November 2010: Temporary go-slow
Due to family illness and bereavment, I am not updating the blog
as much as I would normally like to do. Please bear with me for the next few weeks.
30th November: Tuititon fees and the commoditisation of learning
I had the privilege of being invited over to the House of Commons to meet up with our
three East Anglian MPs for an evening of policy discussions tonight. Of course the issue
of tuition fees for students (and the frankly inept handling of it) dominated - and as
if to remind us, it coincided with one of the protests. I'd had my lunch watching the
marchers from my office window anticipating having to run their gauntlet in the evening!
Online, of course, there are also running battles - over whether the Coalition proposals
are better or worse than what we have now (I think it's a bit of both - and I confess an
interest, I have three kids going through the GCSE treadmill all of whom want to go, and
who would be hit by the fees head on, so I sympathise with the students), over why noone
mentions the last Government's broken promises, and of course the inevitable "but is it
fair".
But - and I got this across to the Members - I think from a progressive's point of
view the real argument was lost long ago. We are currently arguing about whether £3290 is
fair, or £6000, or £9000. We are contemplating whether setting a £15k salary in 2010 prices
to be the starting point for
repayments is fair, or a £21k salary in 2013. We've allowed the two main parties to
frame the
debate entirely in terms of a financial transaction: the student is expected to
take on a debt, judging whether their financial prospects will be sufficiently better
as a result to pay that debt back and still be in credit - or, more cynically, be
sufficiently bad never to have to pay it. The odds are in favour of the student,
of course, as a degree becomes de rigeur in almost every line of work offering
significant potential for advancement - not because a degree guarantees ability, but because
with the last government's target of at leats 50% of young people graduating, not having a degree
automatically marks you out as being "in the bottom half". But it will be the poorer
students who cannot afford to take the chance that it won't work out well, compounded by
being the more risk-averse culturally - and therefore the Coalition policy is effectively
regressive, just as the present one is.
Worse, though, is that any concept of learning as a social good has been tossed aside.
A degree, once something to be aspired to, has become little more than a commodity to
be sold by the state - and which therefore has to be set near the limit of affordability
to most to get the taxpayer the most payback (assuming you don't have a government
completely in denial about what is affordable, like the last one).
This is both morally and economically wrong; honing the talents of gifted students
benefits the whole of society, not just the
individual. Economically we will never compete with the world in traditional industries -
we are fated to be a high cost, high expertise nation and we must play to our strengths.
Culturally, we've been a highly sophisticated society for centuries. We need to value
higher education as a vocation, a calling to be pursued by youngsters of all backgrounds
(and in that sense claims of cultural vandalism on the government's part do have merit)
And I believe that means two fundamental shifts in policy:
- We should fund the genuinely talented regardless of their circumstances. Degrees
need to become a way to polish that talent and not just be a three-year rite of passage.
And we need to understand that youngsters may not discover the desire to pursue very
valuable paths until they've set off on their degrees - I certainly hadn't thought of
staying on into research when I was doing my A-levels. The corollary to that is that,
without an unlimited pot of money, we have to say the best get funded, the mediocre have
to contribute. And that in turn means A-levels have to toughen up, as the current
proportion of As and A*s provides very little information as to who is the best.
And to truly be fair, we need to make sure that state schools provide the same
potential as the private sector.
- We should draw a clear distinction between courses which are genuinely academic -
in that they lead into research, or highly technical fields - and those which are
basically management or training. In the former camp one will obviously find the sciences,
but also the fine arts, social sciences, history, and so on - in fact any subject
that you might study for its own sake. In the latter go courses maligned by the
tabloids; "golf course studies" was always the one that sprung to my mind, but media
studies is the real bete noire - and we have to look at these and subjects like
journalism and business administration, and ask whether they
are not more appropriate to be taken out of a university context and returned to
being on-the-job learning. The cachet of signing oneself BA or BSc might not be there, but
knowing and understanding the workings of a business thoroughly from the inside beats
artificially turning it into an intellectual exercise.
Down that road, higher education would be both more affordable to the taxpayer and more
effective to the students. But more than that, it would restore respectability to
studenthood and dispel the cliche that it's an easy route to shirking the inevitable
job hunt via a diet of daytime TV, junk food and nights in the pub.
18th Oct: The enjoyable part...
...of being a councillor, or for that matter of being part of any group, is
seeing your efforts bringing a smile to people's faces. That's why one of my favourite
nights of the year is the ESCA AGM. The meeting
part is pretty much as any other AGM - and this year I managed to come away with the
title of Minutes Secretary to add to my portfolio, through not ducking fast enough -
but afterwards comes the presentations of lots of little cheques. Three pots of
money come in each year from the labours of many volunteers; the Open Gardens
enjoyed through the summer, recycling credits earned by our Bottle Bank, and profits
from May Day. And they all go out again, across the spectrum of community
life: the pre-school groups, Cubs and Brownies, Scouts and Guides, musicians,
dancers, majorettes, kids' football teams, through to social clubs for the elderly
and hardship funds. The pots come to £2k or so; no cheque is bigger than £200. But
size isn't important in itself. Each cheque touches people's lives, whether it pays
for a new quality football, replacement equipment, or a coach trip to the seaside.
