EARLY ONE MORNING.........................
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Stansted North on Uttlesford District Council and former Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Learn more
by Alan Dean on 5 October, 2014
IF – you care about the future of Uttlesford district
IF – you want planning for the future to be vastly improved
IF – you want to know about a council which hoards your money
IF – you want fairer local taxation for local people
IF – you want Uttlesford District Council to be more open and honest
THEN – Come along to Stansted Day Centre on November 1st between 11 a.m. and 1.30 p.m. and help shape the future.
The Liberal Democrats are putting on a workshop for all local people who want to help shape a better future. It’s not just for Liberal Democrats; it’s for residents who never get involved in local politics. Remember the recent referendum in Scotland when over 90% of people got involved? It’s for residents’ groups; it’s for supporters of parties which seem to have lost touch with local people and the real world. If these things are important to you, this event is for you. Pop in for 15 minutes for coffee and a chat or stay for the whole event.
Just post a comment on this blog to say you are coming or drop an email to uttlesfordopendoor@btinternet.com.
Council finances and its hoarding of £millions into unaccountable accounts remains a hot topic. It will be high on the agenda at the Open Door event. I blogged about some issues here. The minutes of the September 25th audit committee meeting may be read here with relevant highlights. The audio recording of the meeting is already available.
Last week I held a constructive meeting with the council’s finance officers to try to clear away some of the smoke and mirrors. I am pleased to say that reality is beginning to shine through the mist. I was given an explanatory paper. It explains in broad terms the state of the council’s finances. They are healthy. They are arguably over-healthy. The council is holding money for which it has no plans. It’s far from clear how much of the £17 million being held in the bank has a purpose but this will be worked out in coming weeks. This Audit Commission document holds some clues on what needs to be done. Thanks for Daniel (see below) for discovering it.
You could say that the current political administration lacks ambition for the people the district. So far it has tried to close its doors to the public knowing about its overflowing coffers. The Open Doors event can help work out how the money should be used.
Take a look at the attached paper. Post comments and questions on my blog or email them to uttlesfordopendoor@btinternet.com. I have added a few comments of my own to the paper to provide some initial prompts. Much more work needs to be done.
You are invited to come through the Open Door on November 1st to assist us shape the local future?
37 Comments
I cannot comment on the detail of the attached paper: the challenge will be in getting the full facts and figures thoroughly debated in the New Year before the 2015/2016 Budget is finalised. In the first instance serious questions need to be asked as to how such a large surplus has been allowed to accumulate over the lifetime of the current council. (Ref. the comments from a leading member of East Herts DC) This might appear, on the face of it, to be a case of sloppy, ‘think of a number’ budgeting without effective rationalisation, but there may be more to it than that: the overall budgetary picture needs to be examined in the context of the ‘fallout’ from the Local Plan exercise. Several of the budget heads that you have annotated, Alan, need careful dissection via thorough debate in council. Will the council cabinet allow time for such debate, or will discussion be artificially curtailed once again, as so often in the past, and the budget ‘railroaded’ through by means of a whipped vote?
A prior debate in public, in advance of debate in council, is therefore essential. It would be a useful exercise to obtain comparative base figures from similar-sized local authorities, starting with East Herts DC. Your ideas for 1 November are great, but you may need to review the amount of time you have allocated for the event: you may have started a rolling snowball at the top of the hill!
I guess we will reassess the length of the event nearer the date and on the day, Geoff.
Alan, could you explain your annotations in a little more detail? It will not be clear to those outside of the council – and it’s not altogether clear to me – in what way specific budgets heads have been duplicated. Are you implying that, with so much extra cash ‘swashing around’ and not properly accounted for, this has this been done in a calculated way, in an attempt to ‘hide’ the surplus and make the actual figures more ‘realistic’, or is it just sloppy accounting? If so, it does not reflect well on either Stephen Joyce or his successor. It would be interesting to find out exactly what sort of advice has been given to Robert Chambers and colleagues about the budgetary surplus accruing year on year. Would it be possible to carry out some sort of review of the budget-setting processes in each year of the present council, and how the council-tax figures were arrived at? It would also be useful to learn of specific instances where major projects were not carried through, and where the allocated monies were absorbed into the following year’s budget (i.e. underspends). This fact in itself may also highlight bad planning in other council departments. That particular buck stops, of course, at the Chief Executive’s desk.
