Why didn’t EDDC get planning permission for the Knowle site BEFORE they offered it to PegasusLife? They might have got up to twice as much for the site?
Category Archives: Accountability
Independent councillor saves the day (again) in Sidmouth
The way of the EDDC world – don’t choose the best long-term option – choose the cheapest short-term option – except when it comes to their own offices,
District chiefs have backed down in the face of united opposition from Sidmouth representatives on a project to shore up the seafront.
East Devon District Council (EDDC) looked set to choose the least expensive scheme, Option 1, but beach management plan (BMP) steering group members said this was putting economics ahead of finding a solution that could protect the town for 100 years.
The authority has agreed to look again to see if £11million can be secured for the ‘technically preferred’ Option 4B, to install breakwaters along the seafront. Option 1, to install one or two groynes at East Beach, would need £2.3million in partnership funding.
EDDC will also sound out key stakeholders on whether they would give their blessing to works that will dramatically change the seafront.
Speaking after Wednesday’s steering group meeting, district councillor Cathy Gardner said: “There was so much opposition in the room to EDDC’s attempts to railroad through Option 1. The BMP is about finding a solution to protect the seafront for the next 100 years, but it’s become about making it affordable. There are so many unknowns. If we find out in a couple of years [the chosen scheme] doesn’t work, we haven’t really achieved anything.”
A report to steering group members from EDDC’s consultants, CH2M, said Option 4B would be the most effective – but it had the ‘worst economic case’, so recommended Option 1.
An EDDC spokeswoman said the authority has done some initial work to look at external funding sources, but securing £11million for Option 4B is ‘unlikely’. To provide ‘further confidence’ in the level of availability, EDDC has formed a sub-group to look specifically at funding over the next six months – while the BMP progresses.
Unless partnership funding can be secured, an Environment Agency (EA) grant of between £5million and £6.75million towards the chosen BMP scheme will not be made available.
Sidmouth Town Council chairman Jeff Turner said: “We’re getting the message that the scheme everybody favours and seems would be most effective is extremely expensive. Funding Option 4B would need such a huge council tax increase across East Devon there would need to be a referendum. The chances of the rest of East Devon supporting that are pretty remote.
“We still back 4B – we haven’t given up on it yet.”
Steering group chairman Cllr Andrew Moulding said: “It is vital that we maintain momentum with this crucial project.
“We are delighted that the local community has committed to working with EDDC and the EA to look at funding, which is crucial to ensure the ongoing protection of Sidmouth.”
He said the BMP is due to be completed this autumn and EDDC is having ongoing discussions with various statutory bodies to ensure the chosen scheme ultimately gains the relevant permissions.”
Well, they could always cancel their plans for their plush offices which will coincidentally cost about £11 million!
And perhaps a joined-up plan for the whole coastline might be a good idea in case there are unintended consequences to other coastal communities?
PFI (2) – Many Scottish schools owned and traded by offshore companies
“More than 200 schools built in Scotland under private finance initiative (PFI) schemes are now at least partially owned by offshore investment funds.
Under PFI, the private sector builds and manages school buildings in return for a fee, typically over 25-30 years.
In one project in Edinburgh, 17 new schools were built, with the council paying £1.5m a month.
Analysis for the BBC found there had been 13 trades involving equity in the Edinburgh schools scheme since 2001.
Although published data does not confirm the exact number of PFI schools owned wholly or partly offshore, it is clear they represent the vast majority.
Stakes in PFI building projects can be sold. They can then be traded on the secondary market to become parts of larger investment funds and pensions, as the monthly fees paid by councils provide a steady income.
Dexter Whitfield, from the European Services Strategy Unit, told a BBC Scotland investigation the Edinburgh PPP1 scheme was now owned by four different companies.
“Those four different companies are located offshore in Guernsey and Jersey, and they are basically controlled by shareholders,” he said.
A critic of PFI, he has described the projects as “wealth machines”, adding: “There are an awful lot of people making very substantial sums of money out of it.”
The 17 schools built in Edinburgh under PPP1 were closed for repairs earlier this year after construction faults were found.
The problems – with wall and header ties, used to hold exterior and interior walls together and attach them to the rest of the building – first became apparent when part of a wall at Oxgangs Primary fell during stormy weather.
About 7,600 primary and secondary school children in the capital were eventually affected.
An independent inquiry into the matter will consider whether the private finance method contributed to the structural issues with the buildings.
The City of Edinburgh Council said the schools would be safe and well-maintained for as long as the contract is in place.
Andrew Kerr, the chief executive of City of Edinburgh Council, said the terms of the contract ensured that schools are kept in a good condition.
“That’s something that was decided 10, 15 years ago. Our job is to make sure we manage that contract going forward as well as it can be,” he added.
There are 93 PFI projects in Scotland – responsible for hundreds of schools, road, hospitals and energy projects – and worth more than £6bn.”u
PFI (1) – tax avoidance and rape of public assets by all mainstream political parties
“The scandal of Edinburgh’s unsafe schools is the last gasp of a discredited model of public finance, forced on us by a tax-avoiding governing class.
The Acronym Soup can get confusing. PPP, PFI, NPD – they are all hurled about, but there will certainly be no alphabet learning for more than 7,000 pupils across Edinburgh locked out of school since the Easter break as building safety standards are assessed and repairs undertaken. The schools were built under the controversial private finance initiative – PFI – by the Labour/Liberal Democrat administration at Holyrood, and there’s now even talk that some of them may need to be knocked down and rebuilt.
