Richard Baum

Last night’s meeting of full Council was the last one of the calendar year, but before we adjourned for mince pies with the Mayor, there was some serious business to attend to. Much of the proceedings did slip into jollity rather easier than the rest of the year though, particularly during one worrying question about public toilets, the hugely enthusiastic response to which was so riddled with words which tickled my inner-child that I was in grave danger of losing it completely, crying with laughter in my seat. And I was far from the only one. It really wasn’t on, to be honest, and this morning I am faintly ashamed (in a wry smile kind of a way) that it had me and others literally doubled over giggling.

Anyway, first up last night, as ever, was public question time. It was dominated by the secondary schools review and the obviously-brewing campaign to ensure a high quality Radcliffe secondary school in Radcliffe. And it was great to see the Head Boy of Radcliffe Riverside in the audience. I hope he wasn’t put off Council forever by the political bluster (and the sight of half a dozen members getting hysterical about public toilets).

The entire debacle over Radcliffe Riverside school has been rumbling on since before I was elected to the Council. I must confess that its complexities escape me, and there are people within the Bury Lib Dems who are schools experts and who have a much better grasp of it than I have. But what I do know is that having the future of a school, and a town’s secondary education provision, dangling in the air for years is not fair to children or to their parents. But at the same time, neither is the creation of a campaign to “save” a school not threatened with closure. The Executive Member for Children, and the Leader himself, have not helped the situation by sending out mixed signals, changing their story and then retracting what they’ve said. We need clarity now for the sake of Radcliffe, and quick progress on sorting this out.

After the public had had their questions barely answered, it was time for questions to the Leader from us Councillors. The situation these days borders on the farcical at times. The Conservative-imposed time limit of 30 minutes means that out of 22 questions posed in advance, only 7 could be heard. It was particularly galling as my question was number 8 on the list. I am therefore denied not only the chance for it and the answer to be heard in public, but also of the opportunity to ask a supplementary question.

The question asked what the Council’s customer service standards are for responding to members of the public who contact them, and how frequently these are met. I know the answer to the first part already – that the Council should respond within 2 days to correspondence, and send a full answer within ten. I also know that anecdotal evidence I have, as well as a bit of monitoring of my own contacts with the Council, have shown that this standard is met less than half the time. But sadly we’ll never have this figure aired in a meeting (although when I get a written answer, I’ll air it on here!), nor will I get to ask anyone what they’re going to do about it. There’s nothing more frustrating than contacting a large organisation and being ignored, and yet it’s something Bury Council excels at. We need to sort it out.

There were three debates at Council. The first was on the Sustainable Communities Act, which has the potential to give enormous freedoms to Councils to innovate and develop policy locally. It is a great step in the direction of local autonomy and devolution of power, and I welcome much of it. The Council voted as one to accept a slightly amended motion which will see the Local Area Partnerships talk about the priorities which we’ll seek to use the Act to bring about next year.

There was also a debate on the Bury Times move proposal (see below), where Council unanimously agreed to voice our deep concerns about the plans.

And we Lib Dems proposed a motion about the local government settlement, which I proposed and the speech on which you can read above.

The settlement is the amount of grant given to the Council by government, which has fallen in real terms yet again this year. Only about 25% of council funding comes from Council Tax. Most of the rest comes in the form of the settlement grant, which Labour has reduced in real terms once more. Not only do Bury do worse than inflation, but also worse than many of our neighbours and also many similar councils. It means we have to cut services or put up taxes, and this is something local Lib Dems oppose bitterly. Our condemnation of the government last night was echoed on all sides, and the motion passed unanimously.

And then, at 22.15, it all stopped. And that’s that for 2008.

Rick