Relationship between Central and Local Government

I have sent in a response to the Commons Select Committee on

"Prospects for codifying the relationship between central and local government"

so I thought I would share this:

I just wanted to make a few comments in response to your 'consultation'.

I live in Stoke-on-Trent and have seen huge interference in local government amounting to party political manipulation, particularly by the Labour party, but the system is open to all parties to abuse.  I will come on to that.  

But first to the idea of having a code.  The principle of a code is in itself a good idea if the country were fair, but it's not.  For that reason I am not going to get bogged down in commenting on details of the code, as these things are too often empty words to look good and can so easily be over-ridden if the powers that be decide to anyway.

I do wonder why this code is being considered at a time when governance is becoming more and more centralised, especially financially, with less and less resource given to local government to provide services and the paring down of local government towards statutory obligations only.  This is accompanied by restrictions on local tax raising powers.  The appalling undemocratic academy system of schools, foisted on us by first Labour and now Conservative governments is a move to central control and local education authorities are on the way out.

Personally I'm in favour of well resourced local government, providing for empowerment of properly local people (not parachutists, paper candidates or political party ladder climbers)  to run their local areas for the benefit of residents, free from party political and central interference, but that just isn't the road we are on.  So I can't really see the point of a code for a relationship between central government and a local government which is being driven out of existence.

A much more useful idea would be to repeal the Local Government Act 2000 which is an undemocratic act open to party political abuse as it does not require any sensible justification for central government to move in and manipulate local councils.  

A governance commission was sent in to Stoke-on-Trent, it seems to me simply because the Labour party felt too many independent and BNP councillors were starting to be elected.  Now I'm no great fan of the BNP (they don't need intervention as they are proven quite capable of instigating their own demise), but I do confess to being an independent voter, depending on the independent, some are very good proper community representatives, others are despicable.  But the key point is whomever the electorate choose, be it BNP, independent or monster raving loony, it's their choice and the way to counter it is in a fair campaign, not by sending in the heavy mob.  The governance commission asked the council to look at the possibility of whole council elections, the council agreed to consider this but  this was later twisted into they had agreed to do it.  The results of a public consultation indicated a fairly even split between retaining thirds and moving to whole council elections.  Under the Local Government Act 2007, which is a much more reasonable way of doing things, the council then had a vote and reflected well the views of the public with an even split.  But it takes a 2/3 majority to decide on such a major change so the motion to move to whole council elections was defeated.  Whilst I favoured thirds, I would have thought it perfectly reasonable if the consultation had indicated a strong public opinion for whole council elections and the council had reflected this by >2/3 vote, to move to whole council elections.  I'm a democrat.  But the council vote was to retain thirds.  That is when the biggest outrageous event happened, central government moved in and forced whole council elections on the city, against local people and against local governance and imposed an interim board on us.  The then Labour government used the Local Government Act 2000 to do this, as no good reason is required.  This was done by a Labour government to assist Labour dominance in local government.  This had the further effect of undermining local opinion by foisting ward boundary changes on us.  The LGBCE produced a right mess of mostly 1 but also 2 and 3 member wards, contrary to public opinion.  Public opinion was somewhat more strongly in favour of 2 or 3 member wards than single member wards but overwhelmingly of the opinion that we didn't want a mixture, all wards should have the same number of councillors.  So we were ignored on that.  Furthermore we were told the council could have asked for single member wards only, which they didn't, but would not have been allowed to ask for two member wards only.  Where's the sense in that?  The new undemocratic system favours Labour dominance because it is easier for large parties to find candidates in whole elections and boundary changes are detrimental to independents with more of a personal relationship with the electorate in an area.  It also favours Labour dominance by alignment of local and general elections in 2015.