Serious defects found at two more Edinburgh schools built using PFI
As a tangible symbol of rip-off Britain and the failed privatisation of the public sector, it is exemplary. In a week where the reality gap between rich and poor and the fetid reality of our tax-dodging governing class has been laid bare, it feels like the end of a really bad experiment. The system is discredited. The model is broken. It is crumbling before our eyes.
What have the Panama Papers got to do with schools in Edinburgh? It’s a perpetual circle. Tax avoidance drains money from society, forcing solutions that suit private contractors and let politicians off the hook.
These building problems raise significant wider issues about how we finance big public building programmes, and it’s not just about schools.
As early as 2011, BBC Alba’s Eorpa programme revealed that some contracts included leases lasting more than a century. The contract for the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary building lasts 25 years, but the lease on the land is for 130 years. It’s a debt we’ll have to pay for years to come.
George Monbiot has called PFI: “A racket, the legacy of 13 years of New Labour appeasement, triangulation and false accounting.” Certainly this scheme, which started under the John Major government, was enthusiastically embraced by Blair and Brown’s administrations. Scotland wasn’t just the testing ground for this disaster (the first PFI project in Britain was the Skye bridge), it has a far higher proportion than anywhere else. As the writer Gerry Hassan pointed out: “Scotland has 40% of PFI schools with 8.5% of the population.” Why is that? The journalist Mark Leftly suggests it was Brown who persuaded Blair to take PFI forward – resulting in a debt Leftly puts at a cool £222bn.
Predictably the political parties have been trying to blame each other. The beleaguered Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, said that “she had nothing too apologise for, for building schools”, and her Conservative counterpart, Ruth Davidson, had the brass neck to claim it was the Scottish government’s fault for not monitoring the building work. The Liberal Democrats have called for an inquiry, a move they may regret.
Others have been dismissing the whole affair as simply a case of “poor construction”. Yet as many have pointed out, that’s a hell of a coincidence. Unison’s Dave Watson has argued that there’s a built-in likelihood of cost-cutting: “There is a profit incentive to keep costs to the minimum. Any saving that the construction partner can make increases profits to both the construction company and the other SPV [special purpose vehicle] partners. There is therefore a stronger cost-saving incentive than in conventional procurement.”
PFI was widely used by the Labour/Liberal Democrat executive and scrapped by the SNP when it came to power in 2007. The SNP then established the Scottish Futures Trust and introduced the non-profit distribution (NPD) model. NPD differs from PFI in that contractors invest solely in the debt of a project, not putting in any equity and not receiving returns on their capital investment. Critics argue that it’s not as different as its supporters make out.
But the sorry saga is not just about private solutions that don’t work. PFI fundamentally alters the relationship between the citizen and the state, so that our public bodies, buildings and institutions are no longer owned by, or accountable to, us. It’s a failure of democracy, not just bad accounting. In this way it’s not just a turn away from public ownership, from the protection of a non-commoditised realm in areas of common good such as “health” and “education”. It’s a turn not just from public to private, but from public to secret.
That’s a defining characteristic of the tax-avoidance culture we’re getting a glimpse of. This is a world in which the Tory MP Alan Duncan warns us that “we risk seeing a House of Commons which is stuffed full of low achievers who hate enterprise, hate people who look after their own family and know absolutely nothing about the outside world” – and Fraser Nelson, the Spectator editor, can tell Channel 4 News: “In Britain we tend to keep these things private”.
It’s a world in which Toby Young pleads: “Winston Churchill was notoriously bad with money. He borrowed and spent with abandon, ran up huge debts, and was an inveterate gambler. If he’d been forced to ‘come clean’ about his financial affairs, he’d have been hounded from office.”
This week is reminiscent of the end days of Major’s sleaze meltdown, and it’s no coincidence that PFI is at the heart of the crumbing ideological shambles. Yesterday it emerged that a fund registered in a tax haven owns a 20% stake in the schools. Something called the John Laing Infrastructure Fund has its registered office in Guernsey, though a spokesman has said that the company pays tax in the UK.
We have a governing class that has been found out, and it needs to be dragged out of the shadows of backroom deals and casino culture. Why should our children have to put up with shoddy, potentially dangerous buildings? That’s a disgrace in 2016.”
Scrutiny, scrutiny, scrutiny
“The Department for Communities & Local Government has been urged to develop a closer relationship with councils to better mitigate the risks of service failures that led to Whitehall interventions in Rotherham and Tower Hamlets. …
… The interventions should highlight to councils the need to ensure that proper checks and balances and scrutiny arrangements are in place to drive a culture of transparency and continuous improvement, the review also concluded. Whitehall should consider additional oversight measures for councils exiting from interventions, such as the phased withdrawal of commissioners, assurances from external auditors or monitoring by other councils.” …
“Councillors have no power”
“Sick of seeing Falmouth planning decisions overturned by centralised bodies with no local knowledge, one woman has launched a campaign to change the “undemocratic” planning process.
Kathryn Philpott has been spurred on to launch her petition, ‘Give Our Councils The Power To Make A Decision,’ after plans for Bosvale in Falmouth went to appeal at the Planning Inspectorate in Bristol, and plans for 94 homes at Poolfield in Budock were granted on appeal. Both had been refused permission by Cornwall Council following objections from Falmouth Town Council.
