Stoke-on-Trent City Council Meeting 21/3/13

I arrived just at the right time at the civic centre, in Stoke, for the full council meeting. I'd come direct from a bracing but very scenic 9 mile walk in the Peak District (followed by a nice latte and naughty slice of carrot cake at The Old Smithy in Monyash). It was good to see a packed public gallery, including some from March On Stoke.

There were a few circulations within the public gallery:

1. 'The Betrayal of Stoke-on-Trent', a letter to Council Leader Mohammed Pervez from Richard Snell of 'Save Our Stoke'
2. A leaflet from 'March On Stoke' “In loving memory of Democracy which has sadly passed away in Stoke-on-Trent. May you be resurrected in 2015."
3. An email address and telephone number which I shan't publish without the owner's permission, directed at those who care about Stoke.

I refer as usual to webcast times in brackets.

Cllr Breeze & the Lord Mayor

The meeting started with a spat between independent Cllr Paul Breeze and Lord Mayor Terry Crowe, who clearly aren't getting on at present. Paul Breeze (0:14:34), under minutes of the last meeting, challenged the Lord Mayor for throwing us all out of the public gallery at the last meeting, including those such as myself who were not shouting out or being disruptive in any way. He asked if Terry Crowe would apologise but Terry Crowe (0:15:14) would not.

Petitions 

There were two speakers for petitions present but unfortunately only one of them got to speak.

Kristian Foster (0:24:18) presented a petition to “stop all plans to relocate the civic centre”. Obviously there is overwhelming support from ordinary people for this petition. Kristian highlighted the council's propensity for wasting money, clarified that we are not against the CBD, just against relocation of the civic centre which is not in the mandate for change. The council should listen to people. But all that can be done by supportive councillors, such as independent Cllr Randy Conteh (0:28:26) is to propose a motion to refer it to scrutiny, which would allow the petitioner and interested parties to have a proper discussion of the issues with the council at a scrutiny meeting. Independent Cllr Ann James (0:28:37) seconded the motion, but obviously it got voted down by Labour. There were various speakers but the worst was Cllr Joy Garner (0:32:40) who complained that the suggested scrutiny would “clog up the rest of the democratic process”. What democracy?

Sharon Edwards was present as lead petitioner for “save our school crossing wardens on Dividy Road” (an extremely busy road). I would have liked to hear a presentation on this issue, which is occurring in various places across the city and has implications for the safety of children. But there seemed to be a mix up where Sharon Edwards believed she had informed the council she was there but legal officer Paul Hackney (1:20:05) said she had not and suggested she present the petition at the next meeting, councillors agreed.  I'm not totally clear which meeting this is, the next one on 16^th May is the annual council, which wouldn't normally hear petitions, the one after is on 4^th July.

One issue of inconsistency that I wonder about is the treatment of petitioners and public questioners. Often, especially with public questions, the Lord Mayor tends to ask if the questioner is present in the chamber, whether they are or not, that gives them the chance to identify themselves if they have not done so already. But this is not consistently done, especially with petitions, so confusion can arise.  If there were a consistent process such misunderstandings could be avoided and public involvement could be improved.

On another issue local to me, there was a petition to continue the closure of the alley gate at Abingdon Way. There has also been a petition against closure of the alley gate. I can see both sides of the argument but within Ash Green and Pacific Road Residents' Association (in which this street is located and for which I am currently secretary) what concerns the committee most is the lack of proper consultation by the council! We have been appealing with the help of our Cllr Peter Hayward for a proper process, so that whatever the outcome even those on the losing side of the argument can be satisfied everyone has had a proper say. But we have not got this, a delegated decision has been made, our RA has not been consulted and the council is acting against government guidelines to review gating orders annually. Quite honestly this council is hopeless at involving communities in its decisions.

Public questions

There were no speakers present for public questions. I have written an article on how to put these forward, on the March on Stoke web site. The last questions I put in led to a welcome meeting with the cabinet member Cllr Alan Dutton and officers but didn't get me much further forward in extracting answers from the council. I may submit questions for the July full council.

Independent Councillors

I am keen on the idea of having independent councillors who truly represent communities and are not party whipped (and I may even stand as one). Sometimes independent councillors, particularly the city independent group, are accused of being just like a political party and sometimes even of being whipped, which they are not. So it is worth noting that amongst a number of plans and strategies and motions approved at the council meeting, city independents Cllr Dave Conway and Cllr Ann James voted against the joint health and well being strategy and the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent joint waste local plan, whereas others voted for. So they are not party whipped and sometimes do vote differently. I think the difference in views occurred because of issues with consultation.  Independent councillors often form groups, this can be helpful for support and discussion but especially because the council structure and processes are built around parties and groups, but councillors are still independent and not whipped.