And politics doesn't enter into it - we're all pulling together for a common cause,
making our little community as strong and caring as we can. If only the same ethos
were everywhere...
16th Oct: Doesn't have to be taxing?
Things have been a bit quiet on the blog thanks to me having a very elderly and very
unwell relative. It's a stressful time that many of us go through, of course, but it's
part of life. You'd think, therefore, that most humans would be a bit understanding.
So, on taking over a big pile of paperwork to sort out, I come across a self-assessment
tax form. A bit unexpected; very unwelcome as I'm going to have to fill it in, and I have
no idea if I have all the relevant figures, I have noone to ask to make sure, and of
course the taxman sends out nice reminders that they'll chase us vigorously
if we fail to meet their rigid timetable. On the phone,
therefore, as the deadline is close. Would they really start issuing fines to someone
who's in no position even to answer a letter? Would they come after me if I can't unpick
everything accurately in ten days (while still going to work in between)? Would there
be some scope for discretion in exceptional and distressing circumstances?
Five words: "This office doesn't do flexibility."
I think that just about says it all for the Revenue.
14th Oct: How many councils does it
take to change a light bulb?
I had a call from a resident complaining about a streetlamp near his house.
While not quite expired, it's not firing up properly and glows a dim red. Not quite
sure what the neighbours thought seeing me in hi-viz in the dark, late on a
stormy Friday
evening trying to read the sign on it - if this blog abruptly stops you'll know they
have taken me away...
Anyway, normally the County Council would simply take the call, and send someone round
to fix it. However, in these days of restricted budgets they are trying to palm it
off on the Town Council. Well, doesn't number PC3 mean "parish council"? (No). And
it would seem there are a whole host of lamps across the town of less than certain
provenance, thanks to us changing counties twice in the 1970s, going through the
disbanding of our UDC and creating of HDC. This spaghetti of history means that
an officer who doesn't want to pay for repairs can pass the buck off into the void;
as can an officer who is averse to repairing something that technically they
don't have the power to.
Gloomy Close, meanwhile, still has no light nearly six weeks into the saga.
And of course this is what brings the whole of local government into disrepute.
Every so often I meet someone who simply takes responsibility for the job and Just
Gets On With It. But such people are rare gems. I hope I always tell them so.
9th Oct: Told them so...
Sam and I went shopping today, lured by the fortnightly Farmers Market (and Sam
knows he'll get a milkshake and cake out of me too). I must say that we were
blown away by the chicken and brie pie from the
Raven's Den stall - I can see that becoming
a family favourite.
Anyway, enough of dinner, the point of todays gripe is that the charging in the
Riverside car park has now started. And as expected, where once you'd barely have been
able to get a space for all the people coming into town, today it was about half-full
when we passed. There clearly was confusion over the 38 free 2-hour spaces - they
were even more empty than the rest. I can only hope that HDC's revenue predictions were
based on such a low rate of occupancy otherwise their budget will be in the red once
more.
I hate to say I told them so on such a serious issue, but... where have the people
gone who would have filled 100 or more spaces? Perhaps into the town centre, looking for
more central spaces - though there aren't that many normally. Perhaps they stayed at home
or went elsewhere. All I know is, they certainly weren't in their normal place. And
that's bad for the town's economy. I'm praying that it was a one-off caused by the
generally miserable weather this weekend, and that things recover quickly. If not,
our fragile High Street will suffer.
New 7th Oct: Have your say on St Neots expansion
It has long been an assumption that house-building in our region would be focussed on
the market towns. Love's Farm started the move for St Neots eastwards beyond the railway,
and that estate is now filling up and becoming a small community in its own right.
You can read more of their progress here.
Focus is now moving the the next phase - eastwards from Loves Farm, and southwards
across the Cambridge Road. And tonight we were presented with the early outlines of a
25-year growth project. (Well, I got it twice, once with the TCMI's Transport group -
didn't spoil the ending for the other councilors, though!). HDC are running a consultation
until the 29th, and both plans and comment forms are here.
We've obviously come a long way since some of the disastrous policies of the past; the
design framework looks at environmental concerns, and turning the new housing into
an integral part of the town - ensuring it's linked up for cycling, walking and
public transport, ensuring that new retail is enough to serve the new residents
without producing a behemoth supermarket that damages the town centre, ensuring there
are new jobs and that people can live near them, and ensuring there are the green spaces
that we all enjoy.
What the process needs now is as much input as possible from people in the town.
Please take the time to read the plans, and tell HDC what you think. St Neots will
grow, it seems certain, but it needs to grow as healthily as possible.
Flashback to 4th Oct: A bus to Loves Farm
Back in early 2009 I was involved in drawing up the new bus timetables for St Neots.
At the time Loves Farm was just starting to appear, and an hourly service was pencilled
in, running out of town past the station, but as the roads weren't ready it couldn't
enter the estate. I was on the first journey - which had to do a rather embarrassing
three point turn in the middle of a building site.
