This
page
is dedicated to a vague cogitation
on the life and times of that most
remarkable of civic leaders, Colin
Barrow CBE ...who thanks to his
attempts to bring in parking
charges during anti-social hours
and at Weekends within the city of
Westminster is destined to become
the most famous and celebrated
leader of Westminster City Council
since Dame Shirley Porter.
As regular readers of the Pear
Shaped Comedy Club website will
know Colin first came to our
attention with his abortive
attempt at a blanket flyering ban
on Leicester
Square. Having had to
communicate with him on this
subject I have come to develop a
slightly unhealthy interest in
Colin Barrow and his unique style
of local government.
Recently most noticably manifest
in his plans to abolish free
parking on single yellow lines
...
...and
parking bays ...
...between 6.30pm and midnight
Monday to Saturday, and between
1pm and 6pm on Sundays. Parking
will
cost up to £4.80 per hour in
bays. The official waffle is
to be found at the bottom of this
page.
I'd like to stress this is not
intended as a hatchet job on
Colin. Mainly because he's a
very powerful man and it clearly
is. But while we remain a
couple of hundred yards over the
border in Camden we are in a
slightly more unique position to
poke fun at him than those under
his more immediate
authority. That said this is
not an article purely about
Colin. It is a study of the
modern Conservative party through
the prism of Colin's career.
Where did Colin come from?
Who is Colin? What is
Colin? This is the
unauthorised and unexpurgated
biography both of Colin Barrow and
the modern Cameron Conservative
Party.
People like Colin Barrow dont just
appear from nowhere. Colin
has been around Conservative
Politics a long time. His
old "town house"...
...was Michael Portillo’s HQ
during his leadership bid ....
as well as being home to at least
one Conservative thinktank (Localis).
Colin donated money to several
Conservative thinktanks over the
years and is a director of the new
and hip Policy
Exchange thinktank which
came up with many Cameron
Conservative policies
(particularly their education
ones) and is part of the Stockholm
Network of thinktanks a "one-stop
shop for organisations seeking
to work with Europe’s brightest
policymakers and thinkers".
Many is the time I have said to Mr
Damage "How can we exploit new
acts more ruthlessly?" and he's
replied "I dont know let's consult
the Policy Exchange".
The Policy Exchange prints lots of
boring leaflets and it is not to
be confused with the Public
Policy Exchange which
organises lots of boring
symposiums on parking discussing
why Communities Secretary Eric
Pickles says things like
which is twaddle for "I'm
declaring the war on the
motorist over while
simultaneously giving local
authorities more power to set
highter chargeslike they
wont use them".
The current CEO of the Policy
Exchange is Robert Rosenkranz an
American multi-millionaire
financier who runs the titular Rosenkranz
Foundation which give a lot
of money to political thinktanks
(as does Colin) as well as
donating money to US museums such
as The Metropolitan Museum of Art
and stuff in New York...
Unlike in the UK where it went out
of fashion when the Welfare
State came in (due
to it's association with some dubious
historical characters
using it to advance business and
political interests that were
sometimes a bit naughty)
...philanthropy is still big in
the USA ...and maybe that's not
such a bad thing. Maybe it
isn't every philanthropist who is
motivated in their donations to
the public good to
disproportionately influence
public policy in some way and
merely coincidental that they're
all involved in thinktanks
too... Anyway ...as we know
Mr Rosenkranz is a big supporter
of all forms of art we felt he
would not mind if we stole this
picture of him from the philanthropy
news digest.... to sate your
curiousity....
Although flamboyant Maserati
driving Colin Barrow is
seldom out of the local news for
one hair brained scheme or another
...his most recent media battle
for his new and exiting policy of
charging drivers to park in the
West End even after 6pm seems to
be of a different scale of
confrontation to the many he has
had before.. The sheer
number of people slagging off
Colin in the press is simply
astounding. It is rare even
for Colin to generate so much ire
that the owner of Top Shop breaks
cover - giving the London Evening
Standard with quotes like:
Of course Sir Philip Green
(Croydon's tax evading answer to
Arthur Daley) is well known for
his colourful language. One
recalls ... "He can't read
English. Mind you, he is a fucking
Irishman" ...but it isn't just him
either... added to
this are other political
heavyweights such an Lynda
Bellingham, Roger Lloyd Pack and
even high profile Tory boy Andrew
Lloyd Webber.
