Showing posts with label Alan Dutton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan Dutton. Show all posts

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Stoke-on-Trent Dear Leader's Spin Blog

On 25th June 2015, our council leader in Stoke-on-Trent, Cllr Mohammed Pervez, decided to publish a blog.  Good idea I thought.  I'm no fan of Labour, but I do like the idea of our councillors communicating with us.  What a shame that communication is only one way!  To begin with he did the decent thing and had the blog open to comments.  Several us commented on his first blog and there was a good selection of decent and sensible comments on issues of importance to us.  This was a chance for the council to take some notice.

 "It’s all too easy to lose touch with the people" he had said. "I’m going to be using this blog to reach out to local people and engage with you" he had said.  So we started to engage by making useful comments.  These were published online.  This was very useful so everyone could gain from each other's thoughts.  It didn't last long though!  He soon closed down the comment facility.  I kept a note of my comment on Cllr Pervez's first blog and I reproduce it below.  The shame though is the loss then and the continued loss of other people's input.

 So alas, Cllr Pervez's blog is yet another arm of the mighty Labour spin machine and Labour continue to fail to listen!

As for his promise to "also be engaging in more online debates; building on the success of past web chats and holding twitter Q&A sessions", have there been any that I've missed or how do I find out about them?  
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 My comment is below:
I agree with Pervez... on this comment anyway "it’s all too easy to lose touch with the people". But surely to goodness he can't have missed that people don't want many millions squandered moving the civic centre back to Hanley again. Pervez, if you personally read this, take note! I'll tell you what will happen with all this 'listening' he says he will do, because he's done it before and it will be the same as what is done right across the Labour party, their standard mantra will be that we need it explained better to us. They won't accept what we really want, they will insist they know better, they are doing it for our good and we should be so very grateful for them. Pervez may start talking down to us like he did to Ann James at a council meeting, saying it doesn't matter about the money because it's just a loan and he can't possibly know how much it will really cost because he doesn't know the interest rate. If he truly believes this is a valid point, which he seemed to at the time, it is very scary. When you're strapped for cash you don't rush out and buy something new if the old one is suitable do you? Would you really take out a loan if you didn't have to? I wouldn't. He doesn't have to take out the loan because we already have a perfectly good civic centre in Stoke. And if you must take out a loan you wouldn't do it without some inkling of what the interest was going to be and be pretty certain you could afford the repayments and have a plan as to how to pay them. I wouldn't take out this loan and I don't want my taxes used paying interest to banks. I don't have a problem with the concept of taxation, I don't mind paying tax, but I don't want it squandered, I'd rather pay it to provide good services.

Onto my next topic, schools. Education is so vitally important for the young people of the city. But under BSF, the previous Labour government's BSF, the council planned to provide fewer high school places then their own figures projected!
This really made me wonder how numerate people in the council actually are. The current problem is our primary schools are full to bursting. Pervez, you really cannot let these developers keep building more and more housing without building more schools as well. I started to wonder about the council's pupil projections and how they are worked out. They used to be published on the council's website but more recently not, I had to resort to FOI to get them.

This is a general point and not just about schools. With all this talk about transparency, the council is actually becoming less open, with less on the web and forever having to resort to FOI. It's not easy just to ask a simple question and get a straightforward answer either. What you get back is no end of flannel. If I were a conspiracy theorist I might think that the council don't actually like the public being interested in what goes on or scrutinising what is being done. Hence it publishes less in the public domain and deploys super waffle missiles in response to genuine questions.

I tried a public question, just to understand the pupil projections, not necessarily to argue with them.
Poor cabinet member for education at the time Alan Dutton struggled with the concept of an algorithm but at least he set up a meeting for me with officers, so I was hopeful for a time. Much flannel was deployed at the meeting though and I was told there wasn't a specific formula used to calculate expected pupil losses between years 2 and 3 and 6 and 7. Now someone somewhere must know how they have calculated these numbers but it seems I'm doomed not to be told. It was disappointing that I was told that the council is not obliged to publish these projections, so it doesn't. But it has them and if we the public are interested, why isn't it nice and open and publish them rather than insisting on FOI. I was also told there were updated figures on what I had. Of course I would be delighted to receive these but again I expect it would ludicrously need FOI to extract them. I was given some hope though by the suggestion that I could be sent specific reasons for particular numbers that appear anomalous. You would expect when producing your projected figures that if you have one year a certain number of pupils across the city say in year 7, that the simplest zeroth order approximation would be that you could expect that same number of pupils to be in year 8 the following year. Of course this won't be totally accurate because amongst a variety of reasons, pupils may move in or out of the city, so a first or higher order approximation could be made. But, with the exception of the year 2 to 3 and 6 to 7 transitions, it looked like the zeroth order approximation had been made, for 55 out of the 61 such transitions anyway. But the other 6 I hoped I would be sent specific reasons for as suggested. I wasn't. So I asked about this in another public question.
New cabinet member for education Shaun Pender, same old flannel.

Pervez, could we please have more transparency, more information, more answers? Engaging with the public always seems such a pretense. When we are genuinely interested we forever seem to encounter a brick wall.

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Monday, 8 July 2013

Stoke-on-Trent City Council Meeting 4/7/13

It's weather for outdoors really, but here's a shortish blog anyway. I had enjoyed a pleasant ~9 mile walk taking in Trentham, King's wood, Tittensor and Barlaston prior to arrival at the civic centre, in Stoke, to ask supplementary questions at the full council meeting. The public gallery was almost empty.

