No more "improvements" please

The handful of Labour Councillors on Bolsover’s Cabinet have just decided to close all the Contact Centres in the District on Saturday morning claiming they can’t afford to run them anymore. However the savings are less than the extra £25,000 that they had to pay the auditor this year because of their failure to prepare the accounts, and a lot less than the excessive amounts they voted themselves in member allowances. They seemed to have forgotten that in these difficult times the public need easy access to the Council more than ever and for many that means Saturday mornings.

At the last Council  meeting the Leader, Clr Eion Watts, claimed that they had been and would be no cuts. So it’s perhaps not surprising, if a little bizarre, that Bolsover’s press release tries to spin these closures as some sort of “improvement” (yes really). If that’s what they think is an improvement perhaps they had better stop trying.

The end for An

Whilst I welcome contributions I see no reason why contributors should need to protect their identity, so if you aren't prepared to own your comment, you may well find that it doesn't stay on the site for long.

So it’s goodbye to anonymous - it was nice knowing you.

Duncan.

Could do better

Bolsover's auditors have just published their annual governance report, and for the third year in a row it puts Bolsover at the back of the class. It has no fewer than 17 recommendations, 13 adjudged to be of high importance and concludes that the Council has important weaknesses in internal control.

Here’s a few exceprts

• Fundamental errors in the total comprehensive income and expenditure; the movement in reserves statement and the cash flow statement.
• Ongoing capacity issues that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency
• 14 material errors and numerous non-material non-trivial errors theses issues could have and should have been identified by our own review processes
• Significant scope to develop your arrangements for securing financial resilience
• Critical that the Council takes action to move to a single fit for purpose asset register
• Significant governance weakness in contract arrangements
• A number of agreed recommendations that have not been implemented from previous audit letters and reports

Does it matter? - well when you can’t account for the assets you've got it's hard to inspire public confidence in the purchase of Clowne Campus. Other issues raised by the auditors include a £176K under provision of Council tax debts, £157K under provision for Housing Benefit overpayments, £98K of six year old debts that need to be written-off, a £256K provision for an equal pay claim and a £25K bill for all the extra work that they have had to do on Bolsover’s behalf.

Probably most damning of all is the observation that although the Council needs to make savings of £6.5M over the three year period 2011/12 to 2013/14 yet by Sept 2011 it would appear that all Council members had not received a comprehensive overview of the progress in delivering the agreed level of savings. That comment is wrong of course, it should now say November instead of September.

None of this is new, the red lights have been flashing for years. Last January when responding to the previous auditors letter, the Leader, Cllr Watts, said that he wouldn't accept another critical report pointing out that in times of austerity if your financial data is wrong you can make serious decisions to sack staff, or close services, when it is not required. Looks like he was wrong on the first point but right on the second.

Increasing the number of accountants is a necessary but not a sufficient response. The problem runs a bit deeper than that. Some acceptance of responsibility from the Councillors of the Cabinet and Audit Committee would start the process of change but a complete review of the political and leadership culture that has given rise to this systemic failure is long overdue.

Alkane

I normally talk about Bolsover issues here but having looked at the DT this week it seems I've now got strong competition!

So for Whitwellians and Creswellians I must comment on Thursday's public meeting of Whitwell Against Alkane. I had invited Tamsin Hart from the new landowners, the Homes and Communities Agency, following my meeting with her in September. I hoped she would deliver some long awaited good news and I wasn’t disappointed. In her own words Alkane are "off the table" and any, (repeat any, yes that means any - I checked) offers to buy the site will require approval from Bolsover Council.

Thanks to Kev, Julie, Helen, Naomi and all who have supported Whitwell against Alkane we have achieved a hell of a lot - as Tamsin herself said "I think you've frightened them" - not a bad tactics that - never doubt what a well co-ordinated public campaign can achieve.


Duncan

Comments Please

I've just found out that you can't post a coment to you own blog (or at least I can't) so here's a reply to a comment left by an annomyous person regarding my latest posting. Please feel free to add your own views.