God too
didn't seem too happy either about
car parking charges on a Sunday
...
...with the Church of England, the
Salvation Army ....
....and several Rabbis piling in
as well... when 300 people from a
range of churches protested on the
steps of Westminster Council's
chamber ....
....Mr Barrow did compromise a
bit...
But only a bit and there were
still many complaints about the
effects on weddings and Sunday
Schools ... funny you dont hear
much about Sunday Schools these
days so for those of you who think
they're a thing of the past... I
was wandering round the embankment
the other day when I found their
founder... or a statue of him:
Robert Raikes Sunday School System
is estimated to have educated
1,250,000 children before the
machination of the state school
system. That said it is the
21st century and one would have
thought that in 2011 there's quite
enough schooling and faith
schooling already without God
doing it as well so maybe there is
an unintended positive
here...? Also down the
embankment just by the Savoy is a
statue of the late Sir Arthur
Seymour Sullivan...
...who's Savoy Operas (with WS
Gilbert) the over-the-top
personage of Colin Barrow may well
have escaped from. Colin
originally started out in the oil
business before making a sideways
move into stock broking.
Having grown very rich he floated
his business, sold up and then
started looking towards
parliament. As pocket
boroughs are no longer available
in the 21st century this involved
the tedious business of trying to
get on the approved candidates
list via the usual
apprenticeships in local
government so returning from Wall
Street ....
....a man of leisure Colin brought
himself a house. A very big
house in the country... Darsham
House which according to Country
Life was built in 1769 and
contains six reception rooms, 11
main bedrooms, six bath/shower
rooms and four attic rooms, all in
fine condition, except for the
attic rooms, which need
renovation. Due to Colin
it's fairly regularly on the
market for about £2.5million
if you fancy it...
Here Colin began his passage from
successful Hedge Fund manager to
successful Conservative Council
leader.
Country Life without referring to
the identity of the previous owner
states in its attempt to sell the
property in 2009 for a million
pounds less than what Colin sold
it for a few years before that the
property has been "victim not just of the
credit crunch, but of the
depredation wrought by its last
owner, who literally gutted the
interior, ripping out
fireplaces, floors and panelling
before handing it back to the
bank, the current vendor. As
a result, Darsham House is now
the subject of nine enforcement
orders. Fortunately, the basic
structure is still sound, but Mr
Sheppard reckons that it will
take a dedicated buyer with a
budget of at least £1m
over and above the purchase
price, and the ability to work
successfully with English
Heritage, to restore this sadly
abused house to the splendour it
deserves."
It seems that while Mr Barrow did
apply for planning permission to
"renovate" the Grade II listed
building he also stripped the
interior and sold it without
having completed the
"renovation". He then moved
to Wesminster. But despite
or perhaps because of his rapid
rise up the party machine in
Westminster ...The local Conservative
Suffolk Coastal District Council (not
to be confused with the Suffolk
County Council Colin was on)
were not happy with the
substantial alterations to his
17th century property and would
not just let the matter drop ...
this resulted in a memorable
criminal trial. Or would
what would have been a memorable
criminal trial if Judge David
Goodin had not thrown the case out
with the statement that...
...leaving the nine enforcement
orders the problem of the next
owner...
Given that Suffolk Coastal
District Council is a Conservative
one ...this episode would seem to
suggest that Mr Barrow is not
without his enemies within his own
party in particular Conservative
Suffolk Coastal District Council
leader Cllr
Ray
Herring...
So why did Colin return to
London? Perhaps at some
point he ran out of money... Or
perhaps with Suffolk County
Council being split at the time
with no overall control it was a
bit of a boring place to hang out
but... Whatever the reason
...as it isn't done for our civic
leaders to admit they're in
politics for a career Colin
claimed that this was because of
the needs of his autistic son (Mr
Barrow got his CBE for services to
the National
Autistic Society).
