…
But the local authority says reporting is a breach of its Standing Orders?
It is a legal duty for the local government body to follow the new provisions. If a local government body’s existing Standing Orders are not fully in line with the new legislation, in the short-term, we recommend they simply waive the relevant provisions of those old Standing Orders which could be taken to inhibit the new reporting rules, and then take steps to update formally its Standing Orders.
Some possible clues are in the recording of last week’s Development Management Committee (DMC) meetings. Cllr Ray Bloxham (who recently led the move to restrict public speaking) exceeds his (5 minutes?) speaking time, and when Chair Helen Parr tries to intervene he does not stop straight away.
It is item number 11 starting at 9m10s. Helen Parr intervenes at 14.50 and he carries on until 15.12. Here is the link http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/dev_man_290714recording.htm
Journalists and members of the public will be free to film, record or tweet during local authority meetings under new rules that take effect this week.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has made it illegal for councils to ban filming after concerns that some local bureaucrats had ignored calls to be more transparent.
Some councils had flouted guidance from the department urging them to open up their meetings to modern technology, by blocking filming or tweeting and in some cases even calling the police to evict people who tried to record proceedings, officials said.
From Wednesday, councils and other local government bodies, such as fire authorities and Transport for London, will have to allow members of the public and press to film, record, photograph or use social media to report on their meetings.
Eric Pickles, the local government secretary, said: “We live in a digital age, where people tweet, blog and share video clips on a daily basis. So it is fitting that these important changes will ensure local democracy can shine, as local journalists and taxpayers can report on the good work of their council in a modern way and in real time.”
The move has been welcomed by newspaper publishers, who have warned that local authorities are increasingly stifling their attempts to report on potentially contentious matters such as planning decisions. At a time when many regional newspapers have had to cut back on reporting staff because of financial pressures, that is undermining their ability to hold local government to account, they argue.
Lynne Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Newspaper Society, said: “We’ve been seeing a worrying trend of increased secrecy among public bodies, making it harder for local newspapers to perform their vital scrutinising role on behalf of their readers. We hope these new rules will help to open up councils and ensure greater transparency over how taxpayers’ money is spent.”
Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Most people, working nine to five, can’t give up their time to attend council hearings and procedures, so they must be given a chance to play their part in the democratic process.”
A ministerial aide said that all local authorities had been warned about the changes in recent weeks. The authorities are required to provide “reasonable facilities” for journalists, bloggers or members of the public to film, photograph and tweet, such as space to view and hear the meeting, seats and desks.
Some councils resisted allowing filming because of concerns that it would be disruptive or too expensive. Some even cited health and safety legislation or the risk of “reputational damage” as a reason.
Source: The Times, Media News, 4 August 2014
Some majority party councillors, who profess to be unhappy at the curtailment of public speaking now in force, have said that they did not realise what was going on (either by not being around or not reading committee papers)and therefore found themselves painted into a corner come the vote at full council.
This matter had been debated at Overview and Scrutiny more than once, and at the Executive and the papers for full council appeared several days before the meeting. The topic had been given extensive coverage by this blog, the blog of Claire Wright and letters on the subject had appeared in the Midweek Herald, the View From papers and the Express and Echo.
This means either:
(a) councillors take no notice of their own committees and do not read local blogs and newspapers (although they appear very quick to write to them if they are being criticised) – which would be an appalling state of affairs or
(b) they do read them, choose to ignore them and use (a) as an excuse for saying they did not know what is going on – which would be an appalling state of affairs.
How come Lib Dems, Independents, journalists and the public knew but some of our councillors didn’t so, come the day, were unprepared to discuss alternatives?
Are they equally in the dark about Skypark too?
Evidence of this can be heard in the recording of the Full Council meeting (23rd July), available on the EDDC website.
There is more in the letter below, which has just been published in the Exmouth Journal.
‘Dear Sir,
I refer to Cllr Tim Wood’s letter (Investing in town- Journal 24th July) in which he bemoans the inaccuracies, amongst local political opponents, in matters relating to the town’s so-called ‘development’.
Having listened to Cllr Wood’s comments, at an EDDC meeting on 23rd July, about local people backing the likes of the Premier Inn development on the Elizabeth Hall site, it is clear that he is not above putting political spin before fact himself.
What was breathtaking is that whilst he mentioned a few people supporting the development, he made not a single reference to the 12,000 who signed a petition against it. He, and others, portrayed the developments as something that was broadly welcomed by the town. Journal letters are testament to the contrary.