She said: “I think the most important thing I have realised is that our council has no real authority.
“Right through the county people are up in arms because their local councillors have got no power to stop building on inappropriate places.
“An issue for everyone here is that they have just passed out of county permission to build on the fields leading up to Budock Church. A stunningly beautiful area.
“It was taken off our council and taken out of county for the decision.”
She added: “Can someone tell me why we have a democratic vote to elect our counsellors to work on our behalf, protecting our county, as every time a planning issue arises and is turned down it immediately goes out of our county to a person or persons that know nothing about the wishes of the general public.
“We seem to have a democracy that is ill equipped to stand up for us. In fact it is very undemocratic to take a decision of this magnitude and sweep over our local council rendering them powerless.”
Kathryn has also said that having a Neighbourhood Plan in place would prevent developers “building everywhere” – a process which is already underway.
She is concerned that current developments pay no heed to problems like drainage and sewage, or to local amenity and open space.
But she is also worried that developers are rushing to get their planning applications in now, before Falmouth’s Neighbourhood Plan comes into effect, with designated areas for housing or other development, as well as areas that cannot be built on.
She said: “People are frantically putting their applications in because they want to get in before the Neighbourhood Plan comes into place, because that will be the end of this building.”
Kathryn wants appeals to go back to Cornwall Council for reconsideration rather than to the Planning Inspectorate, and is petitioning the government to give local councils the final say on planning decisions, not just in Cornwall but nationwide.
She needs 100,000 signatures if she is to hope to have the issue debated in parliament, and so needs her petition to circulate much further than Falmouth, although she has started a physical petition at Boslowick Garage for those without access to the internet.
She said: “Now is he time if people want to act. Now is their chance, but they have got to stand up and say, it’s people power.”
To sign the petition go to: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/give-our-councils-the-power-to-make-a-decision
Whose Standards?
WHO MONITORS THE MONITORS?
If you are a parish, town or district councillor who gets on the wrong side of East Devon District Council’s Monitoring Officer and the controversial “Standards Board” who will be the “independent” person appointed to investigate, report and recommend a verdict and sanction?
Step forward Mr Tim Darsley, for whom these little dramas have been a welcome source of income since he took a six figure redundancy payment from West Wiltshire Council in 2009. Mr Darsley is the go-to person for EDDC and has been paid consultancy fees for a good number of cases over the years.
So, who is Mr Darsley and what makes him uniquely qualified for this job?
Darsley’s title in West Wiltshire was Corporate Director Planning Services and Monitoring Officer. An interesting combination of responsibilities, one our EDDC officers and senior councillors EDDC might well relish.
Here is background:
“THE creation of a single Wiltshire council next month will cost the taxpayer £5.5 million in redundancy packages.
Altogether 29 redundancies will be made when the four district and one county councils merge into a single unitary council on April 1.
The five employees being made redundant from West Wiltshire District Council will share a £950,000 redundancy payout.
Last July the implementation executive, which included councillors representing all five councils, agreed to introduce a redundancy package for staff.
It was decided that any council worker losing their job as a result of the merger would receive four times the redundancy package owed to them. A budget of £7 million was agreed. The amount offered is decided using a formula, which includes length of service, age, salary and years left to retirement.
The five being made redundant from West Wiltshire are Ian Gallin, acting chief executive; Ian Jamieson, finance director; Sharon Larkin, human resources director; Nicola Mathieson, head of legal services and Tim Darsley, corporate director planning and monitoring officer. …
… West Wiltshire leader Cllr Graham Payne said: “It’s difficult to see how the county council can claim that they are saving money for the taxpayer when the redundancy costs throughout the county are £5.5 million.”
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/headlines/4219278.__5_5m_payout_as_jobs_go_at_councils/
Evidence from a Freedom of Information request in 2013 showed that, over a 2 year period Mr Darsley’s services were used no less than 14 times with one investigation costing just over £1,400:
“1. Please can you tell the total cost of the EDDC investigation into the complaint made against Cllr Eileen Wragg brought by Richard Cohen, Deputy Chief Executive, which was heard by the Standards Committee
The total cost paid to the Investigating Officer was £1405.86 (including VAT)
Undertaking investigation and preparing report into complaint: £900
Attendance by Investigating Officer at hearing – preparation and attendance: £420
Travel (@45p per mile): £85.86
These costs do not include officer time.
2. How many times has Tim Darsley been used by EDDC to conduct independent investigations into complaints made against councillors?
14 (2011 – 2013)
3. Have any other independent investigators been used by EDDC in the last two years to conduct independent investigations into Councillors?
No”
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cost_of_investigation
In police forces officers are frequently moved to avoid institutionalisation and the danger of becoming too identified with one team.
Might it be time for EDDC to employ some fresh monitoring eyes and ears?
Standards watchdog worried about ineffectiveness of sanctions
Not the only one watchdog, not the only one.
“There is some evidence to suggest that the role of independent person in local government standards is generally well received and that vexatious complaints are falling, the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) has said.
However, in its 2015/16 annual report
Click to access CSPL_Annual_Report_2015-2015.pdf
published this month, the CSPL said the effectiveness of the sanctions regime was “still a concern”.
The CSPL agreed at the time of the Localism Act to maintain a watching brief on: the need for a mandatory code of conduct; strong local leadership; effective independent persons; and concern at the lack of sanctions.
