I've written a short piece on the MRWS vote tomorrow for the Sellafield Worker's Campaign. The jist of it is that the over-hyping and scaremongering by those opposed to going any further with the geological study of West Cumbria might well be damaging the very thing they profess to want to save.
See here for the pieceon the SWC's website
Showing posts with label council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label council. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
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):
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.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
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)
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.
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?”
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.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Where did all the money go?
I have a short piece in this week's Whitehaven News dealing with Copeland Council and the economy. I'll post the full text later in the week, but for now I'd rather drive traffic to the paper or better still encourage people to buy it. We need a strong local press to keep us politicians on our toes, now more than ever.
The link to the Whitehaven News article is here
The link to the Whitehaven News article is here
Friday, September 7, 2012
Regionalised pay – an opportunity for the North West
Last night, at the end of Copeland’s Full Council meeting, we debated the issue of regonalised pay. Needless to say, the Labour Councillors don’t like it, and even some of my Conservative colleagues have reservations as well (for wildly different reasons). What we all said is neither here nor there, but one point I made needs to be considered in more detail, because it never gets a hearing over the hysterical screams of the Labour party and their assorted hangers on in the unions and Guardian newspaper.
The debate on regionalsied pay up this way usually revolves around, like it did last night, the left complaining that it means pay cuts for public sector workers, and the loss of spending power in the local economy. These are both wrong. Firstly, workers in the low cost areas such as the North West wouldn’t see pay reductions, simply smaller rises than their counterparts in the higher cost areas such as the South East. Secondly, this necessarily disproves the idea that spending power will drop; it will just be a little lower than it otherwise might have been.
The key issue in the debate last night which I raised and which not disputed, but conveniently ignored, by Labour Councillors, was that regionalised pay represents a significant opportunity for areas like Copeland and the many other places in the North which enjoy a lower cost of living than the South. Regionalised pay, if it did lead to pay which more accurately reflects the local cost of living, would make it cheaper to locate public sector workers in the North. Would I rather have all public sector workers paid the same, while unemployment is high in the north, or pay differences and people in work? It’s a straightforward no-brainer.
Labour Councillors profess to be concerned with jobs, but supporting national pay bargaining is keeping the cost of employment too high in the north and preventing new jobs being created, and keeping wages too low in the south east and trapping people in underpaid jobs. National collective bargaining benefits only one group of people, the trades’ unionists. That’s why Labour councillors support it, for short term political gain rather than long term prosperity. Labour councillors support keeping power with their union baron paymasters in London at the expense of more jobs in the North West and in Copeland. For shame.
The debate on regionalsied pay up this way usually revolves around, like it did last night, the left complaining that it means pay cuts for public sector workers, and the loss of spending power in the local economy. These are both wrong. Firstly, workers in the low cost areas such as the North West wouldn’t see pay reductions, simply smaller rises than their counterparts in the higher cost areas such as the South East. Secondly, this necessarily disproves the idea that spending power will drop; it will just be a little lower than it otherwise might have been.
The key issue in the debate last night which I raised and which not disputed, but conveniently ignored, by Labour Councillors, was that regionalised pay represents a significant opportunity for areas like Copeland and the many other places in the North which enjoy a lower cost of living than the South. Regionalised pay, if it did lead to pay which more accurately reflects the local cost of living, would make it cheaper to locate public sector workers in the North. Would I rather have all public sector workers paid the same, while unemployment is high in the north, or pay differences and people in work? It’s a straightforward no-brainer.
Labour Councillors profess to be concerned with jobs, but supporting national pay bargaining is keeping the cost of employment too high in the north and preventing new jobs being created, and keeping wages too low in the south east and trapping people in underpaid jobs. National collective bargaining benefits only one group of people, the trades’ unionists. That’s why Labour councillors support it, for short term political gain rather than long term prosperity. Labour councillors support keeping power with their union baron paymasters in London at the expense of more jobs in the North West and in Copeland. For shame.
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