Staff and the Copeland Council Consultation

It became apparent on Friday, after a public meeting organised by the local Labour MP (Jamie Reed) that a number of staff within Copeland Council are unsure whether they are able to take part in the ongoing budget consultation.

Over the weekend I contacted the Chief Executive of Copeland Council, Paul Walker, to ask the following:

At the meeting held by Jamie Reed on Friday evening, an issue was raised regarding staff and our budget consultation.  It appears that staff believe they are not able to respond for fear of consequences in the workplace.  Could you please clarify what staff have been told regarding the consultation?  Are they able to respond?  If so, can all staff be reminded of their right to do so?

The response on Monday was swift and confirmed that staff are able to take part.  This is the response from Mr Walker:

Yes staff are able to respond and more than welcome to fill in the consultation. I have attached a copy of the October Team Brief confirming this.

We have continued with our web page future staff consultation, which has copies of all the staff presentation, minutes of meetings with trade unions etc. and also have dedicated email address for staff to access for feedback and comments, which is held by our Human Resources team

I will check the number of responses received tomorrow – I also want to make sure that we continually promote the opportunity with all staff across the organisation.

The relevant section of the team briefing is here (click to expand to full size):

 

At the moment responses are a bit on the low side, at around the 100 mark last week.  I will continue to ensure staff and the public are encouraged to respond to the budget consultation.

 



Where did all the money go?

This is the text of my piece in the Whitehaven News two weeks ago:

The local government cuts – by Copeland councillor Stephen Haraldsen (Hillcrest ward, Conservative)

COPELAND Council’s budget consultation has raised many questions, but one in particular needs to be answered: “Where did all the money go?”

 

People rightly want to know why the cut in Copeland Council’s government funding is so large. I hope I can shed some light on this here.

Local government cuts have been ‘front loaded’ to get the pain over with quickly, so it seems very harsh, but you can’t look at Copeland’s budget in isolation. The majority of council services we use day-to-day are provided not by the Borough, but by the County Council – schools, roads, social care, libraries, sure start, waste disposal and many more. It doesn’t seem such a large cut when you look at the Borough and the County together and see the full picture.

How the government calculates funding to councils is complicated, and is based on the things that councils do and the unique problems each faces. Inequality is an issue that we are sadly all too familiar with in Copeland, where we have some shocking levels of deprivation. The government seeks to protect those least well off when calculating council funding, but because most funding which addresses deprivation goes to the County Council, their funding take less of a cut than Copeland’s. The principle that those most in need get the most help means borough councils take a bigger hit so we can protect our schools, sure start centres and so on. The councils with the greatest deprivation still have the most per head to spend.

I know people look to shire councils in the south and think they’re getting preferential treatment, but they’re not. It’s not political, fewer than half of the ten most cut councils are Labour controlled. Those shire councils are seeing smaller cuts because they don’t get as much from the government to start with, and over the last fifteen years their funding rose more slowly than their urban and northern counterparts.

These aren’t tory cuts, they’re necessary cuts, and even Labour’s leader Ed Miliband recognises this harsh truth. Booed at a trade union rally this weekend for saying that a Labour government wouldn’t reverse any of the cuts he knows, as does Mr Reed our MP, there is no credible alternative. We can’t risk ending up like Greece.

We’ve been wasteful, shown by Copeland Council managing to save £3 million over the last two years without any detrimental impact on services. If that was possible now, why not years ago? It’s casual waste like that and reckless spending across government which led us as a country to where we are now.

Britain is poorly, drunk for years on a toxic combination of an economic boom that Gordon Brown daftly promised he’d sustain forever, reckless borrowing both by Government and households, and no budget discipline. When that all came crashing down, it was left to this coalition government to administer the treatment, and we’re making good progress. The deficit is already down by a quarter, unemployment falling, youth unemployment down, inflation falling and borrowing figures down more than expected too. Yes the treatment is painful, but that’s because the patient was so very near the edge.