When he and his colleagues are seeking votes they will tell you that they will represent all electors. A single visit to any council meeting, and especially one to EDDC, is likely to demonstrate very quickly how cheap such words are and how little representation, with very few notable exceptions, is given to views that do not match those of a ruling party councillor.
Cllr Wood’s opponents are not against development, they simply want development to be appropriate and arrived at through genuine and democratic means and not involving biased, unscientific and unreliable ‘consultations’ or secretive deals (seafront covenants) and the like. Many of we non-party-political residents would wish to see local level politics free from party politics.
The mindset at EDDC was betrayed at the above meeting, by a comment from a very senior officer who suggested in answer to an unrelated matter, that the journey is not as important as the destination. I would suggest that, in a democracy, a philosophy of ‘the end justifies the means’ is utterly out of place.
Yours sincerely
Tim Todd’
… it may be that you should consider standing as an Independent or other minority group candidate as it seems highly unlikely that a new council made up of the same people (who were described as MPs as “pale, male and stale”) would ever agree to a return to people being given a full opportunity to speak without having to jump first through several red tape hoops and thereafter to take part in a lottery for the ability to make their views known.
… “Defra refused to disclose the Risk and Issue Logs (RILs), which demonstrate the project board’s hidden assessment of the risks associated with developing a farmer-led badger cull prior to the minister’s decision on introducing the policy.
In June 2013, the Information Commissioner ordered Defra to disclose the RILs, finding that the public interest test favoured disclosure.
The Government department first appealed to the First-tier Tribunal and the case was exceptionally transferred directly to the Upper Tribunal where it was vigorously defended by the Information Commissioner together with the Badger Trust as second respondent.
Following two days of evidence and submissions at the Royal Courts of Justice in London, the Tribunal indicated that it was unconvinced by any of Defra’s public interest arguments to justify withholding the RILs.
Full judgment is expected to be handed in due course and there will also be a further hearing around late October to address important wider issues to clarify the legal exceptions relied on by Defra to keep the Board’s assessment of the risks under wraps.”
Good precis of the current situation here
One has to wonder why this is taking so long. The original story broke on the front page of the Daily Telegraph in March 2013
Bradford Council loses its appeal as they tried to stop an employee finding out how posts are graded:
The council had originally argued against disclosure under s. 43(2) FOIA (prejudice to commercial interests) but at the tribunal changed this to claim an exemption under s. 36(2)(c) FOIA (prejudice to effective conduct of public affairs).
Bradford argued that disclosure would lead to “a risk that a proportion of applicants will exaggerate the responsibilities of the post which could then result in an undeserved higher grading” and that were the methods published there would be an incentive for a significant proportion of the 3,000 or so staff to whom its ‘Professional Scheme’ applied to make fresh grading applications.
The resulting applications would “themselves place a significant burden on the authority’s resources and would be likely to thereby prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs,” it argued.
The council suggested that the balance of the public interest favoured non-disclosure.
But the Information Commissioner said that even where applicants do not know the criteria upon which their posts will be graded, it was still open to them to speculate on this and non-disclosure could not, therefore, sensibly be said to prevent exaggeration by applicants.
The idea that disclosure would lead to an increase in exaggeration was merely a hypothesis unsupported by evidence, it said.
If employees did exaggerate, this would not necessarily create a cost burden for the council since a single evaluation might apply to a number of individual post-holders.
It was therefore unlikely to be the case that each individual application would need to be dealt with separately, the Commissoner said, adding that transparency – as guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission made clear – was “the cornerstone of a non-discriminatory pay structure”.
The tribunal said it agreed with the Commissioner and the requester in their analysis of the public interest test, concluding that there was a significant public interest in favour of disclosure of the disputed information.
“Further we are not persuaded that there will be any significant damage to the public interest by disclosure,” it added. “In particular we are not persuaded that such risk of exaggeration by applicants as does occur is either increased or altered in any way that cannot be dealt with in the normal scope of the Human Resources work. [The council’s single status project manager] conceded that exaggeration is commonplace in any event.
“We find little tangible evidence of the nature or extent of the perceived increase in applications or in difficulties that would arise in dealing with any increase in the number of applications as a result of disclosure. Again we find little evidence about the increase in the financial burden that the council might suffer over and above that which will be incurred in the transfer that is already planned.”
http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=19458%3Atribunal-tells-council-to-disclose-criteria-used-for-grading-positions-of-employees&catid=57&Itemid=25
It seems that the push is for greater transparency …..
