26/07/10

Oxfordshire's speed cameras switched off  As part of the government's £11 million in-year cut in funding to Oxfordshire County Council, it has cut a Road Safety Partnership grant by £300k.  This grant was used to fund Oxfordshire's contribution to the Thames Valley Road Safety Partnership which manages speed cameras in the Thames Valley Police Authority area.   We believe this signals a total cut in funding next year and, to protect some of our Children's Services, we have taken the decision to cut the funding to the partnership by £600k.  As a result, the partnership will cease to maintain speed cameras in the yellow boxes from 1 August 2010. 

23/07/10

Villages could get housing development powers  Grant Shapps MP has announced the implementation of a Conservative manifesto pledge to allow towns and parishes to grant themselves planning permission for modest affordable housing schemes.  The new Community Right to Build will shift power from Government to communities to allow local people to deliver the homes and development that they really want, without being told that their own expansion doesn't fit with their local council's plans and should not go ahead.   Under the proposals, which will be contained in the Localism Bill, community organisations will have the freedom to give the green light to new local developments without a specific application for planning permission, as long as there is overwhelming community backing in a local referendum. Any surplus made from the sale or renting of homes would be recycled for the benefit of the community.

22/07/10

21/07/10

Government Offices to be abolished  Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP has announced the government's intention to abolish the Regional Offices.  There were nine of them in England. 

I have to confess to some disagreement with government policy here.  I have worked closely with two Directors of the Government Office of the South East. They are the present incumbent, Colin Byrne and a previous Director - Paul Martin. 

With both, I developed a strong working relationship.  If I needed an answer to a central government conundrum or an introduction to a senior civil servant or minister in a department, Colin or Paul would provide them. 

If the government offices are abolished, as a county council leader, I will have to cultivate relationships with six or eight different government departments.  On past experience, as soon as a relationship is established, the minister moves (or is moved) on!

I am also unhappy about the language that Eric Pickles used in announcing the planned abolition of government offices.  Cabinet  Minister Eric Pickles said they were not voices for regions in Whitehall but "agents of Whitehall to intervene and interfere in localities".  I regret this and I do not accept this.  Government offices were both agents of the government in the regions and agents of local government in Whitehall.  For a government committed to localism, this feels like a trip in the wrong direction.

Lord Michael Bichard  I was a guest of the accountancy firm KPMG last night at The Vineyard near Newbury for a Public Sector Dinner with Lord Michael Bichard.  There were approx 60 for dinner representing a mixture of senior people from local government, the NHS and other public bodies.  There was a useful opportunity to network over pre-dinner drinks.  At dinner, I found myself on the top table, seated to Michael Bichard who proved to be most interesting.  He has served as a local government chief executive in Brent and in Gloucestershire in the 1980s.  In 1990, he was appointed Chief Executive of the Benefits Agency. In 1995, he was made Permanent Secretary at the Department for Employment. When it merged with the Department for Education (DfE) to form the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), he became Permanent Secretary of the combined department, under Gillian Shephard and then, post-1997, David Blunkett. In May 2001 he retired from the Civil Service.  In September 2001, he was appointed Rector of The University of the Arts London. In 2004, the Home Secretary David Blunkett (previously Bichard's minister as Secretary of State for Education and Employment) appointed him to chair an inquiry into the "Soham murders". of two 10-year-old girls; the inquiry has since been known as the "Bichard Inquiry".  He was non-Executive Chairman of RSe Consulting from 2003-2008.  RSe Consulting provided strategic and management consulting services to local government and became part of Tribal Group Plc in 2008.  He was appointed Chairman of the Legal Services Commission in April 2005. There he introduced a range of reforming measures aimed at modernising the legal aid system. He was also Chairman of the educational charity Rathbone.  He left these two roles in September 2008 when he became the Director of the Institute for Government.  He is also Chairman of the Design Council. 

He was appointed as a knight in the Order of the Bath in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1999.  He was created a life peer on 24 March 2010, as Baron Bichard, of Nailsworth.   He was introduced in the House of Lords on 29 March, where he sits on the cross benches.

Electoral "reform"  One of the less welcome consequences of having a Liberal-Conservative coalition is the Liberals' insistence on trying to change the way in which we vote for our Members of Parliament.  We are to have a referendum on 5 May 2011, the same day as elections for one third of Cherwell District Council and West Oxfordshire District Council and for the whole of South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils.

You will have to forgive my strong views here but I am wholly opposed to any change from the First Past the Post System for the very simple reason that it will allow the Liberals to become a permanent partner in a hopelessly hung parliament, working with Conservative or Labour MPs to create a coalition government.  Any change to the voting system will give the Liberals a level of influence they simply do not deserve.

I was elected to a hung county council in 1989. For sixteen years, there was no leadership; no corporate strategy; no sense of direction.  There was no leader of the council;  committee chairmen rotated quarterly according to a rota.  It was a complete shambles and it showed.   It remained hung until 2001 when I took on the role of leading a coalition administration.  In May 2005, we secured a working majority of  12 which soon rose to 14 after a by-election and, in 2009, we increased our majority to 30. You only have to look at any single area of the county council to see that it has improved immeasurably since it came under single-Party administration.

I do beg of you not to allow the Liberals to become the dominant Party in national English politics by changing the voting system.  If they win the Alternate Voting argument, they will be back wanting Proportional Voting which is even worse.

Herewith my letter to the Editor of the Oxford Mail following publication of the article opposite on 30 June 2010:

Sir

I was stunned to read The Issue in The Oxford Mail on Wednesday 30 June and to hear the views of self-confessed squatter Jack Murphy, aged 20.  He clearly believes it is acceptable to enter someone else’s property without permission and to remain there as an uninvited guest.  He goes on to talk of the “communist ideal”, leavened with some “love and karma” and a winge about increases in value added tax.  I assume he does not work and looks to the taxpaying population to support his chosen lifestyle through the benefit system.  I wonder whether he has considered the consequences if we all adopted his chosen life-style because there would be no-one left as a working population to keep him fed and watered?

I have three solutions for the Jack Murphys of this world.  They should be given six weeks to get a job or to undertake serious training to skill themselves up for the world of work.  If they have failed to do this within six weeks, they should have all benefits withdrawn and should be offered an opportunity to undertake community service in exchange for a modest wage.  If they fail to do this, they should be marched down to the nearest Army recruitment office and assisted to fill in an enlistment form, kitted out and prepared for service in HM Forces.

As ever

Is squatting right?

Which side of the fence?   If you ever wondered which side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test! 

If a Republican doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a Democrat doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Republican is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.  If a Democrat is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.   

If a Republican is homosexual, he quietly leads his life. If a Democrat is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Republican is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.  A Democrat wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Republican doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Democrats demand that those they don't like be shut down.   

If a Republican is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.  A Democrat non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Republican decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it.  A Democrat demands that the rest of us pay for his.   

If a Republican reads this, he'll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh.   A Democrat will delete it because he's "offended".