From that point on a game of ping pong started. Once building on the most obviously
awkward houses (from the bus's point of view) was done, the developers assured me that
they would keep the roads clear. Stagecoach told me they couldn't reliably get into the
estate. County needed badgering to make decisions about where bus stops should be - and
then to communicate those decisions back to Stagecoach so that flags could be put
up at the right places. Developers needed reminding of their promises as new areas
opened up for building work. And all that time, the 62 ran up the Cambridge Road to
the bypass and hardly anyone found it useful.
I've lost count of how many times I pushed the issue back under people's noses,
and I'm sure some people see me as a stuck record - but as of today, the 62 now
runs in a circle through the Love's Farm estate. It didn't need money thrown at the
problem, it simply needed someone to keep on prodding away until all the organisations
put the right people together. I know I have no powers over transport... but you don't
need power to get your problem to the top of the agenda.
The 62 is a valuable service beyond simply being a bus to an estate - it integrates
Loves Farm into the town that bit more. It's one more glob of societal glue that
holds us together. But it needs to be used - and that's when I put on my cajoling
hat instead!
4th Oct: Osborne puts the taxman back in the bedroom
After years of carefully stage-managed government, the sudden announcement of changes
to child benefit announced on breakfast TV, in almost a I-don't-think-I-should-have-said-that-yet
moment, was quite refreshing. It certainly caught the online world off balance, and those
of us who watch it for a living certainly had an interesting ride.
I'm pleased that the can of worms has been opened - as, it seems, would 83% of us.
It's been a long-standing liberal principle that we should look after those in need -
not use welfare as a way of making everyone dependent in some way on the state. It
was a common theme on the doorsteps in May that people were afraid of losing their tax
credits without a Labour government, even though overall those credits made them and
everyone else worse off. And, of course, child benefit is not universal.
There are plenty of people who either can't have children through no fault of their
own, or choose not to. The former I can only imagine the emotional burden they face; the
latter I applaud for making a very responsible decision - child-rearing is a
major commitment and shouldn't be taken lightly (or incentivised).
I don't think either should be
punished by the state. Taking money from the poor childless to give to the better-off
with family is morally wrong.
10 out of 10 for principle, but maybe 4 for execution. Taking CB away from families
where one parent earns enough to be in the 40% tax band provoked an almighty firestorm
from those who saw the obvious flaw - that two parents both working could have a bigger
total income but get benefit; one breadwinner earning might not. I think there are other
flaws that got missed.
First, there's a perverse incentive for those just below the 40% tax band. Work a bit harder,
earn a bit more, lose CB and end up worse off. Bad. I can imagine savvy companies paying
their staff less so that they can top up their earnings from the state. Or "pay" the
staff in other ways which slips past the benefits office.
But worse of all, to base benefits on the family means you need to define "family".
Do you take married couples? If so, what happens when poor old Mrs X is struggling
alone with kids while wealthy Mr X is off with the office secretary in St.Tropez?
Should one have to get divorced to get more benefit? No, of course not. So is a
family those living at a property? Well, in a 1950s Stepford-wives world where
every house has mum, dad, 2.4 kids, that would work. England in 2010 is a bit
more diverse. How do you tell the difference between
a genuine partner, an itinerant boyfriend who occasionally sleeps over, or a lodger?
Or even a sibling, an uncle or aunt or older child?
The tax credits system already tries to do this, and requires that you continually
declare the comings and goings in your house. It's complex, bureaucratic, intrusive,
and riddled with both errors and fraud. It puts the taxman in the bedroom
where he has no right to be. ("It would certainly make chartered accountancy
more interesting", as Monty Python observed)
In an ideal world, we should have a child benefit system that provides for parents
who do not have paid employment because they do the very valuable job of raising
children properly (anyone who says stay-at-home parents "do not work" should bring
an asbestos jacket if they visit our house). The majority of working parents
at the lower end of the income range, along with the childless, should be
rewarded instead by the minimum wage and tax thresholds being higher, taking many
out of the tax system altogether, as in our manifesto. And the minority of
higher-paid working parents who would lose out - like me, before anyone starts asking -
should perhaps reflect that life has actually dealt them a pretty reasonable hand.
30th Sept: Promise kept
What a difference a year makes. Back in the autumn of 2009, I sat as a very raw
Leader and listened to our external auditors reel off a litany of complaints about the
Town Council's accounts in 2007-8 and 2008-9 - the most obvious one being that the
07-08 hadn't even been up for approval until then, but we didn't have a single
criterion by which we showed we were giving value for money, and the appearance
of a loan overlooked by auditors every year since 1981 led to the headline of "Shambles"
the next day. Regular council-watchers would have
seen it coming, with the departure of our Finance Officer midway through the process
of wrapping up 07-08 and our Town Clerk later on. I'm sure I must have given off the
air of a deer staring at oncoming headlights; I'd inherited a complete mess and pretty
much all I could say was to promise things would be different next year - the implication
being that my position was pretty much on the line.
The meeting back then was pretty rancorous. Some of my loyalists wanted to go on the
offensive over the things that were not as bad as our opposition wanted to portray - the
reserves were low but not dangerously so, and we'd achieved what we set out to. They
must have sensed I was in no mood for a fight. And I was hoping to actually reduce the
council tax the next year, which prospect seemed miles away right then.