Hi Geoff, I can’t add much more detail at the moment as I don’t have it. When I talk about duplication I am referring to the various pots of reserves. For instance, the Budget Equalisation item is much the same as Local Government Resource Review. So two pots totalling £2.8 million for the same thing but no clarity when and if they will be needed. Remember, there will be even more money sloshing around looking for a home by March 2015 because the council is bound to underspend its budget. A Strategic Initiatives Fund of £1m was created this year in an attempt to reduce the reserves. I will be surprised if more than £300k is actually used this year. You don’t deliver strategies in 12 months!
For Info.
Earlier today I carried out a ‘sweep’ on Google on the subject of council budget surpluses to get a flavour of what might be happening in other authorities.
It seems that any surplus in the order 0f £500k-£1m. in a council’s budget is a reason for community outrage. In a number of instances councils have made public announcements that they will be directing part of their surpluses to community organisations and voluntary groups.
Few district or borough councils have annual surpluses in excess of £1.5m. Where does this leave Uttlesford in the light of the figures Alan has produced? Further, there is likely to be another underspend in the current financial year 2014-2015. This situation is a public scandal! It’s quite clear that residents now have major cause for concern greater even than the council’s mismanagement of the Local Plan process.
According to the Audit Commission, on average district councils’ reserves are the equivalent of 75% of net revenue expenditure with 64% of total reserves earmarked for specific purposes. http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/strikingabalance.pdf It would be interesting to see how UDC measures up against this. I believe the reserves are over 100% of net revenue spending, although I have no figures to hand. UDC is not unique. The Audit Commission shows that 38 district councils nationwide have reserves equating to over 100% net revenue – the largest is 343%. So, UDC’s policy on reserves doesn’t appear to be eccentric in light of the overall trend towards risk-aversion (perhaps relating to fears of budget caps and their political implications), but it is still excessively cautious in my mind. Also, I’m not convinced yet that the reserve allocations are well substantiated, as Alan suggests above. As a tax-payer, I think it is unethical that a significant portion of my council tax bill may never be used while I see public services continually cut; contingencies and future strategy are one thing, but saving for the hell of it doesn’t make sense.
As can be easily demonstrated from material in the public domain:
There is no double counting, duplication or sloppy accounting. The figures have been transparently and correctly reported in each year’s published accounts, which are of course externally audited.
There is clear advice to Members about the level of reserves to maintain in each year’s budget reports. In each of the last several years the advice has stated that the minimum safe contingency level of reserves that should be maintained is c. £1.2m. The budget setting process is also subject to external audit and has a clean bill of health.
The largest item (£4m+, business rates) is a technical and temporary item which arises from quirks in the business rates retention scheme set up by central government. There is a major distorting effect caused by Stansted Airport. This is not usable money and for all practical intents and purposes this item should be disregarded.
There are significant risks to district council funding post May 2015. The political judgement to be made is what level of cushion should be retained to minimise the impact of these risks. The key objective is ensuring stability of service provision.
I hope this helps and will continue to follow the debate with great interest.
In response to Geoff’s earlier comment, my use of the term “sloshing around” is meant to describe money without any clear purpose, not that it isn’t shown in the books.
Steve is correct that the council received a good audit and the books were signed off two weeks ago. The issue is that the audited accounts show large sums of money which, although earmarked with specific titles against them, fall into the category described here by the Audit Commission: “English councils held £12.9 billion in their reserves at 31 March 2012. Councils had earmarked £9.9 billion of their reserves for specific purposes, although we found earmarking does not always mean there is a plan for spending the funds”.
