Slip of the Tongue?

It's rare that a meeting of Co-Ordinating Scrutiny inspires me to write about it, but this mornings meeting did raise some eyebrows. Having been delayed for half an hour by a fire alarm in the Council House, we started the meeting by taking evidence for a review of the Birmingham Growth Agenda, which predicts that the City will grow by up to 120,000 residents by 2026. This morning we have taken evidence on housing, which developed into an ideological debate over public sector versus market led provision, with some interesting comments made by all involved. Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure what point Edgbaston Councillor James Hutchings was trying to make when he made a suggestion that many of the problems we were debating could be resolved by slipping a mild poison into the water in Sutton Coldfield - presumably by killing off a proportion of the population the housing pressures across Birmingham would be eased?

Labour Gains Brandwood

A brief post, given the hour - for much of the past month Councillors of all parties in Birmingham have been campaigning in Brandwood Ward in South Birmingham for the by-election caused by the sad and sudden death of Conservative Councillor Ken Hardeman. I'm therefore very pleased to be able to say that the people of Brandwood have elected Labour's Mike Leddy to represent them. Mike was the first Councillor of any party that I met on coming to Birmingham - he is someone I have been proud to support and I know he will do his utmost to support his constituents in Brandwood. It was a hard fought campaign for all involved, but I am very pleased to be able to welcome another Labour Councillor to the benches.

Ward Committee

We decided at our last Ward Committee meeting in March to move the meeting to different venues around the ward - something I've been wanting to try for a while. Last night we met at Perry Common Community Centre - not a huge turnout but we hope to build up the numbers in attendance and get more interesting issues on the agenda.

Among the issues discussed last night were Neighbourhood Policing, and getting reports from the Neighbourhood Tasking Group to the Committee - every Tasking Meeting starts with a rundown of crime numbers by catergory in the last two weeks, and it was agreed that it would be a useful report to have at the meeting. Another issue raised was the redevelopment of College High. There is a lot rumoured about what will happen, but as a Governor I had to say that we have seen no plans as yet. A workshop for Governors at the Birmingham Academies is being held next month, so maybe I will know more then.

We also agreed the dates for meetings for the rest of the year, and provisional venues. These are:

Thursday 27th September at 7.00pm, Kingstanding Leisure Centre
Thursday 29th November at 7.00pm, Lakeside Centre, Wyrley Birch (TBC)
Thursday 31st January at 7.00pm, Location to be confirmed
Thursday 27th March at 7.00pm, Perry Common Community Centre

Vote Alan?

To Northfield last night to see Alan Johnson speak - an event organised by Northfield CLP and hosted by Richard Burden MP. I wasn't able to get to the hustings in Coventry last week (see Political Hack's excellent report for more on that) so this was my first opportunity to see one of the candidates speak. I was very impressed by him and his responses to questions on a range of issues - education was a focus naturally, but he spoke very well on his views on the role of the Deputy Leader (and potentially Deputy Prime Minister) and the work that needs to be done within the Labour Party. I am hopeful that there will be a full hustings in Birmingham prior to the election, as I would like the opportunity to compare the candidates, but I can't help feeling that you would get more open and honest answers from the candidates were they not speaking in front of the five other people who are going for the same job! Last night was quite a unique opportunity at this stage in the campaign, in being able to sit and ask questions of a candidate for more than an hour in a reasonably sized group (which actually enabled proper debate), rather than what appears to be the rather staged atmosphere of the hustings.

I'm still not decided on who I am going to vote for yet. I have tended towards either Johnson or Hilary Benn in recent months and I still think it will be a two way choice for me, but I would like to see everyone if I get a chance. I've nothing particular against Coventry, but getting there at 10am on a Sunday via public transport is a considerable challenge - so bring the hustings to Birmingham please!

Vote Robin!