Fortunately I had two relatively new officers alongside me who had also inherited
the problems and never wanted to be in that position again. And tonight was mostly a tribute
to their dedication that our report card this year reads:
- "[SNTC] has a sound understanding of costs and performance and achieves efficiencies in
its activities"
- "[SNTC] promotes and demonstrates principles and values of good governance"
- "[SNTC] manages risks and maintains a sound system of internal control"
as while I absolutely support the Do Things Right And Properly philosophy, it's not
actually me carrying it out! That's not to suggest we are the finished article - there are
still areas we can improve on. But with the auditors' meeting this year only lasting
ten minutes or so, and with no significant questions, I'm sleeping better. Promise kept.
25th Sept: Big Society Big Questions - how apt
Cambs County Council's periodical newsletter has come through my door. And at the
back there's a consultation on the Big Society. To help us along the way there is
a "case study" - code for entirely fictitious situation that makes a point, no doubt -
a before-and-after picture of life for a rural couple who have taken early retirement.
Let's leave aside the obvious observation that not many of us have the luxury of
early retirement at the moment. In the "before" our family live in a drab, dour
world where the council provides a handful of basic services, none very good, and
there's nothing to do in the community. There's a handful of buses, a pub but little
else. If this scene was a film, it would be in black and white with violins in the
background - we'd probably even have coal-dusted urchins hanging round the streets.
Our couple pay £1400 a year for their council tax and we're clearly meant to get
the message that they get very little for that money - well, perhaps there's a bit
of truth there.
And now for the sparkling technicolour Big Society scene. The library is now run by
volunteers. Volunteers run youth activities in the community centre. Volunteers drive
people around in the village minibus (the conventional bus having been flogged off by
the council). Everything is sweetness and light. And there's no mention of council tax.
The community runs itself. How could this idyll not appeal?
Time to burst the bubble. The council is strapped for cash, so council tax will
certainly not vanish (in fact it's inconcievable that it will even be any less). But more
to the point, where is this army of volunteers? The simple fact is there isn't one.
Anyone who has actually taken part in such things knows it's a hand-to-mouth
existence, never knowing where the next lump of funding is coming from and
permnanently having to rely on the generosity iof a few. I've lost count of the
number of times I've paid for things out of my own pocket knowing that reimbursement
is far more an if not when. People who have the time,
the willingness and the skill are like hen's teeth - and they frequently burn out
as the demands placed on them grow. Even when you have a loyal band, they have
family, work and other commitments which mean that on any given day, not everything
will work.
But more to the point, all of the voluntary activities are possible now. We already
have community transport schemes. We have volunteers providing adult education,
youth groups, companionship for the elderly ... there are two completely separate
issues here. We want to encourage such schemes to set up and flourish - they can
and do, Big Society or not. The County wants to cut its budgets and lay off staff.
One is not dependent on the other - though it will spare the County's blushes if
by some miracle all its existing services are replicated.
The idea of freeing up the public from layers of stifling bureaucracy is laudable.
The idea of changing a culture of dependence on government into taking responsibility
for oneself and ones community is commendable, but cultures take generations to change
and the voluntary sector can not and will not rush in to fill a vacuum created
overnight. But if the Big Society is simply a cipher for government saying to us "sod off
and do it yourself if you care that much - with all that spare time you'll have when
we give you your UB40" then it rightly won't be given the time to make a culture change.
15th Sept: Blooming Marvellous
I've just heard that St Neots has, for the third year running, won the Silver Gilt award
in Anglia In Bloom 2010. It's a great achievement to be so consistently good and a huge
thankyou is owed to all our volunteers and staff who put their time and effort in. It's
been a pleasure to hear so many positive comments from locals and visitors alike - the
splashes of colour everywhere really lift the mood. And it hasn't been an easy year for
growing, as my own garden is a testament to. (Either that or my incompetence is displaying
itself more than usual)
And congratulations too to Huntingdon for winning the gold this year. Our
neighbours' victory will spur us on all the more in 2011!
6th Sept: Why I'm sticking by the coalition (and possibly not for the reason you'd expect)
"First-100-days" articles seem to be the vogue right now, so I feel I ought to write
one. It's not been an easy time; not only losing a colleague on the town council but
regularly getting less than charitable comments from friends and family, holding me
personally responsible for every unwelcome turn from this government. I myself have had
moments of the collywobbles, having been vocal in the past with my criticism of the
Tories - particularly as they are my principal opposition locally. But I'm keeping the
faith.
The first question for the doubters is this: What did you expect? Lib Dems have
long believed in more proportional electoral systems. Yet the expectation seems to be
that one day we'll have a majority LD government. Sorry, no dice. With proportionality
comes the certainty that majority governments of any colour will be the rare exception
rather than the rule. You have to accept that coalitions will be a way of life, as
they are in much of Europe. And they will necessarily be with parties with which you
disagree. Some marriages may be sustainable, some may be made in hell - but there will
always be dissenters. If there weren't, we'd be seeing parties merging to coalesce
their support.
Not only that, but the maths simply don't add up for us. When you make up about one
sixth of the government, you can't expect to have your way all the time. You get your
way about one sixth of the time and accept that it's better than nothing. That's
proportionality again. An uncomfortable rub, perhaps, but you can't abandon the
principle when it doesn't work in your favour.