Thanks to Daniel for identifying this document. In answer to his query, Uttlesford’s nett expenditure is around £7.2 million.
You will see the following recommendation to finance officers at paragraph 19: “an explanation of the purpose and level of any earmarked reserves, clarifying which are earmarked at the council’s discretion and their expected timescale for use”.
The problem at Uttlesford is that Cllr Chambers and Cllr Howell both attempted to obstruct this being done at the Performance and Audit Committee at the end of September. It is this obstruction that I am challenging and am starting to chip away with the support of officers. As I have said before, if ruling members like hoarding money but have no idea what the money is for because they lack ambition, officers are somewhat restricted in what they can do – beyond showing it to the rest of us in the books that decisions on their purposes are outstanding.
“There are significant risks to district council funding post May 2015.”
The policy of significant reserves build-up has been going on for over seven years. This is not simply about risks in the event of a change of government, but perhaps a political habit. I don’t think anyone is suggesting there’s anything untoward in the accounts. This is about the political decision-making.
“Uttlesford’s net expenditure is around £5.5 million.”
I was more interested in the revenue to reserves ratio. Would I be correct in assuming, with a conservative estimate, that the reserves are around 200-250% of annual revenue? What proportion is unallocated and what kind of risks are the council aiming to counter, ie in the form of smoothing out potential cuts in central government funding? If UDC is like most other district councils in that around two-thirds are allocated reserves, this still leaves unallocated reserves that are the equivalent of an entire year’s expenditure (based on the £17mn figure Alan has given). I must admit I don’t have great understanding of UDC’s finances and I may be wrong, but unless the council is preparing for year-on-year cuts in revenue equating to over 15% – which would be extraordinary and politically risky for any government in Westminster – there appears to be little point in continually building them up. Could Mr Rolfe or one of his colleagues comment here on what the situation is?
Daniel, You may have noticed that I have changed the figure quoted for net expenditure from £5.5m (£5,459,000 to be precise) to £7.2m (£7,243,000). The smaller figure takes account of various adjustments such as housing which are excluded from the council tax calculations from which the higher figure is derived and normally quoted.
I would be delighted if a cabinet member joined this discussion.
Steve
I fear that my earlier remarks may have been mis- construed as impugning the competence and integrity of UDC’s professional officers: that was certainly not my intention. Nor did I intend to imply that there was something ‘dodgy’ about the way in which the actual figures had been presented on the balance sheet, which, as you say, comply with current accounting practice and have satisfied the District Auditor. Having said that, there is, however, much more information to be teased out of the figures, i.e. how individual budget heads have been arrived at and the rationale behind them. To carry out this analysis requires accessing a heap of council minute books and accompanying documents. Even this will probably be insufficient since, as is now widely recognised, a lot of key discussion and decision-making has taken place in ‘holy conclave’, i.e. closed cabinet, with an often incompleterecord of what actually took place.
Unfortunately, we are not dealing with Uttlesford Plc; if we were, then, maybe, as shareholders, we might have more clout, and would be in a position to compel the ‘board’ to give a full and proper account of themselves. It’s probably fair comment to state that, with, the approaching GE, local authorities are inclined to be overly cautious and want to protect their backs. However, the fact that local government finance is notoriously volatile, as central government constantly ‘tinkers’ with or changes the funding ‘rules’, cannot be made an excuse for levying unrealistic levels of council tax. As Dan states above, hoarding excessive levels of reserves, i.e. council tax. is
unethical. It might be acceptable to a degree if council taxpayers actually saw some ‘bang for their buck’ in the form of improved service provision and projects directly benefiting the community and supporting voluntary groups. Regrettably, over much of the past 20 years UDC has had a very poor track-record in this respect, and is seen pretty uniformly as stingy and tight-fisted. The culture of the district council needs to be radically changed.