Paul Freeman, a regular commenter on the EDA blog, has sent in this blog entry which represents his personal view after asking questions of the district council at last week’s full council meeting:
“Mr Chairman, Councillors
I would like to make a statement and ask some questions relating to democracy in East Devon which is on today’s agenda.
It has come to light in the past few weeks that the Electoral Registration Officer for East Devon has deregistered at least 6,400 people in East Devon and possibly as many as 7,000 citizens from the Electoral register. This is equivalent to 1 in 15 of all voters in East Devon, In other words, of all the councillors and officers in the room today, the entire top-table has been disenfranchised. Or of the visitors, the public here, these three gentlemen behind me have lost their vote. It is a matter of public record that the Electoral Registration Officer for East Devon has failed to meet the standard set by the Electoral Commission on doorstep canvassing for the past three years in a row. In addition, last year the Electoral Registration Officer reported to the Electoral Commission a perfect score, in doorstep canvassing, i.e. he reported that the number of households not canvassed was zero, yet when the Electoral Commission looked into this further they decided that his performance was still below standard in this area.
1. Can the council assure us that this lack of performance was not, even indirectly, the cause of these citizens losing their vote?
2. Secondly, can the council please tell us whether mis-reporting his performance is a disciplinary offense against the Electoral Registration Officer?
3. Can the council please confirm whether the telephone canvassers that have been promised to be recruited, have indeed been recruited, yet?
And finally:
4. Is the council aware that as part of his activities to implement Individual Electoral Registration, that our ERO has already mislaid a further 900 voters in Budleigh Salterton?”
Leaving aside the appropriateness of the Chairman handing these questions to the ERO himself to answer (CEO Mark Williams) when they included questions about his own performance and possible disciplinary action …
The statement made by Mark Williams, EDDC CEO and ERO, probably says more about his own regard (or lack of it) for the voters of East Devon than any number of assertions by members of the public such as myself:
“Well I will answer on behalf of the council.
I think first of all, Mr Freeman, I recommend that you double check your facts.
The second thing I’d say is that as members know from a report I took to the Cabinet Meeting, that we are transitioning from an Electoral Registration System that the government has said is unfit for purpose.
And the third thing I’d say to you is that in any major change process it is not where you start from that counts but where you end-up.”
(You can listen to the question and the ERO’s answers in the first 3 minutes of the recording of the meeting available on the councils web site at http://www.eastdevon.gov.uk/council_agendas_and_mins.htm .
Disregarding that he didn’t actually answer ANY of the questions asked …
And leaving aside that he effectively denied the facts I stated (which have been discussed in depth on this blog) and which I can back up with citations to Electoral Commission documents and to documents from the ERO himself released in response to a Freedom of Information request…
And disregarding his misrepresentation of the old electoral system which was certainly fit for purpose for several decades, and is being changed only to ensure that voters do not lose their registration if the head of household refuses to add them to the form (a rare but regrettable occurrence)…
The key point is that I am sure that all of the 6,400 – 7,000 deregistered voters who were unable to vote in the European Elections will be heartened to know that the ERO believes that it doesn’t really matter that they missed this recent election because they will eventually be reregistered and able to vote in some future election – maybe in time for the May 2015 local council elections, or maybe some future election after that. Does Mark Williams think that elections are like busses – if you missed this one, never mind because there will be another one along in a minute or two?
In the light of this public statement, I again call upon the East Devon Electoral Registration Officer, Mark Williams, to resign his post of EDDC CEO (which includes his role as ERO) because his position is (even more) untenable.
Councillors voting in favour of the amendment (16): [i.e. that public speaking should NOT be curtailed]:
Mike Allen, Susie Bond, Derek Button, Trevor Cope, Steve Gazzard, Pat Graham, Stuart Hughes, Douglas Hull, Ben Ingham, John Jeffery, Sheila Kerridge, Jim Knight, Frances Newth, Brenda Taylor, Graham Troman, Claire Wright.
Councillors voting against the amendment (29): [i.e. those voting FOR public speaking to be curtailed]:
Graham Godbeer, Christine Drew, Paul Diviani, Ray Bloxham, Roger Boote, Peter Bowden, Bob Buxton, David Chapman, Maddy Chapman, Iain Chubb, David Cox, Deborah Custance Baker, Martin Gammell, Steve Hall, Peter Halse, Tony Howard, John Humphreys, David Key, Andrew Moulding, John O’Leary, Helen Parr, Philip Skinner, Pauline Stott, Peter Sullivan, Phil Twiss, Chris Wale, Mark Williamson, Tim Wood, Tom Wright.
Councillors abstaining (4):
Peter Burrows, Jill Elson, Stephanie Jones, Ian Thomas.