The next question is, if not this coalition, then what else? Parties themselves are
by necessity broad churches. For every LD who can't hold their nose from time to time
and get on with the job of cooperating with the Tories, there's one who is repulsed by
the record of the last thirteen years. Severe distaste for regressive taxation (oops -
don't forget the 10p rate fiasco), threats to the services we take for granted and
Europhobia are counterbalanced by severe distaste for reckless spending, mindless
database culture and repressive social control based on spurious grounds of anti-terrorism.
I am glad it wasn't me left with the unenviable decision to pair up one way, pair up
the other way, or sanctimoniously sign up for another 5 years in the wilderness as the
purists would have us do.
Of course, that's not to say I'm happy with the first 100 days. Our leaders seem
just that bit too cozy in their working arrangements. Instead of portraying us as
happily partnered up and accepting everything being fed to us, a little more of the
simple message "we don't like X, but it's a price worth paying to get Y" would give
the waverers a bit more confidence that we are actually fighting our corner in the
battle of principles and ideas. It might dispel the continual criticism that we sold
our souls cheaply.
And that's why I'm in. There are a lot of X's that I don't like. The regressive
budget (yes it is). The default presumption on disabled people that they are scroungers
and the pressure to take inappropriate work (yes, Labour did that too). Free schools.
I could go on. But one big Y at stake is electoral reform. In the longer term, that
one piece of the coalition agreement has the scope to radically transform the whole
political landscape. It's a frighteningly simple idea - that in elections, we should
be able to show our support for people who actually hold ideas we like; we should
always be able to vote positively rather than being condemned to play games of
which-of-the-big-two-do-we-like-least. We shouldn't have to put up with endless
spurious barcharts and "only I can win here" slogans (yes, LDs are the most culpable);
electioneering should be about pitting our intentions against each other. I'll have a
lot more to say on this score as the referendum approaches.
The other is simply the cultural change that having a coalition government is
bringing about. The public face of Westminster is becoming more about establishing
consensus, and less about mindless stone-throwing. Our MPs are behaving far more as
normal people do in their everyday lives; trying to cooperate unashamedly with those
they find difficult to get on with.
Just simple maturity. It's what we've been waiting for for generations.
The media are getting it; the public are getting it; Labour to their discredit certainly
aren't, though a spell out in the cold might bring them round. Politics is becoming
positive. That's worth it.
29th August: Summer Holidays
It's good to be back. Specifically, from two weeks in Whitstable enjoying the
best of a very changeable summer, a week's intensive practising for the backgammon
event in Mind Sports Olympiad 2010 -
obviously worth the effort as I brought hole the silver medal - and a week
of catching up with work and cowering from the rain!
In the meantime, the other Haywards have been buying or cleaning off their bikes
and getting out and about in the dry spells. Sam has been learning without stabilisers
for the first time, and like every parent I have a few stressful moments watching as
he practises braking without toppling over. Enthusiasm undaunted, though, today he's
off with Anna as far as the corner shop to pick up something for tea. Siz months ago
that would probably have been a car journey (or a solitary walk for me), so the
world is a little bit of a cleaner place as a result. I shall now go off and polish
my halo a bit - having clocked up about 1,000 miles on my bike so far this year.
Leading on from this, though, is a gripe about the other end of the journey. You
probably wouldn't notice until you actually tried, but St Neots is remarkably short
of places to leave your bike. At Little Tesco, there's a single post which should
be part of a trolley container (not that I can recall seeing anyone use the trolley) -
and while they're paying to resurface the car park across the road there's no
money in the post for a cycle rack, which takes up far less space. In town, Waitrose
is the honourable exception with a couple that double up as planters; everywhere
else you either take your chance leaving your cycle leaning on a wall, or use the
few bits of railings where it really shouldn't be. Those of us with D-locks can't
even use a lamp-post - though fortunately, I haven't yet seen anyone come round with
bolt-cutters removing any parked in inappropriate places. Yet.
What is frustrating is that at the same time, there's work being done on our existing
cyclepaths and of course the new river bridge. It's great to think we'll have more
people on two wheels - but that will only happen if there are safe and secure places
to leave them when we've arrived. Most of us don't simply cycle round and round
burning off the calories, however worthwhile that may be, we want to go somewhere!
I'd be interested to head from readers in other towns whether we're the exception
or the rule. How have we become so hostile to the single most efficient form of
transport? If we were telling car drivers to find any old bit of land to park on
and hope that noone complained, there would be a riot.
28th July: Flower Power
It's holiday time and I'm supposed to be taking things easy - so today's is a
pictorial item. St Neots has a very strong record competing in Anglia in Bloom
recently, with a silver medal in 2008 and silver gilt in 2009. Of course gold is
our aim for 2010, and both the Town Council staff and dedicated volunteers have worked their
socks off to give us every chance. Here's a selection of their efforts, which I'm sure
you will agree are magnificent:
...the planter on the Market Square, next to the Alfred Jewel...
...hanging baskets throughout the town...
...Jubilee Gardens (there are more displays like this on all our green spaces)...
