Member of Staffordshire County Council representing Lichfield Rural East – Cabinet Member for Adults and Wellbeing

There’s been plenty of controversy about the rising cost of Government publicity spend…

And it’s easy to get caught up in the claim and couter-claim on the run up to an election. But the claims that HM Government’s overall spend has increased in the last year by nearly 40% are manifesting themselves through the radio, our home letterbox, local papers and, above all, the TV.

Whilst watching the small amount of television I do it’s been apparent there’s something in those claims. The number of different adverts on the TV about the Government’s national website, www.direct.gov.uk, has been extraordinary recently.

Then there’s the leaflet which arrived today, never had one before, about anti-social behaviour and how to report it. Or the clever police reassurance ad on the tele which sees the constable straightening a police sign on the way out of a troublemaker’s house.

Radio seems crammed with everything from appeals to make sure people know about greater pension income for less contributions to adverts by the Health and Safety Exec about keeping safe at work. And then there’s the Department of Children, Schools and Families with their rainbow logo who have TV spots about everything from diplomas to social work promotion.

Now, I’m in no way saying these are all wrong. Some of them to my mind do sail a little close to the wind regarding the test of whether they promote Government services and information or political policy (some may say the two are inextricably linked) but it’s the very obvious recent escalation of media use which is a little suspicious.

Whatever the arguments the latest figure of £250million is quite hefty.

Click here to comment on this post 

The news from the Walled Garden this week just didn’t seem possible four years ago…

I’ve written before about the amazing efforts of a volunteer group of locals who set out determined to restore an historic and very lovely Walled Garden at Elford to its former glory of over 200 years ago.

At that time a grand Hall stood over the gardens area but the whole estate was bequeathed to the care of the City of Birmingham many years ago and fell into disrepair. The Hall was pulled down 50 years ago and the Walled Gardens have deteriorated badly ever since.

But five years ago a handful of local people from Elford Village decided enough was enough and something needed to be done. That ’something’ was a plan to restore the Walled Garden and remaining Gardener’s Cottage.

And after a bit of help from me along the way in dealing with Birmingham City Council, and a rollercoaster ride, the group are now proud holders of a long peppercorn rent lease for the Gardens and a big fat cheque after a successful Heritage Lottery application.

So an amazing boost to the enormous and stunning work the volunteers have been doing to the Gardens and Cottage over the last year or so. Birmingham are fully on board, the Elford Walled Garden is fast returning to its former glory and the £250k funding will mean a significant speeding up towards something very special indeed. 

A wonderful example of a determined community (and lots of them now) pulling together against the odds and my heartiest congratulations to all concerned.

Click here to comment on this post

I’ve said many times before that one of the things I most enjoy is promoting the importance of democracy.

And each year the County aims that at young people by organising a growing number of events for schools, mainly primary, to give the kids an idea of why it’s important and what it means in reality.

Local Democracy Week from Staffs CC on Vimeo.

I didn’t do quite as many of those events last year as I normally do because of time constraints and one of the schools in my patch that we couldn’t fit in then were so keen they were happy to do it recently instead. Just on that, I think what the County are doing on this is great but in my view it should be more than just a couple of weeks a year. I’m encouraging that and I know they are looking at some sort of expansion to the programme.

Anyway, 30 youngsters from Manor Primary in Drayton Bassett between Lichfield and Tamworth came up to County Buildings a couple of weeks ago and what a fabulous bunch of youngsters they were… a credit to their school and parents.

We did a question and answer session to kick things off and then the kids split into four teams to represent political parties. They each set budgets for a variety of services and soon learned that there’s limited money and lots that needs doing.

After each team set their budget by prioritising which services were most important and therefore should get more money it was debated by all the ‘parties’. The debates were of excellent quality and it’s clear there were some budding public speakers in the making… and I mean that.

In the end every individual had a personal secret vote to decide which of the teams’ budget made most sense and which team had put up the best argument to vote for them. An excellent couple of hours and the teachers and parents who viewed appeared genuinely surprised saying that some youngsters who were normally pretty quiet really came into their own.

The final show of hands which was to find out how many children understood better how democracy and politics work in our country was unanimous.

Several dozen schools took part last year and I’m hoping the short clip of the recent event with Manor Primary will encourage even more Staffordshire to take part this year.

Click here to comment on this post

What right to impose this when they’ve NOT been elected and have limited public accountability?

As someone who takes our democracy and the electoral accountability which goes with it very seriously I’m furious that Staffordshire Police Authority, which is not electorally accountable, have set a local tax increase only fractionally under the government’s legal maximum. If it wasn’t for that legal limit I’m sure it would have been even higher.

At the County, we’ve sweated blood to keep the council tax rise under inflation and the lowest increase in Staffordshire since 1993. Just 1.9% despite the problems we inherited from the previous Administration.

At the Police Authority, unelected magistrates and unelected ’appointees’ can impose local tax on the public in Staffordshire and there’s nothing that we, even with our winning electoral mandate, can do about it.

Setting tax without public accountability is unacceptable in 2010.

The first thing to be clear about is that the Police Authority IS NOT the police. They are different and seperate.

Police are operational and get on with the job of policing and the Police Authority sets local priorities and the budget and precept (the police bit of the council tax bill). The Police Authority is a bit like a normal council except that there’s no democratic public election. It’s a bit of a Club and most have been on it for years and years.

The only sign of any democracy are a few Staffordshire County Councillors and Stoke City Councillors who sit alongside the appointees/magistrates. But they include County Councillors from the old Labour Administration which was swept from power in June.

The fact is that because of a complicated formula which includes Stoke, decided nationally many years ago, the electoral mandate achieved after June’s Conservative landslide in Staffordshire means nothing as far as the Police Authority is concerned. It’s even more extraordinary because even Stoke is now Conservative led and that makes no difference either.

So, I’m bemused when I look at the electoral map how the tax setting and leadership of Staffordshire Police Authority is in the hands of unelected individuals and the few remaining Labour politicians.

The result of all this is that despite elected Conservatives opposing the recent tax rise at the Police Authority it was voted through by unelected appointees, the magistrates and opposition Labour politicians.

Oh, and by the way, they stuffed a cool couple of million pounds back into their coffers instead of using it to keep the local tax down.

Take a look at the electoral map and tell me please how Labour County Councillors hold the balance of power with unelected people. Democracy in Action… I don’t think so!

Click here to comment on this post