Stoke on Trent City Council Meeting 6/9/12

I attended this council meeting and this time contributed by asking supplementary questions to two public questions.  I will concentrate in this blog on petitions and public questions and refer to times in the webcast.

Petitions

Two of the petitions opposed the move of the civic centre from Stoke to Hanley.  There was a further petition on this still receiving signatures outside the civic centre as I arrived – I signed it naturally,  I reported previously on the decision at the last council meeting to squander a further ~£40k on this move.  The speaker, Richard Snell (0:20:31), gave a very good presentation.  He described the planned move as madness from the point of view of residents, traders and the business community.  He also presented an alternative idea to concentrating the city in Hanley; to build on the city's heritage, keep the tradition of the civic centre in Stoke and introduce town councils to build a strong federation of towns within the city.  This is a good idea I think.  He expressed some surprise that the council had not thought of this.  I'm not surprised myself, I just suspect Labour would find it more difficult to dominate such a devolved structure.

City Independent Cllr Randy Conteh (0:23:18) then proposed that the petition be passed on to the City Renewal Overview and Scrutiny Committee for further consideration.  Labour Cllr Ruth Rosenau (0:23:46) said opposition councillors could have called the decision in but didn't.  Labour Council Leader Mohammed Pervez (0:24:10) agreed with this but what happened next surprised me.  Pervez began a discussion and rebuttal of the petition itself.  Normal procedure is that councillors may propose referral to scrutiny but do not debate a petition in full council unless it has reached at least 5,000 signatures, which these petitions had not.  So anyway, Pervez launched into his speech, much of which was nonsense.  He claimed, as has been said many times before, that the empty Spode site is attractive to investors.  If so, why is it still empty?  It seems to me he's been flogging that particular dead horse far too long now.  He now adds that the abandoned civic offices, King's Hall, Kingsway car park and Swann House will be attractive to investors.  But he repeated the claim that moving the civic centre to Hanley will give businesses the confidence to follow and invest in Hanley.  Now to me that's logically inconsistent, if moving the council to Hanley attracts business then wouldn't the council abandoning Stoke have the opposite effect there?  I can't see that he can have this both ways.  Furthermore, the supposed plans for Stoke are unclear even within the Labour party; Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central Dr Tristram Hunt has been complaining in the press about lack of information on this. Pervez used that tired old claim that the electorate on the doorstep agree with Labour on this issue, a claim of course for which there is no evidence.  There is however documented evidence in petitions and protests that many of the electorate do not agree. One pertinent question Pervez did ask was “where are we now exactly?”  Anyway, eventually unaffiliated Cllr Paul Breeze (0:30:45) pointed out that procedure had gone awry.  

City Independent Cllr Dave Conway (0:32:16) was consequently also given the right to speak.  He pointed out that a colossal amount of money has been spent renovating 4 floors of the Stoke civic centre, what a waste to then abandon it.  I'm not surprised, the Willfield gym and education centre were also nicely renovated, I saw them myself.  Where are they now?  Bulldozed!  He referred to the claim of good feedback on the doorsteps being rubbish, if it was so good then why didn't Labour win the Springfields and Trent Vale by-election?  He also pointed out that the new bus station that Pervez had mentioned is not big enough for all the buses!  He said the money for moving to Hanley was borrowed and there was no money to invest in Stoke.  He rightly expressed concern about the council's increasing debt.

Cllr Randy Conteh (0:36:27) was then given the right to reply to the debate.  He said Hardial Bhogal, director of city renewal, had said he would provide information on the proposals for the regeneration of Stoke and that councillors and petitioners needed to see this and petitioners should be able to bring their case to scrutiny.

Needless to say the City Independent motion to take this issue to the scrutiny committee was lost because dominant Labour councillors voted against it.

Public Questions

There were 8 public questions for which 2 questioners, one of whom was me, attended to ask supplementary questions for 4 of these.

Mike Barnes had asked what would be done to provide better future projections of and services for the population in the city, which is increasing contrary to previous predictions.   Council Leader Mohammed Pervez had attributed the unexpected increase to soaring birth rates and EU inward migration on a scale never seen before.  He had said services were reviewed on a rolling basis and the ONS provide annual population estimates.  Mike Barnes  (0:39:56) asked about inconsistencies in reports he had heard regarding the population.  Mohammed Pervez (0:41:04) said the uncertainties depend on the accuracy of the data collection and that the population of the city is 249,000, from the 2011 census.