Hi, thanks for contributing always good to debate - be better still if you were prepared to put your name to your comments.

On the  Cavendish family - the nuclear family (married double income two kids) is as much a minority as the elderly, disabled or people from an ethnic background. I just think the Council could explain itself better if it talked about services to all these groups rather than pandering to one stereotype.

More widely I have disagreed with Bolsover Councillors on the key issues of member’s allowances, closure of public toilets, public engagement, cuts in cleansing services, financial planning and on the purchase of the Clowne college site. You are perfectly entitled to disagree with me, but many people have also shown their support on these issues. Surely it is important to have a debate?

As the title suggests this blog is about Bolsover not Whitwell. I cover Whitwell in my newsletter and at my surgery. However as you ask I think I remain the only elected representative to travel (at my own expense) to Leeds to meet the HCA as soon as they became the new owners of the site proposed for the Alkane plant, make them aware of the extent of the opposition to their plans and invite them to Thursday's public meeting - I'll be there so if you are as well may-be we can have a longer chat. I’ve also arranged meetings with both Welbeck and Creswell Crags and met with the manager of the Leader project to explore the possibility of grant aid for Whitwell. In addition I have a long list of individual surgery issues that I have resolved for constituents.

As for being an MP, our candidates are selected  by Green Party Members. I had the honour of being selected for Chesterfield at the last election.  Probably one thing we can agree on is that from the Green Party perspective Bolsover as a target ward comes a long, long, long way down the list. We’ve fought hard to get Caroline Lucas elected in Brighton and she is doing an excellent job, but Dennis has one of the safest Labour seats in the country so I whilst it is heartening to hear you think that I am on the campaign trail the reality is more mundane I am simply challenging decisions which seem to me, and to many other people, to be wrong.

Finally I get the feeling that you don’t think I am tackling local issues. If that is the case then please come along to my next surgery outside the Co-op this Saturday at 2pm and tell me what these issues are.       

Best wishes,

Duncan

Tears of a Cowne

I've sent this to the Derbyshire Times:

Tears of a Clowne

Amongst all the hype about the decision by Bolsover Council to purchase Clowne College Campus here’s a few facts:

1.       Morrison’s have not agreed to purchase Sherwood Lodge, nor have they applied for planning permission.

2.       Clowne College was built with public money. Bolsover residents are now being asked to buy-back what they already own.

3.       Bolsover Council is cutting its office use by 40% through new technology and won’t even need all the classroom space at Clowne let alone 12.5 acres of pitches, workshops, sports facilities, canteen and a nursery all of which it will liable for rates.

4.       Clowne Campus was built to a high spec because we need to equip young people with the best skills for them to succeed. Instead of stripping its assets, Bolsover Council should be campaigning to prevent its closure. A supermarket in Bolsover may be convenient but it’s training not shopping that will get our economy out of recession.

5.       Sherwood Lodge is not yet 20 years old, built by the same Labour Councillors who now complain that it is inefficient. But they haven’t told us the costs of the “extras” like providing the IT and telephony services along with reception areas and provision for public meetings in Clowne campus.

It has been suggested to me that having over-inflated their allowances Labour Councillors are adopting the same approach to their office requirements. However if they think that the recession has bottomed out, and now’s the time to speculate, then they must have more faith in the coalition than I do. Elsewhere other Councils don’t indulge in pipe-dreams but work with communities to create jobs by insulating cold Victorian homes, providing solar panels, paying a living wage, supporting local businesses, improving green spaces and keeping essential services, like public toilets, open. Bolsover should take note.

Eye, Eye

If you care to part with £1.50 of your hard earned cash you'll find that the decisions of Bolsover Council on Members allowances and closing toilets has justified its inclusion in the "Rotten Borough" section. No comment from me is required.....

Tale of two towns

This is a letter I have sent to the Derbyshire Times.

A tale of two towns.