The committee said it had received correspondence both from members of the public, councils and councillors on the issue of standards. “This correspondence includes, for example, calls for a national code of conduct, strengthened guidelines or sanctions or a power of recall.”
It added that it continued “to invite councils to consider whether their own local standards frameworks are sufficient to address standards breaches and build public trust”.
The CSPL said it would also continue to liaise with the relevant stakeholders on the way in which ethical standards could effectively be embedded in all parts of local government.”
Companies House plan will hide Ministers’ links to firms, says Labour
“Historical links between ministers and former businesses will be hidden from the public if the government goes ahead with changes to Companies House, Labour has said.
Proposals to reduce the amount of time records of dissolved companies are retained could mean that the former directorships of 24 current Conservative ministers would no longer be accessible, research from the party suggests.
Their previous links to 48 now dissolved companies and organisations would be deleted either immediately or over the course of the parliament.
Ministers who could be affected include the chancellor, Philip Hammond, who is a former director of six dissolved companies; the home secretary, Amber Rudd; the defence secretary, Michael Fallon; and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt. …”
What happens when your town falls out of favour with its Local Enterprise Partnership?
Hugo … Neil … where are you …? What is our LEP going to fund in our towns and villages in East Devon?
From Hansard: 21 July 2016
Sir David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the distribution of funds by local enterprise partnerships? The LEP in our area had Southend as No. 4 on its list and we have dropped off the radar dramatically. Something needs to be looked at there.
The Leader of the House of Commons, Mr David Lidington
My understanding is that that was an internal decision by the local enterprise partnership for south Essex, and I encourage my hon. Friend to make representations—I am sure he will do—on behalf of his constituents to the LEP. If that is not successful, I am sure that the relevant Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will be keen to hear from him.
https://www.davidamess.co.uk/news/sir-david-calls-debate-local-enterprise-partnerships
Local NHS “Success Regime” not succesful
“Criticisms have been made over how long it is taking to reach the public consultation stage of the Success Regime.
The national intervention programme is aimed at reducing Devon’s worrying massive health service debt.It has narrowed down its focus for cuts, but details of those are yet to be made public.
Assurances have been made there will be a public consultation as the programme is set to deliver significant changes and cuts to health services. However, despite hopes of a summer consultation, no date has yet been confirmed for when the information will be made public and when the consultation will begin. …”
Radical Icelandic Pirate Party in pre-election lead: reinventing democracy
“One of Europe’s most radical political parties is expected to gain its first taste of power after Iceland’s ruling coalition and opposition agreed to hold early elections caused by the Panama Papers scandal in October.
Iceland PM steps aside after protests over Panama Papers revelations
The Pirate party, whose platform includes direct democracy, greater government transparency, a new national constitution and asylum for US whistleblower Edward Snowden, will field candidates in every constituency and has been at or near the top of every opinion poll for over a year.
As befits a movement dedicated to reinventing democracy through new technology, it also aims to boost the youth vote by persuading the company developing Pokémon Go in Iceland to turn polling stations into Pokéstops.
“It’s gradually dawning on us, what’s happening,” Birgitta Jónsdóttir, leader of the Pirates’ parliamentary group, told the Guardian. “It’s strange and very exciting. But we are well prepared now. This is about change driven not by fear but by courage and hope. We are popular, not populist.”
The election, likely to be held on 29 October, follows the resignation of Iceland’s former prime minister, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who became the first major victim of the Panama Papers in April after the leaked legal documents revealed he had millions of pounds of family money offshore.
In the face of some of the largest protests the small North Atlantic island had ever seen, the ruling Progressive and Independence parties replaced Gunnlaugsson with the agriculture and fisheries minister, Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, and promised elections before the end of the year.
Founded four years ago by a group of activists and hackers as part of an international anti-copyright movement, Iceland’s Pirates captured five per cent of the vote in 2013 elections, winning three seats in the country’s 63-member parliament, the Althingi.
“Then, they were clearly a protest vote against the establishment,” said Eva Heida Önnudóttir, a political scientist at the University of Iceland who compares the party’s appeal to Icelandic voters to that of Spain’s Podemos, or Syriza in Greece.
“Three years later, they’ve distinguished themselves more clearly; it’s not just about protest. Even if they don’t have clear policies in many areas, people are genuinely drawn to their principles of transforming democracy and improving transparency.”
Propelled by public outrage at what is widely perceived as endemic cronyism in Icelandic politics and the seeming impunity of the country’s wealthy few, support for the party – which hangs a skull-and-crossbones flag in its parliamentary office – has rocketed.
A poll of polls for the online news outlet Kjarninn in late June had the Pirates comfortably the country’s largest party on 28.3%, four points clear of their closest rival, Gunnlaugsson’s conservative Independence party.
That lead has since narrowed slightly but most analysts are confident the Pirates will return between 18 and 20 MPs to the Althingi in October, putting them in a strong position to form Iceland’s next government.
Jónsdóttir said the party was willing to form a government with any coalition partner who subscribes to its agenda of “fundamental system change” – something the Independence party has already ruled out.
“I look at us and I think, we are equipped to do this,” she said. “Actually, the fact we haven’t done it before and that we won’t have any old-school people telling us how, means we’ll do it more carefully. We will be doing things very differently.”