Yes, even Colin has redeeming
qualities.
Of course one other reason for
Colin's move to London could have
been work...? Man Group was
floated in 1994 and Colin's
golden handcuffs fell off in
1996. After that he did not
as he implies above give up work
but was Chairman of Sabre Fund
Management, a post he held until
December 2005. Maybe living
in a very big house in the country
didn't quite gel with his second
job which he started in 2001 of
being a founding partner of then
new hedge fund - Eiger
Capital. Eiger Capital
collapsed (a victim of the banking
crisis) in 2008 leaving
a lot of bills. Colin
raised a few eyebrows when it
emerged that they had left a huge
bill in unpaid business
rates behind them.
Boris Johnson's deputy Kit
Malthouse is Alpha Strategic Plc's
finance director.
Hedge funds were the brainchild of
Australian speculator Alfred
Winslow Jones....
... who discovered
that if he combined short
selling with long selling he
could create a fund that was a
bit more insulated from the
general upward and downward
trends of the market.
After all guessing the general
upward and downward trends of
the market is a rather tedious
and not risk free endeavour
which has been known to lead
to traders jumping
out of windows. So
anything that makes
stockbrokers' lives simpler by
making them more complicated
must be desirous.
...Well in theory the fund is
insulated from the general
upward and downward trends of
the market....although it
didn't stop Eiger Capital
going bust.
Long selling is buying shares
and waiting for them to raise
in value then selling them
(speculating on a stock
increasing in value).
Short selling is paying a fee
to borrow someone else's
shares on the basis of a
promise to pay them back in
kind (i.e. give them the same
number of shares back) at a
later date. You then sell the
borrowed shares and if that
stock decreases in value then
you dont have to pay as much
to buy them back. One of
the dangers of this is the
risk of being "called away"
and having to pay back at an
unfavourable price because
there simply aren't enough
shares being long sold then
short sold to be long sold
again to be short sold again
to be short sold again to be
long sold so no one on the
stock market has any real idea
what anything is actually
worth any more. Here's a
picture no one understands.
As this was illegal under the
Investment Company Act of 1940
Jones created a legal loophole
by limiting the fund to 99
investors in a limited
partnership rather than
allowing any ordinary mortals
to buy shares in his company
for buying, selling and
borrowing shares to buy and
sell and borrow again.
Even today ordinary mortals
are not allowed to directly
invest their savings in Hedge
funds as we're too thick to
get the concepts. So we
are banned from investing our
ISA allowence in this
way. Instead we are
encouraged to save for our old
age in a pension fund that is
invested in dodgy hedge funds
because if it all goes pear
shaped the government can sort
that out by rasing the
retirement age.
Interestingly (although it may
be unrelated) the collapse of
Eiger
Capital coincides with
the Brown
government's ban on the
short selling of bank shares
... a political policy
recently come into fashion
again down the Eurozone.
Or it could be something to do
with the troubles of their
main sponsor Natexis Banque
Populaire? which on December
15, 2008, revealed that it had
lost more than US$450 million
in the Madoff investment
scandal ...
Ironically
Bernie Madoff's Ponzi
scheme was its self very
similar to a Hedge Fund -
all be it an illegal
unregistered one.
"Bernie Madoff
is running the world's
largest unregistered
hedge fund.He's organized
this business as a
'hedge fund of funds'
privately labeling their
own hedge funds which
Bernie Madoff secretly
runs for them using a
split-strike conversion
strategy getting paid
only trading commissions
which are not
disclosed.' If this is
not a regulatory dodge,
I do not know what is."
- Harry M. Markopolos (the
man who exposed Enron as a
gigantic Ponzi scheme)
Of course not all
Ponzi schemes are Hedge
Funds and not all Hedge
Funds are Ponzi schemes
but
as Ari
J Officer the Business
correspondent of Time
Magazine explains
problems arise when
speculators start
dealing in a combination
of liquid and illiquid
assets.