Above are the facts of undemocratic government interference in Stoke-on-Trent.  On top of that there are rumours I have heard, plus I was present at the local election count in 2011 though rules do not permit me discussing what I saw there.  There is talk of irregularities with the postal votes, to favour Labour.  I have also heard of usual polling stations especially in non-Labour voting areas being closed to the confusion of some of the electorate and forcing them to travel to other polling stations further away.  There were address confusions where some electorate did not vote in the ballot that actually applied to the ward they lived in.  There was lack of clarity and much speculation over whether at least one Labour candidate and likely others were actually eligible to stand for election.  I have no proof of these so make no allegations, none of the rumours may be true, but I have seen no investigations and it just doesn't inspire confidence when such rumours abound, especially when they sit on top of factual central government interference.

So, if you are going to codify the relationship between central and local government, don't just go through the motions or do it for spin purposes, actually mean it!

Some other points to make which may be further off topic, but I'll have my say anyway.  I think we should do away with cabinet systems in local government in favour of committee systems where all councillors have equitable roles and equal financial reward.  This helps to avoid their votes being 'bought' and is more democratic so every ordinary person's elected councillor gets a say in the decisions of council.  I also think we should have STV at local council elections.  This would encourage any number of local representatives to stand for election and be in with a proper chance and would also achieve election of the 'best fit' candidate to the local views.  But then I'm simply a believer in proper representative democracy rather than party politics.

Please include my contribution in your consultation process.

The Campaign To Defeat Ross Irving in Hanford and Trentham: Stoke-on-Trent Local Election 2011

Saved Trentham High

Everyone knows Trentham High School was under threat of closure from BSF and was saved due to a massive community campaign.

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Victory-battle-save-Trentham-High-School/article-906070-detail/article.html

We had friends and enemies in that fight; of our three councillors at the time Terry Follows was on our side, Roger Ibbs and Ross Irving were against us.

Terry Follows was re-elected in 2008, Roger Ibbs did not dare to stand in the ward in 2010 and was defeated elsewhere, but Ross Irving had the audacity to stand for election in Hanford and Trentham in 2011.

My Thoughts

I was outraged at Ross Irving. I spoke to a few people about whether to mount some sort of protest. The Sentinel failed to publish letters I sent to them.

I sat on the fence for a while, not really drawn to the idea of a negative campaign. Everyone I knew disliked Ross Irving for acting against us and everyone they knew felt the same. So we nearly concluded a campaign against him was unnecessary.

Then I spoke to some more people at the Trentham High Cooperative Trust launch and found Trentham Action Group members enthusiastic about the idea. After that I jumped off the fence and embraced the notion of a negative campaign against Ross Irving.

Local Campaign

As a law abiding citizen I was keen to follow the rules for what is classed as a ‘local campaign’

http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/105936/intro-campaigner-npc.pdf

I had thought acting alone I would have a couple of thousand leaflets printed and distribute them to all postal voters and to the middle of the ward where I live. I felt postal voters are important as they have chosen to vote so have a high probability of doing so whereas other voters maybe have only a ~25% turn out. At the risk of outrageous stereotyping I thought the South of Trentham has more staunch conservative voters, some of whom may tend to vote that way regardless of who the candidate is and Hanford is likely to have fewer conservative voters anyway. I figured we are more likely to float our vote in my area.

As I doubted I could leaflet the whole ward on top of full time work and a holiday away I had booked, this seemed like a sensible allocation of effort.

Plotting

After some initial email discussions a TAG group met to discuss the campaign. I took some near final leaflets and a map.

When Trentham High was saved TAG had decided to campaign against Roger Ibbs or Ross Irving if they ever stood for election in the ward again. We did not imagine it was likely Ross could win but nevertheless felt we should follow through with having our say. Besides, if we did nothing and by chance he did win, we would be inclined to blame ourselves for our apathy.

It was agreed that TAG would endorse the campaign and members would help with the leafleting so we arranged to get 5,000 A5 black and white leaflets from a printer used by TAG before and distribute most of the ward. We allocated leafleting areas on the map.