Built on the belief that new technologies can help promote civic engagement and government transparency and accountability, the party believes in an “unlimited right” for citizens to be involved in the political decisions that affect them, with ordinary voters able to propose new legislation and decide on it in national referendums.
It also wants no limit on individuals’ rights to express their views and share information, unless doing so violates others’ rights, and proposes to decriminalise drugs, raise taxes on the rich, and pursue internet freedoms and copyright reform.
Önnudóttir said she could “very easily see” the party winning 20-25% of the vote. “After that, their success will depend on what they can really deliver, how much they make of their first term,” she said. “With numbers like those, you risk becoming a part of the establishment.”
“Beyond metro mayors and ‘secret deals’: rethinking devolution in England”
The number of people who realise the devolution emperor had no clothes is growing.
“Beyond metro mayors and ‘secret deals’: rethinking devolution in England
As the guard changes in Westminster and new government seeks to differentiate itself from its predecessor, it is timely to review the state of the devolution debate, argues John Tomaney. Policymakers need to learn from the US experience and reconsider the fixation on mayors. Just as importantly, the problem with ‘secret deals’ must be addressed if devolution is going to have any real democratic credentials.
The Cameron/Osborne approach to devolution had a number of distinctive features. Chief among these was its fixation with the directly elected metro-mayor as the answer to urban governance problem. In the government’s diagnosis this model of governance addresses weaknesses in fragmented systems, improves democratic accountability and bring city- regions together round common economic development strategies. The government claimed:
The experience of London and other major international cities suggests that a directly elected mayor can cut through difficulties [of urban governance]. The government has therefore been clear that devolution of significant powers will rest on cities agreeing to rationalise governance and put in place a mayor to inspire confidence
But there is limited evidence to support these claims about the impact of directly elected mayors on local economic growth and the improvement of local services. Many of the assertions made in the English debate rest on more or less persuasive anecdotes drawn principally from the US experience and the limited experience in London.
The Limits of Metro-Mayors
Strong US mayors, with access to locally tax raised taxes, are seen as leading the renaissance of US cities. For instance, the economic resurgence of New York City is often attributed to the pro-business policies of ‘strong mayors’ such as Michael Bloomberg.
Rather less attention, however, is devoted to counterfactuals. We might look at the case of Detroit, where ‘strong mayors’ have presided over a vicious circle of economic decline and municipal bankruptcy. A high degree of local self-finance, far from ensuring resilience, was arguably a causal factor in the precipitous decline of Detroit. The mayoral system is in crisis there.
In 2013, the sixty-fifth mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, was sentenced to twenty-eight years in prison after being convicted of a variety of corruption charges. The city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and the State of Michigan appointed an emergency manager to assume control of the council.
Strong mayors can lead to hubris and overreach and be the antithesis of models of policy-making based on deliberation and increased accountability and scrutiny. Mayors have managed both the rapid recent growth of New York City and the catastrophic decline of Detroit. Isolating the influence of mayors among the many other factors at work in these cases is very difficult.
One thing that can be said with certainty is that the mayors have not presided over an era of a democratic renewal. On the contrary, the US mayoral system has been associated with declining levels of electoral participation in the big cities.
At the time that Robert F Wagner Jnr was elected as mayor of New York City in 1953, voter turnout was over 90 per cent. By the time Bill de Blasio was elected 109th mayor in 2013, voter turnout was less than 30 per cent. Similar rates of decline in voter turnout can be seen in cities such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Chicago. These declines in voter turnouts have occurred, moreover, in cities that are endowed with much more extensive local media than is the case in northern English cities.
A key feature of the US mayoral model concerns how it facilitates close relationships between local political and business elites in ways which typically lack transparency and scrutiny and which underpin models of economic development that favour urban property interests. It is this aspect of the US model that seems to have had a particular influence in UK policy debates. For instance, at the 2015 Conservative party conference in Manchester, George Osborne proposed that where elected mayors had been created, they would have the power to add a (capped) infrastructure levy on business rates.
There is considerable uncertainty about how both the devolution of business rates and the infrastructure levy would work in practice, but the government is clear that a levy can only be raised if a majority of ‘business members’ of the boards of Local Enterprise Partnerships agree.
In effect, resources will only be allowed to be spent on infrastructure projects that are approved by a handful of ‘business leaders’. It might fairly be asked why the interests of a small number of appointed businesspeople should trump the mandate of an elected mayor. It might even be argued that this development represents a partial return of the franchise property qualification which was abolished by the Representation of the People Act in 1918.
The problem with secret deals
The new devolution arrangements are not the product of wide public debate in the areas to be affected by them, but instead are the outcomes of ‘secret deals’ (‘City Deals’, ‘Devolution Deals’, etc.) between political and business elites at the national and local levels, exemplified in the case of Manchester.
In essence, these deals are assembled locally from a menu of policies approved by HM Treasury. It stretches the imagination to see this approach as leading to meaningful democratic renewal. On the contrary, the model of devolution currently on offer is one designed to advance a narrowly defined set of business interests with very little democratic scrutiny. Arguably, it is this approach to politics that was rejected in the Brexit referendum.
Underpinning the new policy is a theory of economic development that fosters interurban competition and economic concentration, tolerates and indeed even celebrates high levels of socio-economic inequality, is comfortable with some groups and places being losers and locks-in enduring austerity, most especially in the places that have borne the brunt of public expenditure cuts to date. Innovation and entrepreneurialism in economic development is tolerated only within a highly restricted range of parameters. It is a form of devolution in which ‘business’ exercises a direct and indirect veto over the preferences of citizens. The emerging settlement is akin to the model of ‘post-democracy’, as elaborated by Colin Crouch, whereby formal mechanisms of accountability exist, but their practical role is increasingly limited and embodies the interest of a small elite.