Because the value of
illiquid assets must be
estimated there is a
temptation to overestimate
them. And that's
where the fun starts...
Anyway I'm digressing quite a bit
now, aren't I? I suppose the
pont is that for all this
enthusiasm the Conservative Party
seemingly has for Colin...
including being in business with
the deputy Mayor ... Colin's
parking plans dont seem
to have many fans even in
his own party... in particular
Stephen Hammond, parliamentary
private secretary to Communities
Secretary Eric
Pickles
...although perhaps I should
emphasise the words "seem
to" there. He
certainly doesn't seem
to be loved by Boris
Johnson who rushed to distance
himself from the scheme with the
diplomatic response
which is not a "no, this wrong"
but a "it's Colin's
responsibility" ...So presumably
if they do get away with it Boris
can claim it was all his
idea. Colin responded
Is it? Was it? Why
"experimental"?
Well, as we have
explained before, Councils
cant just do "what they
like". If Councils had
unlimited power they'd be the
Queen or the Prime Minister or
the EU or the President of the
United States and clearly you
can't have a situation where
local government undermines
national government. Or
can you? So there are
statutory limitations on local
government power which are
quite complicated legally.
If, for example,
Westminster Council were to
invent a bylaw that everyone
parking their car had to make
sure they had left the house
in possession of a blueberry
jelly they are subject to Judicial
Review under the terms
of "Wendesbury
Reasonableness".
And if you don't have the
money to take your council to
expensive Judicial Review then
you can opt for the cheaper
solution of the Council
Ombudsman.
The way for a
Council to avoid judicial
review is to implement a
proper consultation exercise
before changing its
behaviour. For most
councils like Westminster (the
flagship for all repressive
council legislation because
traditionally it's always
had the most money) this
usually involves issuing a
consultation document that is
as narrowly distributed as
possible. But this
policy has dangers. What
if it does go to review and
the courts decide you haven't
had a large enough
consultation...? Or
worse still what if people get
wise and are constantly
scanning your sites for hidden
consultation documents.
Well, then you need a new
way... and the simplest new
way is to introduce your new
scheme anyway but call it an
"experiment"...
Colin likes
experiments. Like
this one...
because...
Experimental
Orders may not, under
the Road Traffic
Regulation Act 1984,
last for more than 18
months, but do
not require the
formal advertisement
and objection
procedures of
permanent Traffic
Regulation Orders
The NTBPT
campaign against the
introduction of charging
for motorcycle parking
ended up in the Appeal
Court where the NTBPT
lost. They claimed
that the use of an
experimental order that
was actually meant to be
permanent was wrong and
simply a revenue raising
measure. Pointing
out that the revenue
raised from Parking
Charges (£81.5
million) exceeds what
Westminster City Council
raises in Council Tax
(£80
million).
Conversely the Council
argued that when you
subtract costs from the
£81.5 million
raised that only leaves
£35million...
which is a "
modest
surplus" spent
on road
improvements. In a
peculiar piece of logic
only the legal
profession could
machinate it is not
illegal for the council
to make a profit from
parking or to introduce
measures that result in
greater profit from
parking only to intend
to increase income by
increasing parking
charges so as long as a
fiction can be thinly
maintained that
increased charges are
something to do with
regulating supply and
demand then as Cllr Lee
Rowley would say...
...however
as Sir Philip Green
points out there is no
logical reason why a
high demand for
parking availability
should require an
increase in parking
charges or a further
actual loss of on
street parking (for
example by removing
the right to park on
yellow lines).
This is actually a
complete inversion of
Conservative
concepts of the
free market.
Actually what is
happening is that
supply is being cut to
increase demand to
further increase the
amount that the
motorist must
pay? In short
this is the
exploitation of a
natural monopoly to
maximize profit.
There will then be
even more demand on
even fewer places - a
vicious cycle...?