I think it reasonable to assume that the culture of the district council WILL be radically changed next May when the likes of Chambers and Rolfe get their marching orders along with the drones that have been supporting cabinet edicts unthinkingly for months.
It was good to see the incisive financial analysis from Steve, it is unfortunate that he no longer guides the budget at UDC. He knows that I have the greatest respect for his financial judgement and deeply regret his decision to leave.
The smoke and mirrors regarding finances at UDC are unacceptable. The council has the money to do the right things at the right time (and that includes defending planning appeals, not that the cabinet chooses to) and next May the new administration will have to unravel the situation and move on.
Hopefully the new council will not be mulishly fixated on New Homes Bonus monies. That particular chimera was never designed as a bribe to give up swathes of greenfield land to greedy developers. It is also the obvious case that overt political interference has protected Gt Chesterford from planning applications at the expense of Elsenham. That sort of impropriety normally results in judicial review.
Roll on next May, let’s rid ourselves of the current bunch.
I fear that New Homes Bonus was designed as a bribe or, to be more polite, as an incentive to councils to plan. What, I hope, it was not designed to do was to encourage councils to play a crude numbers games, so encouraging housing anywhere they could regardless of the impact. That IS what UDC has been doing until recently. I hope that now planning officers and some planning committee members have learned to be more discriminatory and wise.
Various planning committee members will not retain their seats (or indeed be standing) next May, so their discrimination will not be brought to bear on the mountain of problems left by the current administration.
Alan knows that I deprecate the financial problems that the last Lib Dem administration bequeathed the new Tory group in 2007. But he also appreciates that sorting out financial shortfalls is a damn sight easier than trying to repair the damage caused by allowing, indeed encouraging speculative development applications in inappropriate sites across the district. As to the overt and obvious political interference in the process, those responsible should hang their heads in shame. The pathetic way that the chair of planning has meekly surrendered to cabinet wishes regarding matters such as Elsenham and Walden is craven and demeans the role. The chair of a committee is supposed to stand up for and support the decisions of the committee, not collude in undermining them.
As I have remarked before, roll on next May and we can be rid of the dross.
As I understood it, the 2007 financial problems were the result of a bureaucratic error and not a political error. As Andrew Mitchell said following his appointment in 2008, “There had been failings for two or three years which senior managers and members were not aware of, and the extent of the problem was not immediately apparent until, in October last year, we realised we were heading for a£1.4m overspend if we were not careful.” http://www.lgcplus.com/councils-crisis-management/1938903.article The current problems are not bureaucratic errors but political ones, unless the cabinet has so little faith in officers that it is preparing reserves for another unexpected shortfall. These arguments are historical and irrelevant to most of the public, but nevertheless facts are facts.
….and the propogandist political head of finance who today tries to underplay the level of reserves is the same councillor who was in charge of finance in 2007 and was then just as capable of exaggerating short-term financial errors.
Your blog states £17mn is being held in reserves, but the Lib Dem Focus leaflet says £8mn. Seems to be a big discrepancy or is the Focus leaflet referring to unallocated reserves?
No, Daniel, there is no discrepancy. The part of the reserves that needs greatest scrutiny to work out how much of it has no identified purpose comes to about £8m. In addition there is another group of reserves coming to about £9m, most of which is spoken for and will be required. This isn’t mentioned in Focus as it is not in contention. As shown in the report that is available from Sunday’s post, the grand total comes to about £17 million.
So, based on your figures, we can say that UDC holds reserves equating to 209% of annual revenue expenditure, compared to a national average of 75%, and that nearly half of reserves are unallocated, compared to an average of 36%. There’s also the question of whether the earmarked reserves are based on reasonable projections. The Audit Commission found that “Eighteen per cent [of district councils] had reserves that exceeded net spending” and “twelve per cent had unallocated reserves exceeding 50 per cent of their net spending”. It places UDC into a minority of councils that are sitting on ever greater levels of reserves with few ideas on what to do with them.