...and a cool evening at the river awash with colour.
2nd July: Why the Riverside Tax is bad for us all.
I don't make a habit of appearing on the radio. In fact I was quite surprised to get
a call from BBC Cambridgeshire asking to do an interview about HDC's proposals for
charging in the Riverside and Shady Walk car parks in St Neots and others across the
district - and more so when they agreed to meet up in the car park at 7 on a windswept
morning. Despite sitting up the night before rehearsing my points, I'm sure I only
got a couple out; to the uninitiated, four minutes passes in the blink of an eye when
you have a microphone pointing at you, certainly too fast to keep an eye on the crib
sheet!
Storm clouds gathering over the Riverside
The story behind the charges is well documented - HDC's budget is completely shot through
after years of draining away the reserves it inherited from selling off its council houses,
with capping meaning it can never catch up on the income it needs through Council Tax
(it would nead a rise of 35% or so to achieve that), so things have to go. They announced
that charges would be imposed last autumn; the town councils and residents kicked up a
stink (although Conservative councillors in the town have been noticeable by being publicly
vociferous but not raising their hands against their leadership when it mattered);
then HDC undertook a "consultation exercise" - a waste of money as public feeling
was quite clear - and now they have decided to press on regardless. Well, at least they
have Official Statistics to show just how much resentment they have created - and I'll
put them here when my FOI request gets answered.
Of course, as my interviewer observed, no-one likes paying for something that used to be
free - at least at the point of use; there has always been council tax spent on maintenance
of the car parks. This one has certainly caught the public imagination, spawning Facebook
groups, protest websites and more letters in the papers than I can remember. So why
is this such a bad decision? Here - with the benefit of more than four minutes, and
with th knowledge gained by taking petition signatures - is what I
believe:
- It's harmful to our small businesses. St Neots town centre has a lot of small,
independent businesses and not many large chains. Not much economic clout. At the moment
they live one day to the next, relying on people who come here especially because they have
the freedom to park away from the centre, wander and browse, have a leisurely coffee,
without checking the time repeatedly. Take that away and you're effectively handing their
business to the one monster who can afford to buy up land and let you use it - Tesco.
What disappears is not only jobs, but specialist knowledge and personal service.
- It's harmful to our leisure. The Riverside is a jewel in the town, used
by just about every group you can think of. Children in the playparks; dogwalkers;
sportspeople and joggers; families out for picnics, an amble round the duckpond, or
an ice-cream on a warm afternoon at the Ambience Cafe; music afficionados out to listen
to the Sunday concerts - or rather what's left of then now that HDC has cut their
funding completely and dumped the work on to St Neots Town Council.
It's a very social place where the various groups meet, and in an age where we
want to be encouraging everyone to get outside and keep active, putting artificial
time limits and costs on achieves the opposite effect.
- It's harmful to our environment - the air that we breathe. St Neots
market square already breaches various standards for air quality, the main issue being
the almost permanent traffic congestion in the daytime. Free parking in the Riverside
and Shady Walk,
along with charges for the town centre car parks, means that there's a strong incentive
not to get into that congestion. If you want a prime space next to the shops, making
shoppers inhale your car's crud, you pay; if you accept a brief walk and avoid the queue
you should be rewarded for that virtuous choice. Charging equally for all means we'll
see more traffic circling round and around waiting to grab the choicest spots.
- It's harmful to local residents. When charges are introduced, how many
people are simply going to drop their car off in somewhere like The Paddock for free?
- For all the downsides, it achieves very little. It's estimated that, once
you've taken into account the cost of running the meters, emptying them, fixing
vandalism, banking large numbers of coins, enforcement and all, about £20,000 a year
will be raised. That is a drop in the ocean of HDC's millions of budget shortfall.
It buys the chief exec's services for less than four weeks. It barely even pays the
expenses of the Leader of the Council. Consider this - an ordinary District Councillor
gets a basic allowance of over £4k, and to receive that cash they need only attend one
meeting every six months. You don't need to open a letter, take a phone call, or
speak to a member of the public. Some notoriously active DCs are effectively taking home
a pay of £400/hour. Perhaps if we asked more of ours exactly what we get for our money...?
On that note, it's about time for an act of defiance. I know it won't change HDC's
minds, but - if the charges are introduced, I won't use the Riverside. I'll
stick to my bike when I can, or the bus when I can't, even though that may
cost me more in the long run. HDC are relying on us to quietly acquiesce, as they
usually do (and as we usually do). It's time we said no - you serve us, HDC, not vice
versa.
30th June - this week's Full Council
The end of June means one thing - a Special Meeting to approve the accounts for
the previous financial year. Well, to be fair, this year two other items have snuck in
because of constraints of time; signing off approval for the Saxongate play aera,
and signing off alterations to leases so that HDC can set up their One Stop Shop in the
Priory Centre. Both sides all in favour so they are pretty much formalities.
However, the accounts have, in recent years, been a rather rancorous affair. Not
least because of rather serious long-past errors found last year; but also because
some councillors completely miss the point of the meeting, which is to approve the
accounts as a correct record of what happened and use it to debate the council's
spending plans, and the fact that one caused a lot of ill-feeling by rushing off to
the local press to announce quite fatuously that we were "bankrupt". Part of my role is
to try to keep order in the ranks, at least on my side of the table, and I don't want
them rising to the bait (or worse, throwing the first bit of bait out).