Mike Barnes had also asked which councillors had signed up to the new standards protocol.  Mohammed Pervez had replied that council had agreed a code of conduct effective 1st July 2012 and it automatically applies to all members, they do not have to sign.  Mike Barnes (0:42:48) asked what selection procedure is used to appoint the independent member of the standards committee and whether the criteria include political party membership or former membership.  He said the current individual was a Labour party member for 27 years.   Mohammed Pervez  asked the head of legal services Paul Hackney (0:43:55) to answer this.  He said the council's fair recruitment and selection procedure is used and the independent member must have no current political affiliations.  So presumably this would be applied to any former member of any political party, irrespective of how long they had held that membership, provided they had currently ceased membership.

Then it was my turn.  The background to my questions was that I had wanted for both general interest and local reasons to find out the catchment areas of the primary schools in the city.  I had scoured the Stoke-on-Trent city council website but had failed to find the information I was seeking.  I submitted questions relating to this.  In between submission and receiving the answers, pleasingly, a map of catchment areas appeared on the website.

So my first question had been to request a map showing the primary school catchment areas.  Cllr Alan Dutton, cabinet member for education, had replied that this is now on the website. I asked the question (0:45:20) “How are catchment areas decided and how can local residents take part in the decision making process?"  Alan Dutton (0:45:40) replied that schools decided this and that parents could choose schools if places were available.  This threw me rather because if schools decided their own catchment areas there would be overlaps and gaps.  Also no mention was made of the council's role in deciding the catchment areas.  The point about parental choice isn't really relevant because catchment areas only matter in precisely the situation where there aren't enough places and parents may be denied their choice.  This links in with Mike Barnes' question about population.  In my area of Trentham both the primary school and high school are oversubscribed.  This isn't a direct issue for me as my children are past high school age and continuing their education outside the city, but it's of great general importance, has community implications locally and can cause great difficulties to families when catchment areas move.  Besides, I have been banging on about impending lack of school places for years.  I will be following up this question with the council.

My second question had been to request not just any map, but a map on the website.  I had provided an example of one, from West Berkshire council, for no other reason than this popped up when I did an internet search and looked useful.  Of course Stoke-on-Trent had provided a web map after I'd asked the question, so Alan Dutton's reply reflected this.  I had prepared two possible supplementary questions in this case.  I had been dismayed when I saw the meeting documents because my question had not been reproduced as I had sent it.  One possible supplementary question could have been: “An apostrophe has been introduced to this question as printed.  This was not in my original question and is grammatically incorrect.  Would the education department please remove it from the meeting documents and minutes?”  However I had chased this up ahead of the meeting and been told that the meeting documents would not change but the error would be corrected in the minutes, which is half OK.  So instead I posed another question (0:47:01).  “The introduction of these maps to the website is most welcome.  But could we please have more zoom out options added so those of us with an interest in education across the city can see the bigger picture?”   Alan Dutton (0:47:19) replied that the Stoke-on-Trent map is superior to the example I had given.  To an extent this is a matter of opinion, hopefully you may judge for yourselves and compare West Berkshire with Stoke-on-Trent.  While writing this blog I am unable to access the West Berkshire map, but from memory my assessment of the two websites is that Stoke-on-Trent is better in respect of having both aerial photograph and OS map views and catchment areas of different colours, albeit of poorer contrast in OS view and West Berkshire is better in respect of having blue rather than yellow boundary lines which are easier to see, having quicker and less cumbersome navigation around the map and having a larger number of zoom levels.  It's good that Stoke-on-Trent now has a catchment map and I can feed in suggestions for improvement via the website.


UPDATE 11/10/12

Following the council meeting Alan Dutton did arrange for a meeting between the council's education department, our local councillors and some members of our local RA to discuss a local catchment issue.  That was useful insofar as it enabled a better understanding of how these things work but not as yet in producing any desired change.  

It was clarified that the council does indeed have a major role in deciding catchment areas (less so for academies and trust schools for which there are very few in the primary sector in Stoke-on-Trent for the time being).  In fact it is ultimately the council's cabinet which makes these decisions, although they are unlikely to take any action unless prompted by the education department of the council.  If the education department wants to make a change they trigger a 'consultation' which is considered by an 'admissions forum' at the council attended by some school governors and councillors, which then advises cabinet.  This process is for admissions policy more broadly and may or may not include any catchment consideration.

It was also clarified that there is no formal way that local people are included in the council's process but we can meet with, write to and let our views be known to councillors, council officers, cabinet members and school heads and governing bodies.