The Audit Commission report has a section at the end on “improving decision making” that I would hope UDC’s Cabinet would bear in mind. Specifically, it states:
“All councils should undertake a good-quality, annual review of reserves, which considers:
* the rationale for keeping each reserve, with reference to the council’s future spending plans;
* the funds needed – including an expected minimum and maximum for risk-based reserves; and
* how long reserves have been held, and projections for using them, which should then be monitored.”
It adds that in drawing up budgets “forecasts were sometimes unnecessarily prudent. Chief finance officers reported giving cautious forecasts of the likely year-end budget position to elected members. Chief finance officers regarded this as prudent financial management, but acknowledged it had contributed in some cases to councils delivering a significant budget surplus. Where this occurred, elected members were reported to be rightly concerned about the effect that the forecasts had had on
decision making.”
On the last point, I’m not convinced the council is particularly concerned about the need to monitor surpluses and, as the report states, “It is important that councils apply the same degree of scrutiny to unplanned additions to reserves as they do to those they plan when setting the budget. Regularly reviewing the level of reserves can assure elected members that reserves remain at an appropriate level for intended purposes.”
So why is the Performance and Audit Committee failing to do its job? Ensuring reserves are at a reasonable level – ie not too small or too big – is their job. It’s part of fiscal management, not anything ideological. Why are they so defensive and secretive on every single aspect of business, even something as mundane as managing reserves?
Daniel, Uttlesford’s audit committee is a tick-box body with no teeth. Most of its members never say a word from start to finish. The members get very exercised about matters such as the number of bins that missed being collected, but they talk about that from one year to the next but never get to the bottom of the problem.
When members raise sensitive subjects such as cash reserves, they get talked out by the chairman, who declares “we don’t need to discuss this any more; next business”! That happened to me at the last meeting. The same happened to Conservative councillor Keith Eden at the previous meeting. The council recently declared to the auditors that the audit committee provides robust challenge to the cabinet. Please don’t laugh, but robust challenge of the cabinet is no more allowed in Uttlesford than would be challenge of the ruling regime in a dictatorship.
Keith has written about the local plan working group being a hollow sham controlled by the cabinet. The audit committee is controlled by the cabinet from “behind the veil”, as used to be the case in Imperial China.
We will see what the minutes of the September audit committee show when they come out later this week. I hope they show there was some challenge (from me) and that it was brushed to one side. You can listen to the audio of the 25th September meeting here: http://www.audiominutes.com/p/udc/
The chair said that you were opening a debate on the reserves that had already been held in a previous meeting at which you were not present and he didn’t want to have the debate again. How had they defended the level of the reserves in the previous meeting?
The answer lies in these minutes: http://bit.ly/1y2ypRi
The following extract shows how the chairman decrees his satisfaction with matters, yet without justification, and ignores what his committee members say. It is rather ironical that one month later the council selectively stopped fighting large planning appeals.
“The Chairman said it was sensible to maintain these reserves at this time, and he was satisfied that the right amounts were held in reserve for the right issues. The Committee considered the reserves in the light of forthcoming large planning appeals, and in particular whether £935,000 was a sufficient sum for the appeals reserve. Councillor Eden said that this figure was appropriate as the Council’s local plan was not yet in place.”
There didn’t appear to be a thorough examination of the reserves position in the previous meeting, nor any indication as to how these were appropriate – far from being the “extensive debate” the chair claimed in the audio of the last meeting. The chair is useless. He simply concludes discussion and interrogation by committee members with remarks like:
“The Chairman said it was quite right to have a prudent approach to Council finances, and this was a prudent balance sheet.”
“The Chairman said it was sensible to maintain these reserves at this time, and he was satisfied that the right amounts were held in reserve for the right issues.”
What is “prudent”, what is the “right amount”? How are the earmarked reserves justified? Why the substantial amount of unallocated reserves? There’s little discussion shown in the minutes. A lot of back-patting for officers and the cabinet, but little evidence of serious scrutiny.