Apparently
the surplus revenue is
ring-fenced to be used
for transport related
expenditure unless the
Council is judged to
be 'excellent' by the
Audit Commission, in
which case the surplus
goes into the
Council's general
budget (as is the case
for Kensington and
Chelsea). This
is probably bollocks
but that's what it
says on Wikipedia.
Of course
Colin could increase
council tax to balance
the books but this would
not fit with the
government's spending
plans or Colin Barrow's
personal assurance that
Westminster
City Council Tax will
remain frozen until
2013...
Westminster has the 2nd
lowest Council Tax in
the Country behind only
Wandsworth. As one
can see from this
graph... of Band D
council Tax rates...
...people
in Croydon pay twice
as much in Council
Tax as people in
Wandsworth or
Westminster -
a major factor in
being able to achieve
this is parking
charges and fines
...although it has to
be said that
Wandsworth and
Westminster have more
higher band Council
Tax payers. Then
again...
Also
Council Tax Bands
stop at
£320,001 and
above and the
average price for a
flat in Westminster
is £823,308
compared to
£162,302 in
Croydon meaning that
basically absolutely
everyone in
Westminster is in
the top band H and
pays approximately
the same Council
Tax ...so
it is to all intents
and purposes a Poll
Tax as the banding
makes no
distinctions about
the average cost of
property within the
borough
boundaries.
It's worth
remembering too that
people in what the
Department for
Communities and
Local Government
quaintly still calls
"the shire counties"
pay more
(£1453) than
those of us in
towns (£1372)
for a Band D
property.
Comparatively London
is cheaper still to
live in than other
towns with an
average Band D
council tax of
£1308 - which
is pretty much down
to Westminster and
Wandsworth's
exceptionally low
rates... The
ludicrous
disparities in the
system can be seen
more obviously still
by plotting the
above Band D tax
rate data over the
Greater London area
and creating a
grid.
In a world where the
tax burden was
shared equally from
authority to
authority the map
would be only one
colour. The
disparity can be
further enhanced by
viewing the map in
3D.
In a world where the
tax burden was
shared equally from
authority to
authority the map
would be totally
flat but as we can
see there is a large
chasm in Zone
1. By
the end of 2013
Westminster City
Council Taxes will
have been frozen for
a full five
year.
Basically the entire
borough is
subsidised by
motorists and
business and this is
how Westminster
maintains such tiny
Council Taxes.
While
having the lowest
residential council
tax rates
Westminster has the
most punitive
Business Rates in
the country...
Here's a bar chart
of average business
rates ...
On top of this there
are two business
investment districts
to further add to
Westminster's
coffers.
Heart of London
FIRST YEAR INCOME
LEVY:
£639,833
New West End Company
FIRST YEAR INCOME
LEVY:
£2,160,000
And a third has been
discussed (though
perhaps business
aren't buying it?)
Professional board
sitter Dame Judith
Mayhew Jones of the
New West End Company
called in October
for all traffic to
be banned in the
West End on a Sunday
as it gets in the
way of the Business
Investment
District's view that
streets are merely
extensions to
shopping
isles. So
maybe it isn't
actually all about
parking revenue but
about controlling
who hangs out in the
West End...?
Oh well it's not as
silly as their
previous scheme of
having fast and slow
lanes for
pedestrians on
Oxford Street and
it's good she got a
free holiday to
Times Square.
Of course as more
and more of central
London becomes
pedestrianised
traffic flow will
become more
complicated creating
more and more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating more
congestion resulting
in more excuses for
pedestrianisation
creating a no go
zone for ordinary
people with cars.
One has to say too
that one fails to
understand why
members of the New
West End Company
need to travel to
New York to see a
pedestrianised town
center full of
people who cant get
a gig indoors when
there's one in
Croydon.
....with only one
intersecting
diagonal Street
(Broadway which
intersects the grid
at Times Square)...
....with one where everybody
has to circle one
roundabout at
the bottom of
Trafalgar Square
because Ken already
pedestrianised the
top side completely
messing up the
traffic flow around
the already insane
one way
system.
Actually the short
truth of it is that
the West End's one
way system has never
really worked since
its inception?