In a country as centralised as the UK, the case for devolution is strong in principle. But as the Cameron/Osborne era is put to rest, this might be an appropriate moment to the reconsider the narrow model that has been offer to date.
Note: This blog draws from the journal article ‘ Limits of Devolution: Localism, Economics and Post-democracy’, published by Political Quarterly.
“Greater Exeter” moves on apace – and Greater Plymouth
Local Government is in a particularly fluid and unstable situation at the moment. Brexit is ripping many plans and budgets wide apart, particularly where Local Enterprise Partnerships and local councils were relying heavily on EU funding or EU-based projects, such as Hinkley C.
There have been hints that the new government is not enamoured of some of the devolution bids and that unitary councils (which would see the demise of district councils) may now be back on the table.
Plymouth, the South Hams and West Devon also seem to be working towards a “Greater Plymouth”:
Click to access 201606The_Plymouth_and_South_West_Devon_Joint_Local_Plan_Newsletter_PDF.pdf
Are we seeing the first signs of an anti-unitary move that would allow our two cities to work autonomously rather than Devon-wide? Is it an insurance policy against the increasing powers being grabbed by our LEP?
Whatever it is – it is being done yet again with no consultation and meetings behind closed doors.
Owl wonders what Mrs May thinks of these legacies of Mr Cameron and, more specifically, Mr Osborne.
Here is an up-to-date post on moves towards a “Greater Exeter”:
In a previous post
Whose Vision is it anyway? Part 1
I highlighted the flamboyantly named Greater Exeter Visioning Board, announced with a fanfare of trumpets and then shifted off into the dark shadows of proceedings held behind firmly closed doors. This post reports the uncomfortable outcome of my further investigations.
Having been told by Exeter City Council that the minutes of the Visioning Board were not made public, I asked some more questions. The City Council’s answers are below.
Q1: Under what authority the board was established and who agreed its terms of reference?
A1: A Memorandum of Understanding was agreed by the Leaders and Chief Executives of Exeter City Council, East Devon District Council and Teignbridge District Council in November 2014. The Memorandum of Understanding is not a legally binding document but all parties use all reasonable endeavours to comply with the terms and spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding.
Q2: The reasons for its decision not to publish agendas and minutes?
A2: Many of the issues that are discussed at the Board relate to the growth of the Greater Exeter area. It is considered that the board needs to be able to have open discussions through which they can develop ideas, debate live issues and reach decisions. Disclosure of these discussions may inhibit the imparting or commissioning of advice, or the offering or requesting of opinions for consideration.
Q3: Whether it reports its proceedings to councillors and, if so, what opportunities are open to councillors to scrutinise its work?
A3: Council Leaders and Deputy Leaders from each of the three authorities sit on the board.
Q4: If it does not report its proceedings to councillors, to whom is the board accountable?
So what’s next?
We can at least now speculate what the Visioning Board was up to. On 12 July, the City Council’s Executive (the lead councillors) discussed a report by the Assistant Director City Development which set out proposals for establishing:
“a joint strategic plan for the Greater Exeter area which would be prepared in partnership between East Devon District Council, Exeter City Council, Mid Devon District Council and Teignbridge District Council with assistance from Devon County Council. The plan would cover the geographical area of the 4 partner authorities (excluding the area of Dartmoor National Park) but would be limited in scope to cover strategic issues and strategic allocations within those areas with local issues to be considered through linked local plans prepared by each partner authority for their area.” [1]
This was nodded through and then approved by the full Council on 26 July.
In a future post I will explore the challenges for serious public engagement presented by this form of joint working. For the moment, let’s just say that the gestation of this proposal behind closed doors, and the underlying assumption that joint planning is a technocratic issue rather than something which asks the communities what sort of Greater Exeter we want (if indeed we want one at all) does not augur well.
Or is there another agenda?
Of course, I might be completely wrong, and the Greater Exeter Visioning Board has been discussing something completely different. But if so, what? A Greater Exeter Unitary Authority perhaps? There is an obvious link between the joint strategic plan proposal and the so-called “Devolution” bid for spending powers to be transferred from central government to the “Heart of the South West”, made up of Devon County Council, Somerset County Council, Torbay Council and Plymouth City Council [2]. The district councils like Exeter are at present secondary players in this, a position with which Exeter for one is not comfortable.
NOTES:
[1] The full report is at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/documents/s52597/EXECUTIVE%20-%20Proposed%20Greater%20Exeter%20Strategic%20Plan%20-%2012%20July%202016%20-%20FINAL.pdf
[2] I will have more to say about the “Devolution” bid in a later post . Meanwhile a useful update is at item 76 of the minutes of the Exeter City Council Executive meeting on 12 July, at http://committees.exeter.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=112&MId=4469&Ver=4
Source: https://agreeninexeter.com
Hinkley C: conflicts of interest on both sides of the channel
An eerily similar situation to our own, where several members of the Board of our Local Enterprise Partnership will gain for their own companies or establishments from the Hinkley C project. But no abstentions on our side either!