The question that keeps arising in my mind, as a tax payer and resident, is why UDC is more risk averse than most other councils? Is Uttlesford so highly exposed to risk that it requires a reserve-to-expenditure ratio of this level or is it a matter of the district’s size – ie a smaller district would still face the same costs in defending a large planning appeal as a larger council with more financial means?
The situation we have today arose from a number of reasons, the most significant of which is that the present administration is a minimalist, low spending group of people. They slashed service and costs from 2007 far beyond what was necessary. The result was an immediate underspend in the first year and in every year since. The planning service was one area that was damaged. But they continually maintained the financial prospects were poor. Then came New Homes Bonus (NHB). This showered unimaginable riches on a council whose instinct was to do as little as possible; they were and are largely bereft of aspiration beyond hoarding money. Some money was spent as giveaways, but in a style that wasted much of it on ad hoc gimmicks with no strategic purpose. This year they created a £1,000,000 strategic initiatives fund which last for one year only. Who has heard of a strategic plan that starts in April 1st and ends the next March 31st. Two-thirds of it will be unspent. Another reserve-boosting initiatve.
Given that level of fiscal deviance is it any wonder that I find it untenable to remain with the Conservative group?
In June I had a serious car accident and suffered a head injury that required 42 stitches to close it.
Barely a word of concern from ‘colleagues’, particularly cabinet members or the leader but what would one expect.
Since the accident I have been suspended from the group and removed from every working group I was involved with. Given that the local plan working group was a total charade, residents will appreciate that I am not distraught at the way the group has treated me, after all they treat residents with equal contempt. Consider the ‘consultation’ process that has accompanied the the local plan.
The residents have made it abundantly clear that they are not satisfied with the plan and the council, driven by the cabinet (be in no doubt of this) ignore local views and press on with their politically motivated scheme.
Consider this: when the draft local plan was voted on in April 2014 the numbers were 23 in favour and 14 against. If you remove the cabinet members from that equation, back bench members were equally balanced, 14-14, hardly a ringing endorsement for a rubbish plan.
It should also be considered that in May 2014, when the Tory group voted 20-8 that Rolfe become leader of the group and consequently the council, how many of those present at that vote were aware that Rolfe had tried to have the local MP deselected in February?
I was there in February and several of those voting for Rolfe in May were not.
The Cabinet could justifiably state that no Local Plan would have the consent of all residents. For me the issue of consensus is less important than proving the sustainability of the plan. The case for a new town at Elsenham and the growth to the east of Saffron Walden doesn’t seem to stack up while the case for expansion at Great Chesterford has not been convincingly rebutted. At the very least, the Cabinet needs to explain itself to the public who are reasonably worried about the implications. Even the Planning Inspectorate has raised queries that were made by the public throughout the process of consultation, but the Cabinet had ducked. In my experience, they refuse to answer questions and officers tend to communicate in their professional jargon to confuse us all.
I would like to re-visit a point that Keith made a little while ago. There is so much that is wrong with the present council: their complete (yet, dare I say, deliberate) mismanagement of the planning process; their apparent contempt for proper financial accountability (remember, this not a new phenomenon, as Dan has remarked); their utter contempt for proper democratic procedures and their distortion of the democratic process. There has to be a ‘day of judgement’: what form might that take? We have to consider earnestly for the longer term bringing these people to account, either collectively or individually. It won’t be a quick process, but we have to put down markers that ‘up with this we will not put’ to paraphrase Churchill. There has to be some form of retribution. Alan will know that on several occasions in the past 18 months I expressed the view that we urgently needed sound legal advice to deal with the cabinet – primarily with respect to the District Plan process. It seems to me it is more urgent now, since Howard Rolfe and Co. seem to be plotting some form of Gotterdammerung (sorry, I can’t do umlauts!), dragging the whole district down with them into the abyss. Keith has already mentioned Judicial Review, but JR needs to be targeted on specific issues and thus requires a narrow focus. In order to deal with all the issues we have it would not be an underestimate to state that the cost might be in the region of £100k.! We have to deal with these people because we cannot afford to let them get away with what they have done, are doing and will do. I now open the debate to the floor!