As a victim of redundancy myself in 2010, I know how painful it can be. No one wants to be in the position we find ourselves in, with difficult choices to make, hard truths to face, and a bright future which seems further and further away. Prosperity doesn’t just come from Westminster or the council chambers, it comes from us all. We can do great things when we pull together.

Copeland Borough Council’s Budget Consultation

I promised I’d write something about Copeland Borough Council’s consultation on the budget options.  I’ve had a lot of questions and given a lot of answers.  I’m writing this both to make my own position clear on the key issues emerging from the public debate, and in the hopes of fielding many of the questions I get on twitter, which I’m often unable to answer fully in 140 characters.

I don’t intend to go into detail on all the consultation or budget in this one post, that will come in time, rather I will focus on the six things which have been most talked about both to me in person and on-line.

Political blame game

I’ll get this out of the way first, because frankly we are where we are and no amount of blame is actually going to address the challenge we face.  However, I do blame the last Labour government for this mess.  It was they who borrowed far too much during an economic boom (and they call themselves Keynesians, he’d be spinning in his grave to see such profligacy) and now the coalition government is having to make very unpopular decisions to save us from becoming another case like Greece.  It is worth remembering that even if Labour had won the 2010 general election, under the plans put forward by Alistair Darling to cut the deficit, there were similarly large reductions in public spending planned.  One difference is that the Conservatives have ring-fenced NHS spending (unlike Labour’s plans to cut the NHS budget) so other departments do have to take a bigger hit.  Thanks to that decision, more patients are being treated, hospital infections are falling massively, and dentist numbers are up hugely.  I think that was the right thing to do, but it does make the task for other areas of government spending a little bit harder.

Regardless of who won the 2010 general election, the money local government gets from central government was going to fall and cuts like this made.

Councillors allowances

People are understandably looking to elected members and asking why should they not shoulder some of the burden.  Firstly, Copeland has the second lowest allowances for elected members in the county, and low by wider standards.  Secondly, it has been frozen in cash-terms for four years and will continue to be so.  Thirdly, while there is nothing on this subject in the consultation, that is because the consultation focuses on the non-statutory services (i.e. the things the council doesn’t have to do by law), and in full council last week the Leader Cllr Woodburn stated that there will be savings made in the cost of having Councillors in the budget in February.  Fourth, the Boundary Commission has been asked ages ago to come in and look at how many councillors we actually need, but they said then and maintain that they won't do that until 2015, to take effect at the 2019 local elections, sadly (I believe we can manage on about 30 councillors, personally  if Copeland Council must exist).

While I to some extent agree with those who argue that public service should be for its own sake, in reality this would restrict being a Councillor to the retired, sponsored (by trades unions) or generously employed (such as at Sellafield).  It would make it hard for me, and others not lucky enough to have a nuclear job or generous benefactor, to be a councillor.

I promised on twitter to say what I do.  After leaving University I worked in West Cumbria as a Consultant until the firm went bust and I was made redundant in 2010.  After three months on the dole, for the following eighteen months I worked freelance for various organisations as a researcher, lecturer and consultant.  In 2012 I took the opportunity to leave that work and return to University as a full-time PhD student.  This is both for my own career as a researcher and lecturer, which I need a PhD to further, and it also allows me the flexibility to attend meetings during the day, something I found very difficult when working.  Due to the choices I have made since being elected, I am not now financially able to give up my allowance until 2015 when the PhD is over.

However, I maintain that for some of my colleagues who have to take unpaid leave to attend meetings, it is unfair to expect them to be out of pocket as a result.  Additionally, while councillors can claim travel expenses for attending a scheduled meeting, there is a significant amount of travel dealing with casework which is not able to be claimed for.  I for one would not like to see excellent potential councillors put off by having no allowance, because the price of poor decision makers is higher than any allowance.

The Copeland Centre PFI

Many people have rightly noticed that the Copeland Centre, the nice building in Whitehaven the Council operates from, is rather expensive.  The building was built during the boom in Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes under the last government where private firms build something, and we pay it off in instalments, like hire purchase for a car.