Question: how could anyone ABSTAIN on this subject? Surely those abstaining were not ambivalent – if they were they could have made amendments to suit their reservations? To not know whether you are for or against this seems bizarre.
And well done those Tory councillors who voted with the minority – that’s real courage.
East Devon Business Forum Task and Finish Forum: remember that?
The missing 6,000 voters, 3 years of not doing house to house canvassing (a criminal offence) – an explanation from the CEO.
That should do to start with … too late for public speaking, of course.
Anyone needing local statistics need look no further than
For example. putting in a postcode, choosing “Local Authority” and then the subset ” Environment” gives the most recent available data for:
Physical Environment
Key figures for Physical Environment
Commercial and Industrial Floorspace and Rateable Value Statistics (1998 – 2008)
Commercial and Industrial Property Vacancy Statistics (1998 – 2005)
Domestic Energy Consumption (2005 – 2011)
Land Use Statistics (Generalised Land Use Database) (2001 – 2005)
Land Use Statistics (Previously-Developed Land) (2004 – 2010)
Democracy is dead (EDDC has voted to curtail public speaking at theit meetings) long live democracy (new laws allow public more opportunities to inform rhe public about such meetings):
The regulations state that members of the public may film, take photographs, or make audio recordings of meetings; provide oral or written commentary on a meeting as it takes place; and use any other methods to enable people not at the meeting to follow proceedings, either as they take place or afterwards.
As Greenpeace says:
“In fact, so far as we can tell, the announcement actually makes it easier for developers to drill in national parks – by giving the communities secretary the automatic right to overrule local authorities who reject an application.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28513036
Why is it that politicians of all parties can rarely just tell us the plain truth? In this case: “Yes, we may well allow fracking in AONBs and World Heritage sites but whether you like that or not we have decided that the country as a whole needs this energy source more than you need your Areas of Outstanding Beauty and World Heritage sites”. At least then we would all know where we stand.
speaking Truth to Power will always cause you trouble! Thank goodness some people are prepared to do so.
An update from the secretary of Community Voice on Planning (CoVoP), has been received by EDA:
‘Dear All
Four things to update you on at the moment:
1. Many people have been invited to participate in a discussion forum on 1st
September as part of the
Parliamentary enquiry into the NPPF. There must be at least 50 people going
and most are members of
groups associated with CoVoP. We all have local issues to discuss but the
following list of topics from
our discussion with Greg Mulholland and his colleagues does suggest a common
thread which we could
all use.
2. As a result of our discussions with MP’s and other interested groups, we
believe that the following are
the main areas where change to the planning system would be helpful now or
early in the life of the new
government:
1. The calculation methods used for determination of housing needs are
based on long term economic
forecasts of dubious accuracy but Local Plans must be based on them; they
should be based on historic
trends and include a range of figures (minimum based on pure historic trends
and maximum based on
projected economic growth).
2. The calculation of the five-year housing land supply should be based
on the minimum figure of
housing need and should include all permissions not just those which
developers chose not to land-bank.
The five year land supply target does encourage house building but the
current calculation methodology
has the appearance of allowing inappropriate land-grabbing by developers.
The inclusion of permissions
in the calculation would ensure that sufficient land was allocated but would
then encourage building on
those sites. Allocation of land for housing is essentially a one-way
process; once included in a
development plan, there is no going back – only under-provision can be
corrected later, by making further
allocations if the projection turned out to be too low. If there was
over-provision, either because the
projection was too high, or because land came forward more quickly than
expected, no corrective action
is possible.
3. An increased emphasis to be put on affordable housing. Evidence shows that many
developers prefer to build
executive homes and that they actively attempt to reduce the number of
affordable homes included in
developments. The main need is for affordable homes for individuals and
young families and for older
people to downsize to. The policy should encourage councils to prioritise
affordable homes and
bungalows for elderly people who want to downsize but still want a garden
for themselves and their
grandchildren.
4. The role of planning inspectors should be reviewed to ensure
independence and to reduce their
quasi-judicial status.
5. The constitution of planning committees and role of LPA planning
officers should be clarified (should
be supporting the planning authority and the electorate not promoting
developers).
6. The elimination of “costs” in planning appeals – if developers chose
to field numerous barristers, they
should pay for them win or lose.
7. Prioritisation of brownfield developments over green spaces.
8. Importance of infrastructure planning and funding early in the life of
developments.
9. The need to allow time for local plans to be agreed (perhaps a
moratorium on new applications for
anything other than brownfield sites until plans are in place).