This Audit Commission report is also useful in assessing UDC’s financial situation against national trends: http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/2014/09/interpreting-the-accounts-a-review-of-local-government-financial-ratios-200708-to-201213-september-2014/ It’s the Commission’s final review of local government financial ratios before it is abolished and its role is privatised.
Thanks, Daniel, for yet another Audit Commission report. I have not had chance to look at it. Today and tomorrow are preoccupied with the Fairfield “Hellsenham” appeal. However, I can report that I have been informed that the Audit Commission report on reserves which you provided previously has never been presented to members of the district council and no one has any knowledge of its being used by officers in their preparation of reports on cash reserves.
It does rather call into question what qualifications committee members have to assess financial performance and the ability of the cabinet make strategic decisions.
The way in which the council spent £90,000 of NHB money that was generated by Stansted’s expansion on a toilet in Birchanger’s church, which is attended by half a dozen people, was an eye-opener. It demonstrated petty and arrogant vindictiveness, lack of strategic thinking and a scatterbrained approach to public finances. NHB is simply use as a form of political patronage, like some banana republic dishing out funds to the oligarchs and their fiefdoms. I’m certain that in the 2015/16 budget the reserves will be used to fund an array of incentives to secure a Tory election victory.
I won’t quarrel with Geoff’s assessment of the potential cost of dealing with various mistakes and misjudgements of the current administration. He mentions Churchill, I would cite Kennedy, ‘We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard’
I am no admirer of Kennedy, a weak, priapic man but with an ability to turn a phrase. Assassination saved him from being unmasked for what he was. Lyndon Johnson was a far more effective president despite lacking the charisma. We should recognise that charisma only takes a politician so far. Ketteridge and Rolfe have zero charisma and little else to commend them to the electorate.
To return to the question of action and costs: if action needs to be taken, and reason suggests that this is the case, then UDC has the funds to cover such action.
Residents need to remember what the current administration has inflicted on the district over the past months when it comes to the election next May. I trust that all the incompetence, arrogance and hubris will be properly rewarded by loss of seats. It is interesting to consider that Keith Eden, currently chairman of the Saffron Walden Conservatives, and vice-chair of the planning committee is not proposing to stand next year. Has he seen something that troubles him (such as annihilation of the current Tory group?)
Such annihillation is deserved and to be wished for. Too many drones have voted blindly to support cabinet diktats without the least consideration of consequences. The chairs of various committees are ciphers ( Audit comes immediately to mind: interesting to note that Simon Howell was one of the people who spoke against Sir Alan at the meeting to consider deselecting our local MP. His speech was lengthy, typically, and disingenuous, equally typical. Sir Alan filleted him in a sentence)
I was proud to be elected as a Conservative councillor and it is unfortunate that the group have betrayed the values that I believed to be important, more so that they have betrayed residents. We were elected to look after the interests of residents and not to blindly support the political ambitions of a handful of planning illiterates. If the Elsenham application is given permission by the inspector it will blight an entire chunk of the district whilst bringing NO benefits.
Residents of the proposed site will not work in Uttlesford, there are no jobs for them. Their children will not go to school locally, there are no places and health provision is similarly lacking. The roads will not support the development, neither will local infrastructure. Should we congratulate the cabinet on this self-inflicted wound…..or sling the incompetents out next May?
As a by-line I’m picking up on your comment, Keith, about Cllr Keith Eden, who, only some two months ago, was vocally supportive of Howard Rolfe and all his works, as reported in the SW local press. What has changed in those two months, one may ask? Is this another case of rats and sinking ships? Clearly Saffron Walden needs a few more David Watsons, Tina Knights and other members of the Sensible Conservative Party to emerge from their chrysalis.