Cllr Watts, leader of Bolsover DC says he hopes to turn Bolsover into the Bakewell of North Derbyshire. Well it’s fine to have a dream, but the real world is shaped by hard decisions and the simple truth is that better ones are being made by Derbyshire Dales Council.

That Council is opening, not closing, public toilets in Bakewell and they fund a ten day long arts festival in the town, (instead of our excellent, but limited, two day festival held in Shirebrook). We can only be envious of Bakewell’s swimming pool, Fairtrade status, funding for a hydro-electric scheme and better recycling record. However it is the relationships of the Council to its local business that is most enlightening. In Bakewell traders have told the Council that a new supermarket would not benefit their town, where-as in Bolsover, even before a planning application has been submitted, the Deputy Leader is “delighted” to announce that Morrison’s are coming without any apparent regard for the impact on traders.

Derbyshire Dales is far from perfect but at least they seemed to have grasped that the purpose of a Council is to work with, not against, local people. It’s no surprise that their Councillors accepted independent advice and take a basic allowance of £4,100pa, not the £10,000pa that the Labour group in Bolsover pushed through.

Since I was elected I have tried to encourage ordinary people to get involved in Bolsover Council meetings. It’s not easy, and Tim Levers was just the latest to experience the indifference and hostility shown to anyone who tries to engage the labour group in debate. However Tim was, and is, absolutely right to point out that public toilets are not a nicety but an essential service for the most vulnerable in our community. As the only Councillor to vote against closure I’m pleased to offer what support I can and am full of admiration for Tim’s actions. He is not alone, BADGL are also challenging the Council’s proposals to allow green space to be developed. All these people give their own free time, without any payment or expenses because they simply want to build a better Bolsover may-be that’s why the letters pages are so supportive of them. If we really want to become the Bakewell of the North the Labour group have to learn to listen, put all the information they hold in the public domain and engage residents in a proper debate before making decisions.

Cllr Duncan Kerr, Green Party

Thinking twice

I notice that the Derbyshire Times letters pages have been full of complaints about the decision of Bolsover Councillors to close the public toilets. For many of us this may be a minor inconvenience but for some of us it is a major health issue, as this letter makes clear:

Dear Editor,

As Chair of the IBS network, the National Charity for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I know just how important toilet facilities are for anybody who suffers from digestive problems. A public toilet is as necessary for someone with IBS as a dropped pavement is for someone in a wheelchair. Six million people in this country have to live with the indignity of incontinence, the least we can do is to keep the few public toilets we have left open. According to a Help the Aged survey over 80% of elderly people already have difficulty finding a public toilet and as a result too many stay isolated in their own homes.

I understand that Bolsover has an ailing and elderly population and yet the council are planning to close their public toilets. Furthermore, I am informed that 800 people signed the petition against closure. I realise that councils are having to cut services, but it affronts civilised standards of our societies to withdraw such essential public amenities. I hope therefore that Bolsover Council will consider holding a public meeting so that they can hear the views of vulnerable local people before proceeding with such a damaging policy.

Professor Nick Read,

Gastroenterologist and Chair of The IBS Network

Lets hope that Bolsover Councillors at least listen to a Doctor 

All in this together?

OK you've heard about the Bolsover Councillors awarding themselves the highest allowances of any District Council in the country but what about the pay of those who work for, rather than serve on, the authority? How do they fare?

And I'm not talking about the bosses and Directors who seem to be endlessly re-organised, I'm talking about the refuse collectors, craftspeople, office staff and housing assistants. Over 50 of them are paid less than the Living Wage of £7.20 per hour. That means that over 1 in 10 of the Council's staff get little more than the minimum wage. Apparently they are not "worth it".

Councils such as Green Party controlled Brighton along with forward thinking Labour authorities such as Lewsiham and most recently Preston (where I notice that the member allowance is nearly one third of the Bolsover rate) are doing something not just issuing platitudes so I've put down this question for the Leader to answer at the next Bolsover Council meeting. Let's see if whether he's more George Osborne than George Orwell.