More election propaganda..but in this case it's for the Council Worker of the Year awards. Robin Pye, who works at Base K/S on Kettlehouse Road is a finalist in the awards, and you can vote for him - by text, by post or online. Robin is an excellent local worker, and provides a unique service for young people in Kingstanding and Oscott in giving young people the opportunity to access Neighbourhood services in an environment where they feel comfortable. You can find out more about Robin's work and how to cast your vote here.

Election Round Up

Now that the dust has settled (and I have caught up on sleep) - election results! We held Kingstanding successfully, with a majority over a thousand for the first time in some years on just under 45% of the vote. The full results were:

Hubert Joseph Duffy Liberal Democrat 330
Sharon Elizabeth Ebanks New Nationalist Party 171
Mark Haddon The Conservative Party 1020
Peter Kane The Labour Party 2025
Geoffrey Tapalu The Green Party 122
Terry John Williams National Front 161
Lee Windridge British National Party 673

It's nice to see a mainstream party back in second place - the Tories came in at 22.6% of the vote, with the BNP trailing third on 16%. Elsewhere in Birmingham we saw four losses - some surprising, some not. The loss of Mike Nangle in Hodge Hill was a huge shock, particularly as Mike had campaigned against the Tesco development which was a huge issue in the ward, and the Lib Dems had supported it. He will be much missed in the Labour Group and in the Council Chamber.

For me, the best result of the night (aside from Peter's win) was the Oscott result. From a majority of just 18 in 2006, Keith Linnecor won the seat with a majority of 675 this time round. The far right vote was down in Oscott as well, but more importantly the Conservative candidate Graham Green only added 37 votes to last years tally (and last year he gained 7 more votes than he did in 2004. Since losing his seat in Oscott to Keith in 1996, Mr Green has stood as a Parliamentary Candidate in both Perry Barr and Selly Oak, and as a Council candidate in Oscott, Perry Barr, Bourneville and Quinton. Let's hope he gets selected for a safer seat next time, eh? Whitby might say that the Tories never expected to do any better this year, but they clearly expected to win Oscott - and will need to if they are to ever run Birmingham without their Lib Dem cronies.

The Final Countdown..

With the elections being called next week and the start of the purdah period, along with the imminent end of the financial year, the last week or so has been a little frenzied in terms of meetings. Looking back over my diary I realised that for every meeting I attended I had to give apologies for at least one other meeting, whereas next week I have just two meetings all week booked in so far..so all the more time for hitting the campaign trail.

I suspect I will have little time in the next few weeks to update this site, so I will wish everyone standing for election this year the very best of luck and roll on May 3rd!

Budget Woes

Yesterday saw a first for the members of the Local Services and Community Safety Scrutiny Committee - our first call-in of a decision, and one requested by the Chair of the Committee at that. The decision in question was on the allocation of funds to voluntary advice agencies, and specifically the decision to withdraw funds from three organisations previously funded by Birmingham City Council - the Irish Welfare and Information Centre, the Asian Welfare Association and the Dyslexia Association.

What was not clear was how this decision had been made - hence the use of the call-in process which brings the Cabinet Member (in this case Jim Whorwood) to the meeting to answer the committees questions. Two of the three organisations - IWIC and AWA, were also in attendance.

From the outset, it was clear that we were not going to get answers from the Cabinet Member, who seemed unable to take any accountability for this decision. Birmingham City Council has been going through a commissioning process in each area of service, but I was unable to get an answer as to who was accountable for the decision made, or how the unallocated resources in the budget would be spent. There seemed to be a push for generalist advice agencies, versus some of the very specific and focused work that these three organisations do. The Committee did decide to call the decision in on a 6-2 vote in favour - interestingly Councillors Robert Alden (Conservative) and Sandra O'Brien (Lib Dem) voted to call in, along with the Labour Members, whereas their colleagues Keith Barton (Conservative) and Robert Wright (Lib Dem) did not. Every call in must be supported by a reason for call-in - and in this case it was recognised that such a controversial decision should be reconsidered.