Has
it?
(
ONE WAY
TRAFFIC SYSTEM
BEGINS IN
LONDON )
The volume of
central London that
is pedestrianised
grows slowly but
surely all the
time. Many
people probably
cannot remember that
Eros used to be in
the center of a
roundabout and at
one time you used to
be able to drive
round Leicester
Square...
London's highly
complex road system
is a mixture of two
way streets and
gyratory
systems. This
means (much to the
chagrin of the New
West End Company)
pedestrianising the
West End is a
logistical nightmare
that no computer
simulation can
solve. There
are actually very
few East to West
passageways due to
previous piecemeal
pedestrianisation
plans meaning a
complete rethink
would be
required. Due
to the illogicality
of London's road
system it's easier
to go West to East
than East to West -
or is it the other
way round?
Well, it's certainly
easier to enter
London from the
North than the
South... I think.
The logic of a gyratory
system is to
create one way
streets where
traffic moves in a
series of circles to
speed up traffic
flow.
The problem with
this is it tends to
create junctions
that are
intimidating to
navigate because of
the speed of the
traffic ...and where
it is very difficult
to stop. Added
to this for a
gyratory system to
work properly
traffic lights must
be correctly phased
London wide. A
very difficult thing
to achieve when
nimby civic leaders
like Keith Moffitt
the then Liberal
Democrat leader of
Camden Council decided
to rephase his
traffic lights
against the wishes
of everyone else ...
completely messing
up a gyroatory
system that spans
both Camden and
Westminster and
beyond....
It's probably not an
accident that Milton
Keynes which was
designed as one
large intermeshing
huge gyratory system
has Britain's
highest suicide
rate.
With every Council
having its own
authority to
organise traffic
rather than any
logistical overview
you end up with
loony schemes like
Lancashire Council's
plans to make every
"reisdential road"
20mph. At
which point they
really should give
up with tarmac and bring
back horses.
Which probably is
the long term plan
given the rate the
oil is running out.
Conservative Lord
Young of Graffham
optimistically
suggested that Mr
Barrow might be
pursuaded to change
his mind by the
prospect of being
voted out...
The problem is, of
course, that Colin
Barrow will never not be
elected. With it's
high property prices and
punative-on-lower-income-earners
Council Tax
that's effectively a
flat rate for almost
everyone ....Westminster
is a Tory small state
Utopia - and with so
many MPs owning second
homes there the chances
of Parliament voting to
even things out is sod
all. There's
never not been a
Conservative
Administration at
Westminster Council
since the Council's
inception in 1964.
Not even when Dame
Shirley Porter was in
charge.
So in order
to try and make sure
that Westminster didn't
try and do anything too
outrageous to the
detriment of people
outside Zone 1 there
used to exist a body
called the GLC
which changed between
Labour and Conservative
control and set parking
policy on a London-wide
basis rather than
authority by
authority...
... Older readers may
recall the Greater
London Council (General
Powers) Act 1974 and
"Pavements are for
People" campains...
...and to replace
the GLC we now have the GLA
who's website states that...
The
Mayor cannot intervene
in parking issues,
which are the responsibility
of the local borough councils.
So what's the
point in him then?
Particularly since Colin has
decided to embark on another of
his experiments and merge
Westminster Council with
Hammersmith & Fulham and
Kensington & Chelsea to form
a
SuperCouncil
like this
in effect starting his own
duplicate authority in
competition with the
GLA. Colin's plans for
the three Councils as one are
outlined in the document
ironically titled "DRIVING
CHANGE: leadership,
trust and money" which
shows the three potentates (from
left to right Sir Merrick Cockell,
Stephen Greenhalgh and Colin
Barrow CBE) smiling rather inanely.
While I'm not an expert in
local government it would seem to
me that one immediate problem with
the concept of 3 council leaders
ruling as one is it automatically
tripples the volume of
waffle...
A scheme that was no doubt
machinated where all three men
hang out - Localis.
Anyway ...one has to say that
even if it is true that...