"As his party has made sure that front-line councillors get the highest allowances of any District Council in the country would he like to show that he is equally concerned about front-line workers by joining the ranks of forward-thinking Councils such as Preston, Lewisham, Lambeth, Oxford and Brighton by making a commitment that Bolsover DC will become a Living Wage Employer thereby directly assisting the 50+ Council employees  who earn less than £7.20 per hour and who are suffering most from the coalitions cuts in services and increases in VAT and fuel costs?"

D- Day for Bolsover and Shirebrook

On Thursday the 25th August residents in Shirebrook will be able to give their own verdict on Bolsover Council in a by-election.

The Green Party will be contesting its second seat on the Council. So far our record is played one, won one - and with Ian Musgrove a truly inspirational local candidate we fully expect to continue our 100% record.

It might seem like slow progress but it is starting to dawn on the controlling Labour group that if we can win in both Whitwell and Shirebrook then we can win in any seat on Bolsover Council.

So if you're lucky enough to live in Shirebrook SW turn out and show him your support.

Duncan

High hopes for Shirebrook

Getting Green Councillors elected to District Councils normally takes years of hard work, building local support and explaining green party policies. My own election in Whitwell was very unusual as I only decided to stand a couple of months before the election was due however I know that my work for Whitwell against Alkane was a very significant factor in getting me elected.

On the 25th August there is a by-election in Shirebrook and the Green Party is delighted to be able to field one of the hardest working and dedicated candidates I have ever met:  Ian Musgrove. However there is no "Alkane" factor but we still finding that residents are genuinely impressed by Ian's refreshing approach and trust him to deliver for Shirebrook.

One green victory deep in Labour territory can be put down to chance, two victories however starts to feel like something more significant. We are all working very hard to make the 25th August a great night for the Green Party in Shirebrook, Bolsover and Derbyshire.

Not even the end of the beginning

Thanks to everyone who has emailed me and called me following the coverage in the Derbyshire Times and Mansfield Chad of the appalling decision by Bolsover Councillors to keep their sky-high allowances in spite of a call from their remuneration panel for a massive cut.

Some people have asked what I intend to do next and whether they can help. Well if we can borrow and twist a phrase from Churchill this is not even the end of the beginning on this issue. There are several aspects about how the decision was made which are almost as shocking as the decisions itself. And you can rest assured that every time the Council calls for cuts facilities, jobs and services I will be reminding them that if they hadn't scoffed so much of the cake for themselves there would be an extra £430,000 in the kitty.

Duncan

A note of thanks

I've been a Councillor now for nearly three months, so I thought I'd review the list of cases that people have brought to me. I knew a lot of them were about housing  - but was surprised to find that these amounted to two-thirds of my case-load. This has meant that I've had more dealings with housing than any other section, and I just like to pay tribute to the staff for their responsiveness on operational issues.

Sometimes Council staff get the blame when it's the Council policies or resource decisions, made by members, which are at fault, and sometimes members take the credit when it is the staff that have done the work, so it's important to separate the two. There are clearly some policies that need changing and concerns over resources but that's no reason not to thank the staff who deliver the service.

So good on ya.

Sometimes a dull life has its attractions..

The life of a Councillor is never dull, but two consecutive calls tonight made me chuckle. The first was a tenant in a bungalow who tells me that the Council plans to give him, and his neighbours, new front doors (hurray) but want them to open outwards not inwards!- it'll be a case of knock and get knocked over.

I'd just checked the calendar to make sure it wasn't the start of April when the next call arrived to report a dead sheep in a nearby field. I know we Green Councillors are concerned about all living things but even I was flummoxed by that one.

None so deaf.......

Council meeting today. I had failed to convince the Councillors of Bolsover that our allowances were too high, up until now they had relied on the expert advice of their independent remuneration panel. Last week the panel changed their advice and recommended a 47% cut based on comparisons with other authorities and the not unreasonable observation that being a member in Bolsover can't really be so different.

Guess what every Councillor, but me,  voted to ignore the panels recommendations. So for the next four years residents in Bolsover will keep having to fork-out for the highest member allowances of any District Council in England. It simply takes your breadth away....