The leaflets were I think far better as a result of input from other people than I would have produced myself. I was happy to pay for the leaflets but a number of TAG members wished to contribute so the cost was split.

The 5,000 leaflets were nearly but not quite sufficient for the whole ward. Apologies to residents in a few pockets of Hanford who did not get a leaflet.

The leaflets were black and white A5 versions of the following.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BwnPMdnm-yQhYWRlN2E1OWQtYWIxYy00NTRiLThhMDAtOTU0MTIwMDBkMGQ3&hl=en_GB&authkey=CN_V-8kF

The one distributed had my address and the printer’s name and address included to comply with local campaign rules, although I have omitted these now for the web.

Campaign Ethos

The campaign was not party political. We decided not to suggest who people should vote for and we did not target the other conservative candidate. This was just a campaign against Ross Irving, a reminder of his failure to support the overwhelming wishes of the community over Trentham High.

A member of the team preferred to just get the information out on the ground, rather than make any announcement. The team consisted of 12 leafleters that I am aware of, although there may have been others who helped that I am not aware of. Additional people were involved in discussions and planning. Everyone did whatever they could within their other commitments and I am grateful to all.

Leafleting

I was a leafleting virgin before this campaign. I had never liked the idea because of my dog phobia, which stemmed from childhood in an era when dogs frequently ran free in the streets and it was normal to walk to school alone from the age of 5. However this phobia I suffered from for about 50 years has been all but obliterated, as people are now sensible with their dogs, have them safely enclosed in the back garden or have a post box at the front gate.

I discovered after initial experimenting that my favoured method of posting was to roll the leaflet up into a tube as I walked to the house for ease of sticking this tube through the draft excluder in the letter box. I tended to leaflet a street on one side including at the same time all the cul-de-sacs off, then the same on the other side, whereas I know others do the main streets first and the streets off afterwards.

All postal voters in the ward were leafleted before they received their ballot papers. In fact a large part of the ward was completed by that time. In some cases leafleters were able to deliver completely to their areas on that time scale. For others who could not, I delivered to the postal voters to allow the rest to be done at leisure.

I personally delivered 2,048 leaflets. The first ~600 were easy because they were so close to where I live I could nip out for an hour and deliver ~150 effortlessly. Then I took on some areas a bit further away, I didn’t bother to get in the car but accessed them by canal path and other footpaths. I had scheduled some leave from work and after some longer leafleting sessions suffered some aches and blisters. This surprised me as I regularly go on 5-10 mile walks for leisure anyway, it was probably due to carelessness with footwear. What a wimp I thought to myself about myself. But I just carried on anyway, the problems seemed to go away and I felt fitter than ever.

I preferred leafleting the open plan areas having main roads and loops with cul-de-sacs off them. I didn’t like Hanford so much because many of the areas I did have garden gates, which slows the process down. Barlaston Old Road was the most time consuming as the houses are mostly huge with large grounds and long drives. These were the least efficient 63 leaflets I delivered.

Experience at the care homes was varied, some were happy to take leaflets to pass on to residents while others were a little more guarded, although all were polite and took some leaflets to consider passing on to some residents as appropriate.

During the campaign we had a further meeting to redistribute leaflets amongst us and I also liaised with others individually.

The 5,000 leaflets were nearly but not quite sufficient for the whole ward. There will have been a small amount of double posting although not much. I apologise to residents in a few pockets of Hanford who did not get a leaflet because we had run out.

The Ross Irving Encounter

Prior to postal voting I was tackling the last cul-de-sacs to complete the South of Trentham where another member of the team had already done a large amount of leafleting. Who should I meet but the man himself, Ross Irving. Ross wasn't as far ahead, he was going round just delivering to postal voters.