I would be so grateful if you could all turn your minds to the question I posed above regarding potential legal action, how we should go about pursuing such action and the form that it might take. So far only Keith has commented. Because I have been for a number of years on the outside of local affairs I have lost a lot of the intimacy (if that’s the right word!) and ‘firsthandedness’ that comes with sitting in committee and in the council chamber. All I know is that a lot of things have been going terribly, terribly wrong over far too long a period. What I feel is rather like rugby players feel when they haven’t seen the ball for 35 minutes of the match because the opposition has it. It is incredibly frustrating, because I (sort of) know what needs to be done, but we have to put our minds to it. We can’t just wait for a newly elected council to be elected next May. We (whoever ‘we’ may be) need to sit round a table and thrash out a programme of action, and then put enough flesh on it so that we have something of substance that we can take to a legal professional in order to seek general advice in the first instance. (I feel strongly that this is something that should have been done a long time ago, once it became clear that the democratic processes of the council were being subverted, but that is water under many bridges!) I am willing personally to contribute whatever can be afforded in order to take forward such action as is decided. But I do need some reaction from you, because we can no longer just sit on our hands!
My first thought would be an open letter to the Conservative group posing a simple question or two.
Firstly, how can you suspend a member for alleged disloyalty at the same time as electing Rolfe as leader after his failed coup against Sir Alan. Presumably attacking the local MP is not as disloyal as challenging the local plan.
Secondly, as a group that voted by 23 members to send the draft plan to the inspectorate, how many of you actually understood the implications or were you simply following the party line?
With regard to legal action on the local plan and sundry appeals, now is not the time Geoff. If the inspector finds the plan unsound, legal action will be unnecessary for months, certainly that issue would be in limbo till the election. As to various appeals, first we have to await the decision notices then examine them to see if there might be grounds for challenge. It is frustrating, but there is a time line for these things. In any case, many of the decisions might well be what residents want to see. It is improbable that the Land Securities appeal will succeed, I am similarly confident that the Fairfield appeal lacks legs.
We shall have to wait and see. Given that I have been involved in three judicial review processes up till now, two still ongoing, I think I can claim a little insight into the process.
Organising a meeting of interested people is an excellent idea if we can get some numbers. Perhaps Alan might be persuaded to involve himself directly? Other excellent points of contact might be John Lodge or Dan Starr.
I’m unsure that legal action is necessary. Political leadership will be significantly and potentially fatally weakened by a series of community victories, whether it be convincing the Planning Inspectorate that the Local Plan is unworkable or by successfully defending Planning Committee decisions on appeal that the Cabinet refused to defend. What problems require legal action that cannot be addressed by grassroots action?
Minutes of the September audit committee have now been added to the main story above.
Having looked at the minutes of the audit committee it is difficult to avoid the impression that the chair of the committee is determined to suppress proper debate and investigation of any matters that might embarrass the cabinet.
Given that the chair of the audit commission has a track record for making statements that might not be entirely accurate, some of us would question his fitness to remain in that post. If he wishes to challenge me on that point, I would be happy to provide substantiation for what I say.
We currently have a situation where the cabinet member with responsibility for finance has a track record of abusing his expense claims….why that was allowed to go unchallenged has always puzzled me. At the same time, the cabinet in its wisdom (I use the word ironically) chooses to have a finance officer who also fulfils other roles, something that common sense shouts against.
I look forward to next May. The current bunch of incompetents have made it so easy to look good by comparison. The current Tory group will be decimated at the local election in 2015 and their absence will not be mourned. There are too many of them more concerned with toeing the party line than actually giving any thought to what they vote for.
The local plan vote in April was a case in point. 14 members from ALL the political groups voted against it. 23 loyal Tories voted for it. I wonder how many of that 23 had any idea what the draft local plan does to the district, I suspect that few gave much thought to anything other than obeying the bidding of cabinet.