“French firms Bouygues and Vallourec denied that members of their boards who are also on the board of EDF had a conflict of interest when they voted in favour of the French utility’s Hinkley Point nuclear project in Britain.
EDF’s board narrowly approved the controversial 18 billion pound project in a 10-7 vote on July 28. EDF unions argue the project should be delayed because of its financial risk and said on Monday that conflicts of interest in EDF’s board might have impacted the vote.
They say three EDF (EDF.PA) board members are also on the boards of other firms that are EDF customers, which could benefit from Hinkley Point, and should therefore have abstained.
Hours after the EDF board’s decision, the Britgish government announced a surprise decision to review the project, delaying its verdict until early autumn.
EDF board member Colette Lewiner is also on the board of construction firm Bouygues, (BOUY.PA) set to be one of the main contractors for Hinkley Point.
“There was no conflict of interest with regard to Mme. Lewiner,” a Bouygues spokesman said on Wednesday.
He said Lewiner is an independent Bouygues board member with whom management cannot interfere. He added that Bouygues decisions about Hinkley Point are not taken at board level.
Lewiner did not return a request for comment.
In October 2013, a joint venture of Bouygues unit Bouygues Travaux Publics (TP) and British firm Laing O’Rourke said it had been confirmed as preferred delivery partner for the main Hinkley Point civil engineering and construction contract, valued at over 2 billion pounds.
EDF board member Philippe Crouzet is also chairman of the board of Vallourec (VLLP.PA), whose Valinox unit makes tubes for nuclear power plants.
A spokeswoman confirmed Vallourec sells steel tubes for steam generators to Areva (AREVA.PA), which will deliver the two Hinkley Point reactors. She would not reveal sales data for individual clients nor comment on Crouzet’s Hinkley Point vote.
She added that Vallourec’s nuclear activities represent only about three percent of the group’s worldwide turnover.
“It is definitely not core business,” she said.
Vallourec says on its website it has been a partner of France’s nuclear industry from the outset and will play a key role in renovating the country’s nuclear power plants.
Finally, EDF board member Christian Masset, secretary general of the French foreign affairs ministry, is also on Areva’s board. Masset did not respond to a request for comment.
Earlier this year, Areva board chairman Philippe Varin stepped down from his EDF board mandate after unions and the French press raised questions about a possible conflict of interest between the two positions.”
Devolution – not in Derbyshire’s back yard if they can help it!
THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT! And Derbyshire doesn’t even have a Local Enterprise Partnership to muddy the waters even further:
“Derbyshire County Council has decided to launch legal action against Sheffield City Region (SCR) Combined Authority over proposals to put some county council services in the hands of the city-region’s new mayor.
The county council’s leader, Cllr Anne Western, said the authority is seeking permission from the High Court for a judicial review of these proposals, outlined in a SCR public consultation exercise that Derbyshire has branded “misleading, flawed and insufficient” – and therefore unlawful.
Cllr Western acknowledged that the council might be criticised for the decision, but stressed it is important to “act now and send out a strong message to help put a stop to these proposals, or risk Chesterfield spending the next 30 years living in South Yorkshire’s shadow”.
SCR’s consultation, which closes on 12 August, could transfer responsibility over some of the county council’s services to the Sheffield mayor, including decisions over major roads, funding for maintenance and road safety on all roads in the borough, public transport and travel concessions, skills for employment and major planning and investment projects.
“If these proposals go ahead, it will affect the people of Chesterfield and Derbyshire for generations to come and yet the consultation doesn’t tell the full story or ask the right questions − so how can people give an informed view?” Cllr Western said.
“The county council has a responsibility to act in the best interests of all its residents and we could not sit idly by and watch South Yorkshire break up Derbyshire without a proper consultation.
“The fact is that if Chesterfield becomes a full member of SCR it will undoubtedly be at a huge financial cost to Derbyshire County Council − and therefore Derbyshire taxpayers − in making our services fit in with new arrangements for Chesterfield, not to mention around £1m in business rates from Markham Vale which would all be transferred to SCR.”
She stressed that if the plans – which the county council is asking to be legally quashed – go ahead, it would be a “big decision with no easy way back” should Chesterfield join the SCR Combined Authority. This would be despite the county council’s own online poll, which received 4,000 responses, showing that 92% of residents reject proposals to join the city-region’s authority.
As well as being a “leap in the dark” given no other council in the country has joined a combined authority outside their county border, which Derbyshire would be forced to do, plans are raising concerns of representation.
The county council said that because Chesterfield is better off than most of Sheffield and South Yorkshire, the new mayor could push its needs to the back of the queue. The mayor could also end up having “little regard” for residents in neighbouring Derbyshire districts, resulting in a potential change to transport services and therefore general borough connectivity.
It also criticised the fact that Derbyshire and Chesterfield councils would only have one vote each in joint decisions, while Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster – the members of SCR – would have two each.
The future of Chesterfield would also inevitably be tied to SCR’s 30-year devolution plan, despite only the first few years of investment in the borough having been outlined so far.
“We’ve got a moral duty to fight for our residents and protect them against things we believe will put them at a disadvantage,” Cllr Western continued.
“Chesterfield is Derbyshire’s biggest town, most people who live there also work in Derbyshire and they don’t want to become a suburb of Sheffield − which is effectively what will happen if these plans go ahead.”
According to SCR’S Twitter, the combined authority has received over 2,200 responses to the consultation so far.”