Without Council funding, the Asian Welfare Association will close. As it is currently the only Advice agency in Bordesley Green Ward - a ward which does not even have a Neighbourhood Office - this will have a detrimental impact on local residents. The Irish Welfare and Information Centre stands to lose a substantial part of its budget for its advice service, and there is no other organisation in Birmingham which provides that level of targeted support to the Irish Community - including their regular drop in sessions in my own ward. We did not receive any information from the Dyslexia Association, but one can only imagine that their level of service will be impeded by any loss of funding.

The particular frustration is being presented with these reports and decisions without any information to explain how or why a decision was made. I can't help wonderering if efficiency savings are being applied to the supply of information in the Council House as well as everything else.

The afternoon session was the Budget meeting - most of the press coverage seems to have covered Mike Whitby's increasingly ill tempered outbursts during the course of the meeting. But when one of his own members was overheard to say that they couldn't understand a word he was saying, it's not surprising that he should resort to insults.

The usual protocol for the Budget is that each of the Party Leaders is allowed to speak for an unlimited time. But following Albert Bore's 73 minute speech, and the flurry of activity amongst the Coalition members to find a constitutional way to stop him (which they were not able to do) and having to stop their members speaking in order to allow the Leader time to reply, it's no surprise that there were dark mutterings about time limits being in place next year following the meeting..

A 24 Hour City?

In dealing with a piece of casework this weekend, I found myself struggling with Council Bureaucracy once again. Returning from a leafleting session on Sunday, I picked up a message regarding a car which had been abandoned and torched the previous night, and was now blocking a resident's driveway. Said resident had spoken to the Police, who had referred her to the Council, but the Council Contact Centre is not open on weekends.

I made a number of calls to various agencies who were able to offer advice but no practical assistance beyond referring me back to Birmingham City Council - who do not answer the phone on weekends. Eventually, both the resident and I, who fortunately have the internet access required to report 'out of hours' issues of this nature reported the problem online, and I chased up by phone first thing Monday morning. I'm pleased to say that the vehicle was removed on Monday, and a quick call to our Environmental Wardens ensured that the debris from the vehicle and the burn was cleaned up. The frustrating aspect is that I was not able to find a way to get the problem sorted sooner just because it happened to be a Sunday. In an organisation the size of BCC it's impossible for anyone to know their way around the system fully, but I will be asking the question to find out if there is some emergency reporting system for issues like this.

A Co-Ordinated Approach

Various people who have commented on the goings on at this weeks full Council Meeting should consider dropping in on meetings of Co-Ordinating Scrutiny, where outbreaks of spontaneous cross-party agreement are not uncommon.

Scrutiny is, of course, intended to be non-political. The application of that principle, however, can come to depend on both the will of the Chair and the participants. To date, I have served on four scrutiny committees - Housing and Urban Renewal, Transportation and Street Services, Local Services and Community Safety and Co-Ordinating, as well as Task and Finish Reviews on Mobile Phone Masts and Local Area Agreements. All have varied in terms of the type of work the committee has focused on and the tone of the meetings. Some are considerably more combative in nature than others (particularly Housing, where the uninivited presence of the Cabinet Member belies his lack of understanding of the process of scrutiny) but in most cases scrutiny meetings are conducted quite amiably and rarely garner the attention of either the press or the public.

Yet for most backbench Councillors Scrutiny is the 'Council House' aspect of our work, as compared to our Ward, Constituency and Campaigning roles. These are the meetings where most of the serious and relevant debate about issues affecting the people of Birmingham goes on - we may produce reports on specific issues, but the committees keep an general overview of the whole area of service which they cover. In terms of time spent in the Council House, and work done, the monthly Council Meeting is a tiny proportion. And it is the meeting which tends to show us all at our worst - Just at the time when the press and members of the public brave enough to sit through the meeting happen to be there.