Fortunately, the news is very good. All our big projects came in on time and
on (or a small amount under) budget; keeping the staffing levels tight means savings;
the general reserves are at their highest level I can remember, well into the "satisfactory"
zone the auditors lay down, and I am feeling very confidnt that we won't have to go raiding
them as we enter a year with a 3.8% lower council tax rate than last. Yes, I am
going to labour that point as it's so rare to hear!
All this means that noone is up for a fight, and a gentle tease apart, business is
wound up by 8pm. Even meetings are coming in under their time allocation now.
27th June
It's a hot Sunday afternoon, perfect for sitting around in the shade of a tree,
perhaps, and even more so in the shade of the Eaton Socon Cage.
For the confinement of local malefactors (and small children)
There may only be room for two, but when the sun is beating down, a sojourn
in a room with no direct light, at maybe 5'C, is quite attractive. What's more, there's
a wooden bed and matching leg-irons for added comfort. No, I haven't jumped back a century
and a half; to coincide with the Open Gardens being held in aid of the
Red Cross (the starting point of the trail being
immediately opposite), I'm opening up the Cage for visitors to look around.
The Cage's survival has been rather against the odds - last used for actual criminals
in the 1890s, outliving the fire-engine house immediately adjacent, and two lots of
redevelopment of the land immediately behind, and for many years in limbo with noone
knowing precisely who owned it, it was a personal challenge for me to get the Town Council
to adopt this important piece of their heritage and ensure its continuing care on towards
its 200th birthday in 2026.
It's obviously a very pleasant antidote to world cup fever, as despite the draw
of a game against Germany at 3pm there's a good turnout of people out for a wander amongst
some lovely gardens, and about £500 made for a very good cause. Of course we have no need
to watch - we just listen to the whelps of agony coming from the Old Sun to estimate
just how badly England is doing. By 4pm it's clear I need to scour our family tree to find
another country to support. Ireland? Norway, perhaps? Canada? Oh dear, looks like it's on
to 2014 for me.
26th June
Tonight the St Neots Sinfonia
wrap up their 20th anniversary season with the time-honoured joint concert with
the St Neots Choral Society -
a charming programme of Rossini (I think I know all his overtures by now, I've certainly
played most, and love them all), Mozart's Missa Brevis, Haydn and Mendelssohn.
It's only the third time I've been in the audience as patron of the society, and it's given
me itchy fingers - so I've made the commitment to play again when the new season starts in
the autumn. Hopefully less travel with my job means fewer missed rehearsals!
In my "absence" this year it's been good to see more youngsters joining - I love
the fact that my children enjoy being part of making music, even if it's not orchestral;
even Emma has suddenly found it quite a relaxing pastime to pick up the elderly,
dust-gathering clarinet in the corner and give it a go. Who cares what they play? Unless
they plan on a career, it should be all about fun.
23rd June: On yer bike!
It's about half way through National
Bike Week and I thought it a good point to look back at the six months since I took
the plunge and turned to two wheels. I'd estimate that about 95-98% of working days I
ride the eight miles I need - home to the station, Kings Cross to the West End, and
back again - and at weekends the occasional run about town, popping down to the corner
shop, or round to friends' houses. Perhaps I've been lucky in having particularly
benign weather - only one journey was truly rained off - but anyway, here's a quick
run down of why I'm a dedicated convert to the cycling cause now:
- The government's
Cycle to Work scheme got me a £600 bike and all the trimmings for just £350,
which is a great incentive...
- ...and so far I've saved about £400 in public transport fares, so I'm already ahead
of the game. And with Boris putting London bus fares up 20% in a year, that gap looks
set to grow much wider.
- In that time I've also burned off about 325 calories a day - noit quite enough to
see me into a size 14 but it's done wonders for my state of mind and my all-round
activity levels.
- No problems parking or breaking bus journeys - on election day, I could ride right
up to the door of all 10 polling stations, and complete the grand tour in an hour (or
would have done if I hadn't got engaged in conversation about how natty my bike looks,
and done a few demos of how easy it is to fold up). And on the way home on a warm Friday
afternoon, if I get the early train it's no hassle to stop off for a drink in town with
friends and still be back for tea. Likewise, meetings at odd times or places - such as
the TCMI Transport group out at Marston Road - don't mean getting the car out.
- I can forever forego the "joys" of the mobile sauna that is the Victoria Line at 6pm.
- I can actually perceive myself as a decently fit individual rather than a bit of a
dollop with a big bum.
- People take time out to have a
giggle at chat with me. For some reason
the neon yellow jacket marks me out as some sort of crusader for two-wheeled rights.
One disadvantage to all this is the lack of decent cycle parking in St Neots.
Well done to Waitrose for their very attractive racks combined with planters; more work
needed elsewhere if we're to get more people out of their cars. It also makes me
appreciate the quality of our road surfaces that much more acutely - in the grand
scheme of things Cambs really isn't so bad after all, having experienced the demented
roller-coaster rides that make up the major road network in Camden!