Exmouth seafront tenders – time for review?
In response to a Freedom of Information request (below) on 15 February 2016, EDDC refused to divulge any information about the Moirai tender bid for Exmouth seafront.
Owl thinks that now this process has been abandoned, EDDC must divulge this information and that other bidders have no right to keep their bids secret.
Anyone fancy another request?
“Q 1. What information do you hold about any/all organisation that made enquiries in response to JLL’s marketing exercise in respect of the proposals ?
I refer you back to our previous response dated 16th February and quote from this below:
You also asked for the names of the organisations who submitted a bid for this work having been provided already with the number of organisations involved. In considering your request we have contacted the other organisations who submitted a bid and they have confirmed our view that this detail, at this point in time, is commercially confidential to them. We are therefore withholding this detail under Regulation 12(5)(e) of the Environmental Information Regulations.
I confirm that this response still stands and is directly relevant to this question and questions 2, 3, and 4 below.
Q 2. Who were the two applicants who were not chosen at the final interview ?
See above
Q 3.Did any of the two unsuccessful developers include ‘residential’ elements in their proposals? If so details please/
See above
Q 4. Please supply fullest details of the proposals that the two unsuccessful applicants offered.
See above
Q 5. Please provide details of all persons who comprised the selection panel that chose Moirai.
The selection panel was made up of Cllr John Humphreys, Cllr Tim Wood, Cllr Andrew Moulding, Richard Cohen and Alison Hayward
Q.6. Can you kindly confirm that the number of organisations, out of the 4,000 plus that were contacted by JLL, who chose to submit themselves to the final selection process was only three?
4 were initially interviewed and then, in March 2015, we considered 3.
Q 7. Taking into account EDDC’s promise to the public on the non-inclusion of ‘residential’ on the Queen’s Drive site, did any member, officer or advisor ever consider that EDDC’s ‘offer’ to developers had failed to attract a suitable candidate for preferred developer? If so full details please.
No information held”
Conservative councillors in Exmouth do not see eye to eye it seems
From a correspondent:
This evening, Exmouth Town Council met to discuss the planning application to demolish Jungle Fun and Crazy Golf.
There was a packed public gallery and councillors Fred Caygill (Conservative), Brenda Taylor (Liberal Democrat) and Tim Dumper (Liberal Democrat) did what they should do – spoke to represent the views of residents. Exmouth Town Council then voted 4 to 3 against the application. Councillors Caygill, Taylor, Dumper and Masding (Green) voted against.
However, one councillor – Conservative Bill Nash – caused quite a stir.
Councillor Nash was the first councillor to speak after public speaking ended, first requesting a recorded vote and then speaking in support of the application. He turned to the public gallery to speak in what seemed to be a very heated way, and appeared to have the erroneous idea that all the public were worried about was phase 3 (the final stages of development as planned). He seemed agitated and several people thought he spoke somewhat patronisingly, saying that it was “a straightforward demolition”. He did not seem amenable to any discussion with anyone who did not share this viewpoint.
After the recorded vote, and as the public left the gallery, councillor Nash turned to councillor Fred Caygill (who was sitting next to him) and appeared to say to him, in a very agitated and angry way, that he wanted a quiet word with him for a couple of minutes.
Cllr Caygill, to his credit, did not rise to this but – as Chair Councillor Lynn Elson became aware that members of the public were watching this exchange – she advised them to stop.
It was not clear from the exchange exactly what Councillor Nash wished to discuss with Councillor Caygill after the meeting.
EDF board members: conflict of interest?
“EDF’s decision to invest in the £18bn Hinkley Point should be declared invalid, French trade unions have said, as pressure builds against the troubled nuclear power plant project. …
… The CGT, CFE-CGC and FO unions said not enough consideration was given to whether EDF board members were subject to a conflict of interest, because some are employed by companies that stand to benefit from Hinkley.
“Who can say that with a rigorous management of the conflicts of interest and real transparency of information, the board decision would not have been different,” the unions said. …”
It seems that conflicts f interest are simply swept under many carpets these days.
Our Local Enterprise Partnership has several members with direct and indirect nuclear interests.
Can the NHS add up? Not in Sidmouth and Ottery
“Health bosses have been warned that a lack of trust and transparency continues to hang over the future of hospitals in Sidmouth and Ottery St Mary.
The NHS Success Regime – tasked with determining the model of care provision – has been called to account in the wake of cancelled public meetings and discrepancies in published figures over hospital beds.
Representatives from the region’s health and care forums (HCF) have said better community engagement is needed. They have also questioned how decisions are being reached after one document stated the daily cost of a community bed in East Devon was £750, and another at £313. The correct figure for the average cost of an occupied community hospital bed in East Devon is £289.
Chief executive of the Success Regime Angela Pedder has apologised for the error, but reiterated that the status quo does not ensure the best outcomes for patients.
In letters sent to Ms Pedder on behalf of the region’s HCF, Ottery town councillor Elli Pang said: “A lack of trust and transparency continues. We can agree with you that our objectives are also to maximise best outcomes for patients. We would, however, challenge that your actions will achieve that in the short-term if you follow rigidly the idea of community bed removal.”
Speaking at an Ottery Town Council meeting on Monday, she revealed that an event on the future of the town’s hospital had been cancelled and expressed fears that the outcome of a future consultation has been predetermined. …”
East Devon Watch 