But don't worry we're not giving-up!

The price some people pay

A couple of weeks after the election I got talking to ex-soldier who has just taken a flat on Holmefield road and was busy cutting the grass. He told me that he came from Clowne and was looking forward to getting the flat decorated and was looking forward to a new life. He hoped that his children would be able to visit. I wished him well and told him me to contact me if he needed anything.

Unfortunately it didn't work out that way as you may have seen from the covergae in the local press. Like many of those who have fought in the Middle East he had been diagnoised with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a couple of weeks later news of the death of another colleague led to an incident where he became a threat to himself and the police. The tragedy is that as a consequence he received a 17 week custodial sentence so now has to cope with a criminal record in addition to PTSD which is unlikely to help either his recovery or his job prospects. The incident also called considerable alarm to neighbouring families

The case has troubled me; I don't expect for a moment he thought that his army career would leave him in this desperate situation and I wondered how many other ex-soldiers might be in a similar situation. I concluded that is important that we learn from this case and do all we can to prevent it happening again, we can  surely do better. Clearly the Council as the housing authority, needs to work with the Derbyshire PCT and Mental Health provider, as well as charities that offer specialist support to develop robust and effective support arrangements.

Bolsover Council has a Committee that can scrutinise such issues and on the 23rd May I emailed its Chair Cllr Mary Dooley asking them to review the support offered to ex-soldiers so that we can learn lessons from this case. Unfortunately I have not yet received an acknowledgement let alone a response - but I won’t give up and any support you can give would be welcome


Duncan

The experts agree

Regular readers (ha ha) will know that I've put down a question for the meeting of Bolsover Council on the 20th July drawing attention to the fact that it has the highest basic allowances of any District Council in England. This morning, five days after the question was submitted, a report from the Council's remuneration panel came through the letter-box, and surprise, surprise, they also think the allowances are too high and should be cut by 46%.

I wonder what the Council will make of it all next Wednesday - I'll let you know.

Duncan

"It wasn't me"

In my last post I drew attention to the fact that the poverty stricken council of Bolsover nether-the-less managed to pay its Councillors the highest allowances in the country. Apparently telling the public what is being done with their money has upset a few Bolsover Councillors who have been quick to claim that these allowances were based on recommendations of a panel.

I find this "it wasn't me" defence incredible - one moment Councillors are taking important decisions as leader of their community and worth ever penny of their allowances and more, but the moment you question them apparently all they do is rubber stamp officer report and recommendations. Power without accountability anyone?

Duncan

Bolosver gets organised

Packed meeting in Bolsover last night as part of the campaign to stop Bolsover Council from builidng 800 to 2,000 houses on green-land to the North of the town.

Government guidance tells Councils to build on brownfield land and God knows there's enough abandoned insutrial sites in Boslover District so why dig up good quality arable land?........could the answer having something to do with the money that the Council gets from the Government if it builds more homes?

I know that remediating the Coalite site and other such as the Whitwell pit site won't be cheap but it's got to be done some time - so lets get on with it...... we certainly won't help the problem by building on green land.

Inspirational talk at the meeting from Julie who took on the County Council and got their plans for an incinerator rejected - so it just shows what people power can do!

Blood / stone

If you ran a hotel you'd know how many rooms were empty each night wouldn't you? Well for 2 months I've been asking Bolsover Council how many council homes in Whitwell are empty and as you can see from the title I'm in a Fawlty mood.

They keep offering me ever wierder spreadsheets all of which have of course been filtered to remove properties empty for less than 20 days ,or having major work. I don't want any fudging I just want the simple data - there's a presentation to Council on the 20th I'm told - don't hold your breadth.

Duncan

Tescover

Cllr Watts Labour Leader of Bolsover thinks that we are becoming the Bakewell of North Derbyshire. Given the decisions already made in Clowne, Shirebrook and apparently now Bolsover I think you can see the future of our District is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfSi0D7KESk

You've been warned!

Cllr Duncan Kerr