19th June
It's an ordinary Saturday morning and the to-do list seems as long as ever, the garden
still needs weeding, the study is awash with paperwork, this site hasn't been updated for
a while... and motivation is hard to maintain when at times you feel you're not making
good progress on anything in particular. One reason I almost never work from home is that
it helps me to separate work and home life so that they don't intrude into each other -
but the downside is that the good feeling from solving a difficult technical problem doesn't
hang around too long when confronted by seven years' worth of minutes gathering dust and
elders that need digging out!
A remarkably simple idea, then, is at Habitforge.
The idea is simple; you say what you want to achieve, and they cajole you each day
to record your progress. The theory is that what you do daily for 21 consecutive days
becomes an effortless habit. Each morning my email arrives with a clock ticking away the
days - each failure resets it to 0 - and the thought that I can prove
to myself that I can actually sort out the things I dislike about myself
(plus, increasingly, the frustration at "losing" a lot of hard work!) provides
the motivation to get it all the way round to 21. Funnily enough, having a computer
nag me is better than a human - it's completely neutral, and there's no temptation
to ignore the nagging on the grounds that the nagger is getting at you or is indulging
in "you always do that" - style hyperbole (which, of course, my human naggers
always do).
So yes, I bite my nails, but the clock on that one is up to 14. Yes, I neglect
my diary, that's on 1 this morning (and I'm going to fill in boring days with past
highlights to make it a daily thing). If I win one campaign, I'll start another,
and see how far I go.
16th June
It's been a long General Election campaign, then the start of the new civic year,
then a cathartic spring-clean of the study.
I can't believe how quickly time has gone. Normal service will be resumed... after
a bit of a reorganisation at the weekend.
12th June: Me, an artist? (coughs)
I didn't imagine that I'd ever be writing that, having been a complete failure at
school... but that's not really the point of today's post.
I've been involved with work behind the scenes for the
Community Cafe Listeners Project, which is a community group training people to
become volunteer befrienders and listeners. Already 20-strong, the project is growing and
exploring more ways to get poeple involved with each other, providing opportunities
for people to meet in informal, relaxed situations. And today is launch day!
There's plenty of activity in town as it's also the Folk Festival, so we are
sharing the Market Square with folk dancers and vegan cake-sellers (yum!) - and
all morning our resident artist Suzi
Gutierrez is getting everyone who comes by to contribute to a growing
community wallpaper. Including a councillor (see picture) who thinks she can't draw
for toffee. Suzi is remarkably disarming, though, and I'm not the only one who, with
a bit of confidence-building talk and a box of colours in front of me, has a go.
Of course the point is it doesn't have to be a fantastic work of art, it's
all about building the community through shared experience. And there's plenty more
planned for the summer.
I think my handiwork is best described as surrealist... probably best to stick with
maintaining the Cafe's website!
19th April: The car parks again
If I wrote a piece like this, I'd be inundated with mail about my partisan-ship.
So here
is an independent view of the car park charges saga. Enjoy.
5th April: Not something you see too often
That's right, a negative number on our council tax bill. And not just a token effort,
a healthy -3.8%. If there's one label you can't pin on me it's the tax-and-spend
perjorative. Not that taxing and spending is intrinsically bad; it's what you
spend it on that counts. and if you've spent it on all the things that matter and
still have a bit left over, it's only right to give the leftovers back.
Spot the odd one out (click to enlarge)
And where that comes from is the whole approach to budgeting that many councillors appear
to use. Here's the normal scheme of things:
- Work out how much of an increase you think you can get away with.
- Work out what you're already committed to.
- If you have some left over, whoopee. Think of some vote-winning projects to
use up the spare.
- If not, then hide head in sand and hope that either your reserves hold out or
the next council takes the flak instead. (A strategy used by Conservative HDC in recent
years, with the £6.1M deficit about to bite very soon.)
On a smaller level, it leads to the phenomenon of creating non-roles out of nowhere.
You need your widgets polishing? Don't ask whether an existing department can stretch a bit
and take on the task. Create the post of Widget Polishing Officer instead. Sounds
facetious? Well, go down your council's website and ask how many positions are real
and how many appear to be titles created to fill a single perceived need. It's
carts before horses. The order of things should be, what do we want to achieve,
how many people and resources do we need to do it, how do we organise them to do it
effectively?
So, back to the budget. If you've followed my argument so far, you'll be thinking:
- Work out what you're committed to.
- Work out what you really want to get done, over and above that.
- If you haven't got enough money to do it, then work out what you really, really
want to get done.
- If you have any left over, resist the temptation to push up the reserves much higher than
you need to keep everything running smoothly. You know your successors will see it as
a goldmine to be spent like it's going out of fashion. And in any case, in my opinion
it's of dubious morality to take money off people only to stash it in the bank. Either
give them something for it, or don't take it in the first place.
So, if there's one result I am proud of from my year as Leader, it's getting the town
a budget which both costs less than last year, and looks after all the things we
consider essential to the health of the community - our community centres, our play areas,
our allotments and cemeteries, increasing our grants to voluntary and artistic groups.
The coming Civic year will be a tough challenge to repeat that.