These proposals
protect vital front line
services at a time of necessary
financial adjustment. They will
lead to a 50% reduction in the
number of middle and senior
managers. A 50% reduction in the
overheads attached to frontline
services to the public. And
ensure that in 2014/15, the
costs of overheads and middle
and senior management will be a
smaller proportion of total
spend than in 2010/11.
...it does kind of rely on there
never being a Labour or Lib Dem
administration and raise a few
constitutional issues to say the
least?
Adding to the confusion Britain
already has one one of the most complicated
sytsems of local and
regional government but that
doesn't matter because...
It’s
about keeping all our
libraries open, making over
one million books available to
people across the three
boroughs, and saving
£1million in the process
by cutting library management
costs.
In all, Tri-borough services
will help a million people and
save £33 million in
total over the next four
years.
As if three Tory leaders were
not enough there's even a
picture of Eric Pickles holding
aloft the new Driving Change
document like Chamberlain's
piece of paper too...
Mr
Pickles of course made his name in
the 1980s introducing savage
public spending cuts that slashed
Bradford City Council's budget by
£50m over years -
particularly controversial as the
Council was actually hung at the
time and he broke the agreement
that the position of Lord Mayor is
rotated between the parties by
putting a Conservative mayor in
place which gave him the extra
vote needed to make a majority...
so a big fan of democracy
and saving money. To
be fair there is some attempt to
square the constitutional
circle..........
The three authorities (in the
style of Woodrow Wilson) have
agreed a 19 point
‘Sovereignty Guarantee’
which sets out the rights
and responsibilities of the
contracting parties.
In full the 19 points are
1. Local
residents will continue to
elect the same number of
councillors to each
Council.
2. Each Council will
retain its own
constitution, setting out
how it makes decisions,
organises scrutiny and
delegates authority.
3. Each Council will
continue to set its own
council tax and publish
its own budget and
accounts.
4. Each Council will
continue to be able to set
its own spending
priorities.
5. No Council can be
‘out-voted’ by the two
other Councils in a way
which requires that
Council to
adopt a policy,
accept a cost or change a
priority that its decision
makers are not willing to
support.
6. There will be no
change in the name of any
of the Councils.
7. The costs of
changes and the benefits
achieved from change will
be fairly attributed and
shared to the satisfaction
of all three Councils; if
necessary using mediation.
8. No Council will
be obliged to break an
existing contract.
9. The boundaries of
the areas for which each
Council is responsible
will not change. Each
Council will continue to
speak up for its own
residents, even where
there is an apparent
conflict of interest
between the boroughs.
10. Each Council
will be able to set its
own policy for how
services are delivered.
11. The Councils
will commission service
from contractors,
voluntary bodies and
others together, but can
also decide to commission,
or grant aid, on their
own.
12. Nothing in these
proposals is intended to
stop Councils developing
local ideas about how to
support their local
communities. A commitment
to shared learning,
innovation and value for
money
13. The Councils
will share what works in
service delivery and
encourage their neighbours
to learn
from successful
innovation.
14. The Councils
will adopt common
specifications where these
are compatible with each
Council’s policy
objectives and budget
preferences and where
these are likely to give
best value to taxpayers.
15. The Councils
commit to a continuing
process of exploring how
working together might
lower
costs; be a better
platform for devolved
responsibilities from
Government; and/or improve
the
quality of service
delivery.
16. The Councils
will commit to exploring
how by working together,
councillors can enhance
the ways in which their
Councils deliver their
responsibilities.
17. The Councils
will expect to keep these
arrangements under review,
in order to ensure they
remain fit for
purpose.
18. Any of the
arrangements that
constitute agreements
between the Councils can
be ended on
notice, though any
Council withdrawing will
be responsible for its own
consequent costs. Any
joint
external contracts
will be covered by the
same legal considerations
as now.
19. Where shared
services arrangements
are brought to an end
then the notice period
will be twelve months,
unless a shorter period
is expressly agreed by
the other parties and the
costs arising from
termination will be
fairly shared between
the Councils in a
pre-agreed manner.