It has been suggested that we should move out, and we can fit the whole Council into the offices at Moresby.  Believe me, this has been looked into, but the cost of upping sticks would be huge, and just not viable at the moment.  Think of it like this, if you have a mortgage, you can’t just move out of your house without paying it off, and the cost would be big.

The boom of badly negotiated PFI deals under the last government was a rouse to build new things without it showing up on the national debt.  We are in Copeland, like with the hospital in Carlisle (the first, and one of the worst, PFI hospitals), literally paying for the mistakes of Gordon Brown’s chancellorship.

The Beacon

People have said to me how awful it would be to lose the Beacon.  I agree, but I say two things in response.  First, when did you last use it, and the answer has been an overwhelming ‘ages ago’ or in many cases ‘never’.  Secondly, the Council is in talks with potential partners which would see the Beacon stay open and indeed be improved.  Let us hope that goes well.

The Civic Hall

I worked at the Civic Hall for eight years.  I was a member of the North Country Leisure Copeland Board that oversees its running for 12 months recently.  I was on the policy development group which looked into sports and leisure as part of this consultation.  I know the civic well and am very personally attached to it.  I don’t want to see the Civic Hall close.  I’m also sure that I couldn’t in good conscience ask the people of Copeland to subsidise it to the tune of £200,000 per year, nearly £3 for every visitor.  Just like with the Beacon, I find too many people who don’t use it, which is a shame.  However, I’m confident there are organisations out there who can run the Civic for no subsidy.  I will be keeping a very close watch on this search and discussion and be pushing very hard to get the Civic run for no public subsidy.

A petition has been talked about, but I assure you the Council doesn't want to have to close the Civic Hall.  We know how much people want it to stay.  We don't need a petition to tell us that, we all live here as well.  Rather what we need are alternatives which mean it can run for no subsidy, and all suggestions are welcome. The Council is out there looking for others to come in and run it, but tell us your thoughts.

The future of local government in Cumbria

I wrote in a letter of Thursday 9th August 2012 in the Whitehaven News, the following is an extract from that letter:

“I believe it’s time to make me, the other 50 councillors in Copeland, and the hundreds of others in the seven Cumbrian councils obsolete. It’s time for two councils, one for the north and one for the south.”

The full letter can be seen here.

I believe that the time has come to unite the industrial north and west of the county under one local authority, and the tourism-oriented south and east in another.  Someone even suggested we call the first ‘Cumberland’ and the second ‘Westmorland’.  Not only would the savings be massive, but two powerful councils would have a better voice speaking for their respective areas to the wider world.

The one key issue brought to my attention would be the further job losses this would impose on the area.  However, these wouldn’t be so severe.  We’d still need as many bin-men, planning officers, receptionists and street-sweepers.  What we’d need fewer of is Chief Executives, Directors, Portfolio Holders, Leaders and Councillors.

When doing this, I think that a Whitehaven Town Council would be necessary to ensure people have proper local democratic voice and control over things that only affect their town, like Millom, Cleator Moor, Egremont and the parished rural areas have.

To achieve this we need the call to come from the people.  Government won’t impose a reorganisation on us.  I think the time has come for a local referendum on this move, and I’d be happy to help in any way I can.

This is my unedited and not-proof read initial thoughts on the major issues.  I hope this goes some way to making clear my position on those important issues which have emerged in the lively debate.  I will write more in due course, and answer any questions people have.  Bear in mind I do have work to do, so bear with me when I don’t immediately reply on twitter or write another big blog post right away.

One final thing I’d like to see is folks laying off the personal insults.  I can take pretty much anything you can throw at me an give as good back, but not everyone can and Councillors are still people after all.  No one wants to be in this position, regardless of who is to blame.  Keep it civil, keep it constructive, and don't forget to send your comments to the council.

BUDGET CONSULTATION CAN BE FOUND HERE