it except for our Green councillor. Whilst I always respect differing views his speech seemed I’ll judged when he attacked the armed forces. I caught the Chairmans eye and was able to express my disappointment about the comments and took the opportunity to remind everyone how truly excellent our forces are and how, despite being small in numbers, they are the best in the world. They fight with fairness and compassion and it is these qualities that we must show them when they return to civilian life.

I think we finished just after 6pm.

Monday – early start

Monday had me in the office at 0745 preparing for my first meeting at 0830. This was to discuss some possible EU funding. EU money is public money and needs to be considered carefully before drawing down like all money. Some more flesh on the bones required.

At 0900 I met with officers to discuss our current budget setting round. We refresh the budget every year to take into account changes to funding, performance to date and any new or altered priorities. This is a pre-meeting for the budget workshop on Wednesday to check slides, content and procedures for me chairing the workshop.

At 0930 I met with my deputy ahead of the informal ambient meeting at 1000. We had a number of briefings at informal cabinet and were then joined by Urban & Civic (owners of the enterprise zone land at Alconbury) for an update on progress. This is an exciting project led by some very good people with vision and the necessary finance to make things happen.

I then travelled to Norwich to meet with colleagues at Norfolk County Council before returning home around 1730.