It is the issue of primary catchment which is of particular major concern locally to the RA I am in.  The council states that catchment areas must be “reasonable” and “inclusion of a catchment tends to increase the chances of local people getting access to their local school”.  However locally a change was made that was very unfair and had the opposite effect, exclusion of local people from catchment has decreased, rather than increased, the chances of those families getting access to their local school.  The education department and Alan Dutton are now aware of this and have been requested to rectify this in future cabinet decisions, although there is of course no guarantee that cabinet will agree.

There are some distressing anecdotal accounts but I requested some statistical information regarding the schools local people from different areas, both within the council defined catchment and the area we think should be in catchment, are asking for and the schools actually allocated and the areas from which allocations to the school actually come from.  I thought some real statistics would help with discussions at our RA open meeting next week.  But I am still waiting for the numbers.

As for the suggestions I made for the website, which were well illustrated by me having to litter the meeting table with multiple A4 sheets printed from the web, on account of not being able to zoom out far enough, these have not, as yet, been implemented.

Stoke on Trent City Council Meeting 29/3/12

I didn’t go to the Stoke-on-Trent City Council meeting on 29^th March 2012 as I attended a governors' meeting at Trentham High School followed by a prize presentation evening at Stoke-on-Trent 6th Form College – which was a very good event.

I eventually found time to watch the webcast.  As usual the petitions and public questions particularly interest me.

Petitions

Philippa Brown (0:20:11) gave a loud presentation of a 112 signature petition demanding that the monopoly running the ice cream and snack bar at Central Forest Park be dismantled and volunteers reintegrated.  She claimed a previous petition had been ignored.  She said the profit making was detrimental to park users and people are being ripped off (complete with spectacular rolling ‘r’).  She quoted Cllr Mark Meredith’s election leaflet; “the volunteers have set a precedent that the council will be embracing”, “the views and ideas of park users are an essential contribution”.  But she said, on the contrary, the precedent had not been embraced and volunteers had instead been squashed, oppressed, suppressed, discriminated against, victimised and some threatened with a court injunction!  Why am I not surprised?  She said the council legal department advocates mediation before legal action, but no mediation had been offered.

Lee Martin (0:23:49) presented a 111 signature petition against extending the contract of the snack bar at Central Forest Park.  He expressed disappointment that the contract had gone to a business rather than the community group.  He accused the council of not following EU guidelines and not properly valuing volunteers.  He said it was shameful and queried whether the council knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.  He said he has respect for Cllr Mohammed Pervez but accused him of underestimating the strength of public opinion.

Public questions

The numbers given correspond to those in the document.

1.  Adam Colclough (0:28:02) had asked whether, given the serious health, social and economic impact of gambling addiction, will the council be supporting the High Streets First campaign which calls on Eric Pickles to grant communities the power to decide whether they want a bookies or a bookshop on their high street.  Personally I am opposed to gambling and agree that Adam’s question is an important one.  The response had been waffle related to planning.  Adam rather diplomatically reiterated his actual question.  Cllr Adrian Knapper (0:29:01) said there had been a reduction in betting licenses from 41 to 37 then admitted he didn’t really know about the High Streets First campaign.  Why not?  This had been referred to in the original question, so why had he not found out then?

5. Kieran Clarke (0:30:20) had asked about dog fouling penalty enforcement and obtained quite a detailed response.  He asked if this could be publicized in ‘Our City’ magazine.  Cllr Janine Bridges (0:31:29) did not give such a good answer to this as the magazine is undergoing a tender for new provision.  

6. Kieran Clarke (0:33:58) had asked about the current status of Ford Green Hall, Etruria Industrial Museum and Stanley Head Outdoor Education Centre and been told the first two would transfer to trusts but Stanley Head would not. Kieran did not believe there was authorisation to close Stanley Head as it had not been mentioned in the budget.  Cllr Sarah Hill (0:33:48) confirmed they do have authority to do this.  Yes, I’ve noticed, they do whatever they like. 

7. Lee Martin (0:34:33) had asked about council policy with relation to EU guidance on ‘Buying Social’ and been told the council is “constantly reviewing how social objectives are incorporated into its procurement processes”, which doesn’t really answer the question.  He further asked about how social benefit is measured.  Cllr Paul Shotton (0:35:17) admitted this is difficult and promised to reply in writing.

10.  Mick Williams (0:36:10) had asked (again!) who decides policy for community

engagement, but had been given waffle about ‘consultation’ with no clarity whatsoever on decision making.  Mick referred to the 3 area meetings of residents’ associations going in different directions.  He said one area had a first objective “to do what we say we will” and asked what is meant by this?  Cllr Gwen Hassall (0:39:16) said the areas are going in the same direction and did not seem to recognise the objective quoted.  She said she would talk to Mick about this.  I hope she does!  It’s way beyond time the council thrashed out the issue of community engagement decision making with Mick and actually answered his questions.