The question is
what are the "costs"
of termination...? And how "pre-agreed"?
I expect there isn't
actually an answer.
The job of all local
councillors is and has always
pretty much been to implement
the unpopular policies of
central government. In
many ways the more unpopular
you can be and get away with
it the better it is for your
long term career. Just
as many in Mrs Thatcher's
government were quick to
criticise Pickles management
of Bradford Council at the
time they secretly admired him
for being able to do it and
keep his job and he was
eventually rewarded with the
Brentwood and Ongar
Constituency.
Local
Councillors are the cannon
fodder of government.
Of course there maybe
something in the plan to buy
services across several
councils. But
Westminster Council's own
"Partnerships in Parking"
scheme was certainly not
without problems in that it
ended up down the European
Union who complained
that the company subcontracted
to (Verrus) ...was
subcontracted to
"automatically" ...or
something...breaking
competition rules. The
truth is probably that while
the arrangement of six
councils collectively bulk
buying the services of one
company may have resulted in a
short term discount ... over
the longer term they have, of
course, actually only
succeeded in putting Verrus's
competitors out of business -
weakening their negotiating
position when the have to
rebid the contract?
While George Osborne choses
how many millions will need to
be saved to cut the deficit
someone's still got to make
that work on the ground by
deciding exactly what services
and rubbish collections will
be removed, what street lamps
wont be fixed, what pot holes
will remain unfilled and what
books wont be available to
read. The most ambitious
Councillors are always the
most masochistic. And
Colin is very masochistic
indeed...?
In a way we at the Pear Shaped
admire him...
For it is interesting that
while the Supercouncil scheme is
sold as an equal partnership the
document also contains the words
Reducing
chief executive posts from three
to two, recognising that Westminster
needed to retain its own chief
Executive given its
capital city responsibilities
...which
tells you who really has the
trousers on.
If you're wondering
why no one's tried merging
Councils before it's not
because Colin Barrow alone is
a genius (although this is
true) but because local
authorities have only actually
had Cabinet style government
since 2000. This has
been a huge
success meaning that the
lower rungs of the political
class such as Steve
O'Connell can now pay
themselves more than ever
before and build
bigger buildings to
replace the perfectly good
ones that are there
already....?
Merging the three councils
will not only mean there are
less administrators it will
presumably mean that there
will be less people on the
executive Supercouncil than on
the individual councils
...allowing individual
Councillors to earn more money
than ever before...........?
Needless to say all these cost
saving measures are not very
popular with Linda Perks of Unison
or Peter Allenson of Unite
So will the parking charges go
through...?
It's not surprising that given the
controversial nature of the
proposals backbench Conservative
Councillors (Lindsey Hall and
Daily Mail [which happens to have
offices in the West End] feature
writer Glenys Roberts) can be seen
grumbling to the media and a
coup against Mr Barrow is
rumoured...
Perhaps all these arguments are
like the arguments Boris and David
reportedly have.
A fake smokescreen?
Or perhaps the council are
floating a worse case senario
so that when something awful but
not quite as awful does come in
we'll all give out a sigh of
relief and ...think ourselves
lucky?
We
like Colin.
Colin is Brave.
Photo Credits
Eric Pickles
http://www.acumenimages.com
Sir Philip Green by Katie
http://www.flickr.com/people/23743449@N00
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber - US
Government
Northern Rock queue by Alex
Gunningham from London, Perfidious
Albion (UK plc)
http://flickr.com/photos/89319548@N00/1378965141
Stephen Hammond from Wikipedia
Boris Johnson by Jerry Daykin
Queen Elizabeth II by Nasa
Lord Young of Graffham by the LSE
Boris Johnson opening bell at
NASDAQ by
http://flickr.com/photos/30749822@N04
Other photos culled from Council,
Unions and other Party propaganda
Maps are screengrabs from Google
maps
Contour Maps are generated in Surfer
Cant remember where I got Linda
Perks of Unison from but she's
always at a podium
Short selling diagram by
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Grochim