"Hello Ross" I said and smiled pleasantly/smirkingly and covered the leaflets poking out of my leafleting bag with my hand. "Hello" he said pleasantly/smirkingly "how are you?" "Fine" I replied, grinning rather manically. "It's confusing with these postal voters mixed in all over the place" he said, "it is" I agreed, although perhaps he might have noticed I wasn't just doing them at that time, I was finishing the lot. Both of us remained polite.

Feedback

I received a ‘phone call and a letter from pleased members of the community congratulating me on the campaign.

When speaking to residents whilst leafleting I found no opposition to the campaign against Ross Irving and most were very positive and supportive.

Only one resident I encountered was negative and that was without looking at the leaflet or knowing what it was about. He asked if it was an election leaflet and when I said it concerned the election he refused it and said he didn’t want to have anything to do with the election. I said it was very important information from the Trentham Action Group but he still declined.

All in all conducting the campaign was a positive experience and I actually enjoyed the process.

The Ward

Hanford and Trentham is a two member ward

http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/content/csec/MemberServices/ward-consultation/2011-new-wards/hanford-and-trentham.en

in which 11 candidates were standing

http://www.stoke.gov.uk/ccm/content/ce/elections_team/elections-2010/election-notices-2011.en

two independent, two Conservative, two Labour, two Liberal Democrat, two UK Independence Party and one British National Party.

This gives 55 possible combinations of two candidates and with one vote also being permitted, a total of 66 combinations excluding blank or spoilt ballots

http://pitsnpots.co.uk/blog/2011/04/count-accuracy-must-be-paramount

The Count

I was very keen to attend the count, out of a general interest in Stoke-on-Trent politics and of course to see the ballot papers and counting process for multimember wards such as Hanford and Trentham. Ballots for these wards were counted in the Jubilee Hall and tally charts were used. It can be hard to tell exactly who is winning during the count, but it did seem whilst Ross Irving was getting some votes, the top three seemed to be Terry Follows, Peter Hayward and Mark Wright. In fact I thought during the count that Mark had the edge, but I did not watch it all closely as I was chatting to various people.

The Result

The result for Hanford and Trentham was as I had hoped for.

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/news/Elections-2011-Stoke-Trent-City-Council/article-3528623-detail/article.html

I had always wondered whether the campaign was actually necessary to defeat Ross Irving. I think it was certainly a good idea. Furthermore even Ross Irving attributes the outcome to our success:

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/council/Joy-hesitation-size-Labour-tsunami/article-3528591-detail/article.html

"There was quite a strong campaign by the remnants of the Trentham Action Group to persuade people not to support me", he told the Sentinel.

Lessons Learned

If I were considering a future election campaign, perhaps for my own election, I have learned the following:

• Leafletting the whole ward is a manageable task. Even if I had to do this alone for two leaflets I am confident I could. If I were standing for election I would have ceased working, making this even easier.
• Ask for input on the leaflet from supporters to achieve a better product.
• Get 6,000-7,000 leaflets printed to provide well for the ward with plenty to spare.
• Post out to care home residents and possibly some flats for ease of delivery.
• The decision to leaflet all postal voters before they receive their ballots is clearly an obvious tactic to maintain.
• Roll the leaflets up en route for ease of posting or consider card.
• Deliver to distant parts of the ward when there are several hours to spare, leaving the near areas to be done effortlessly by popping out for the odd half an hour to an hour.
• Wear proper walking socks and walking shoes or boots rather than trainers.
• Taking lists of postal voter addresses, maps and highlighter pens out with me, keeping a record of numbers of leaflets used in different areas and colouring in a master map at home, seem to be good things to do.
• A good leafleting bag is immensely useful, I already have one suitable for A5.
• People are sensible with their dogs, caution is advisable but hysterics are unnecessary.
• Stopping for a chat with residents is largely a good idea and more active canvassing may be even better.
• Rain – I have no lessons to be learned about rain as there wasn’t any!

Concusion

Goodbye Ross Irving – Well done TAG!

Congratulations to Councillors Follows and Hayward on their election.