Petitions

There was one speaker, Mr Taylor (00:24:00), retiring chair of 'Friends of City Farm', for a 841 signature petition asking the council to respond to the decline of the park. Unsurprisingly since the closure of the rather good city farm facility there, the state of the park had worsened, fewer people visit and there is increased “mindless vandalism”. In my view the council needs to maintain the park in good order and the police need to round up and deal with the criminal element.


Public questions

There were two speakers having supplementary questions who had asked two public questions each.

The first was myself. My first question (question 1) had followed up a previous public question on pupil numbers in the city. I am trying to understand how the council calculates its projected numbers. It is interesting to compare the responses I got in each case. Previously the cabinet member for education was Cllr Alan Dutton. He was a bit out of his depth in dealing with my questions, but given that was the case his response was very reasonable. He had talked to me about this after the meeting and had arranged a meeting for me with him and officers to discuss the issues. This was most welcome and interesting and I had got some answers on how the council is dealing with post-16 education and training from this meeting, but did not achieve very much clarity on the pupil number projections. A suggestion at that meeting that I could be sent specific reasons for figures that appear anomalous has resulted in the current public question, because I was sent no further information. The current question simply asks for the information that I wasn't sent. The current cabinet member for education is Cllr Shaun Pender, but his answer, or one that officers may have written for him, simply doesn't provide the specific answers. The 6 specific cases I list show changes in numbers, as compared with 55 similar cases for which numbers remain constant.

I made clear in asking my supplementary question that it was addressed to Shaun Pender. To be honest I was quite shocked that he did not appear to acknowledge that I was addressing him while I spoke, in fact he gave the impression of totally ignoring me. My supplementary question was (0:28:48):
“The 6 anomalous cases I highlighted have not been explained, so I will turn the question around. With the exception of the years 2 to 3 and 6 to 7 transitions, in 55 out of the 61 transitions between years projected, the pupil numbers remain precisely constant. Why?”
I had hoped the instinctive reaction to this would be that of course these could easily be expected to stay constant and that this may help Shaun Pender better understand why I am asking about the few that aren't. But I was gobsmacked by the initial response. He said nothing at all. In the end the Lord Mayor Sheila Pitt had to insist (0:30:30) that he answered me, to which he just said (0:30:21) it was complex and he would email me. I await the email.

My second question (question 3) had arisen because I was amazed to see the contents of my green recycling box being emptied into my blue bin on collection. Cllr Andy Platt, cabinet member for green enterprises and clean city, had explained why, although this did highlight inadequacies in the vehicles used. I would like to see recycling done most effectively, as I'm sure the council would or should, so my supplementary question was (0:30:52):
“Your answer indicates that when the right vehicles are actually working, the paper is kept separate and dry. But I have heard that wet cardboard also causes problems. So why can't small cardboard items such as cereal boxes be put in the green box with the paper to keep dry?"
Now this might actually be a good idea, or else there may be a very good reason why it wouldn't be, but I didn't get an answer to this. Andy Platt was at least polite and paid attention and said there would be new vehicles, but basically said instructions should be followed with regard to recycling. I can follow instructions fine, but I think more can be done to engage the public by way of explanation rather than just preaching. The council's web site is 2 years out of date with its waste data and contains little depth. (In fact I recently had a much more informative and interesting discussion about recycling with someone unconnected with the council.)

The second speaker was Gabrielle Hoban who had asked Council LeaderMohammed Pervez (question 4) about Stoke being broke. Mohammed Pervez had talked about their 'mandate for change'. Gabrielle asked a supplementary question (0:33:25) about why the council is selling off rather than optimising on heritage buildings in the city. Mohammed Pervez said (0:34:38) he would respond in writing.

Gabrielle asked another question (question 5), of  Cllr Andy Platt, about why the Hanford incinerator will not be re-commissioned after 2013 and where a new incinerator would be located. His reply had indicated that Hanford would continue. Gabrielle asked (0:35:16) when the Hanford incinerator is going to be decommissioned and where incineration will take place after that. Andy Platt said (0:36:05) it would stay where it is because it won't be decommissioned, but would be transferred from the private company 'Hanford Waste' to the city council in 2020.

Motion against blacklisting

I won't report on this in detail, but mention it because I think it is very important. I am a trade union member, but not of Unite and not one that contributes to the Labour party. I think trade unions make a hugely valuable contribution supporting their members at work, but I dislike the Labour party. Organisations that blacklist treat workers badly because they are union members or raise important issues such as health and safety concerns. Such targeting of individuals for doing the right thing is totally unacceptable. Health and safety at work is a hugely important issue and would be important for good employers as well as employees. Good employers treat people with respect and protect their well being. It really doesn't do anyone any good in an organisation if work and effectiveness suffer because of employee ill-health or even death, due to adverse conditions at work. The webcast of the meeting is worth a watch, from (0:42:22) onwards, as councillors of various political persuasions make good points and raise significant concerns, including discussion of Kier. The motion was carried unanimously.

UPDATE 3/8/13:

I received an email on 26/7/13, not from Cllr Pender, but from Paul Gerrard:
Response to supplementary question to Cllr Pender at the City Council on 4 July
“Why pupil numbers were constant in relation to 55 out of the 61 transitions referred to.”

The answer to this question is set out in the earlier responses. The degree of movement tolerated within year groups reflects the nature of the model used – not all transitions will show changes under all models.

So I am no further forward!  I still do  not understand the pupil number projections because they remain unexplained to me.  I would really like to know "the nature of the model used" but it seems this is to remain a dark secret.


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