3. Please take the opportunity to look at our website and see the
advertisement on the front page from
Cheshire East (click on the title for a pdf). Also see our link to the oral
evidence session to the NPPF
Review committee on July 9th. David Gladman (planning-broker and Partner,
Gladman Developments)
was giving evidence. By his own evidence, he has interests in 200 planning
applications in 70 LPAs. He
thinks that all decisions should be taken by planning officers as planning
committees are old people who
are set in their ways and who refuse to accept his assessments of housing
needs.
His evidence has its funny side. At the start of the session, the MPs had
declared connections to local
councillors (wives, fathers, party workers, etc). Mr Gladman did not appear
to be aware that he was
attacking people they value or indeed the values of democracy. He is very
cross that Cheshire East
refused his offers to let his team of planners work on the Local Plan and
draw it up for them!
It has to be said that, judging from the reaction of the MPs to Mr G.’s
sparkling personality, he has
probably done more for our cause then anybody else who gave evidence to the
Committee. At least they
might now understand why there are at least 70 LAs where a lot of people are
not very happy with the
NPPF!
4. Finally we congratulate Mr Boles on his new appointment and welcome the
new Housing and Planning
Minister Brandon Lewis. I’m sure that you know that he was already
under-secretary of state within the
Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and held a wide range
of responsibilities
including local government, fire services, high streets, town centres,
markets, travellers and pubs. We
hope that he will take the opportunity of his new appointment to make the
changes to the planning system
outlined above.’
See also http://covop.org/
This week’s Sidmouth Herald has 6 critical letters about our council:
One letter from Paul Freeman about the missing 6,000 (plus) voters missing from the electoral roll and finding the “explanation” from EDDC very wanting
One about how our council is mired in bureaucracy in spite of the major party’s pledge to “cut red tape”
One about the upcoming court case between EDDC and the Information Commissioner about EDDC’s refusal to release documents in spite of the Information Commissioner’s request that it should be published
Two about the omnishambles of planning and development in Newton Poppleford where a reason to allow one development was turned on its head to refuse another and where EDDC did not find it necessary to have an Environmental Impact Assessment on the Clinton Devon Estates site in spite of it being beside an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
One about the inability of the council to improve access the Byes even though they own the land which could allow improvements
Add the item about EDDC “restricting free speech” at its meeting and another item about voting for funding for £15,000 of sports cash has been delayed twice because EDDC felt that not enough old people and not enough young people had voted in the previous two rounds and it just hasn’t been a good week for our council.
“… Dame Jenny has a very clear idea of what heritage means.
“My definition is really anything that people value and that they want to hand on to the future. That can be a memory, a culture, a butterfly in Yorkshire or a fantastic landscape in Scotland, as well as a building that has been derelict in the centre of a small community and which, if they could just turn it into something, would transform that community.”
Dear [Daily Telegraph] Editor,
This morning’s headline story (Minister: Nimbys have had their day – 26 July) in the Daily Telegraph beggars belief!
What on earth will it take to get the current government, and Brandon Lewis in particular, to wake up and smell the abject disbelief amongst the rural community in particular that “people now have a greater say in where housing goes”. A survey of only 3000 people in 2010 compared with a similar one of only 1000 in 2013 certainly does NOT compare with the responses registered with Community Voice on Planning (www.covop.org) and is remarkably thin evidence upon which to trumpet the progress of national government policy. If ministers quote from such a small sample it only serves to reinforce what the community has been saying for years – our ministers’ dogmatic presumptions hold sway in spite of the real world situation they are attempting to govern.
Those of us who have raised the uncontrolled inappropriate development rush issue – for in practice that is EXACTLY what it is at present, are NOT against development per se. What we are infuriated over is the repeated examples of poor strategic planning by local authorities. This is exacerbated by blatant exploitation of land-banking by developers – invariably on the easiest of development land, ie green spaces, who then make all sorts of promises of affordable home provision to gain outline planning permission only to renege subsequently by pleading non-viability once permission is gained and requisite infrastructure costs imposed; local authorities then invariably buckle under threat of legal costs of appeal and the developers get their way.
Construction of the open market houses doesn’t begin until the developer feels like it and the 5 year housing supply doesn’t get updated until they do. This leads to more applications while the going is good and infrastructure improvements to support any of this cannot be funded until the houses are built.
The community has NO say in this process yet it gives our blinkered politicians a warm and cuddly feeling that everything is going well! Oh really?
Paul S G Adams MBE
Vice-Chairman
DefeND North Devon
East Devon Watch 