Redlands Liberal Democrats

Adding value

Back in February I blogged about a motion to Council  tabled calling for more openness and transparency in the way Reading Borough Council agrees funding for community and voluntary groups.

The decision to approve capital spending is taken at cabinet level in the Council. 

 

When I looked into the process I was not at all happy that one councillor seemed to oversee the whole process.  Given the sensitivity of these grants - concentrations of power over how they are dished out is not in my view healthy.

Hence the motion.

At the time, I was attacked by Cllr Bet Tickner (ironically the councillor who had the most power over the process) for supposedly putting the Council’s support for Reading’s thriving voluntary sector at risk. The reality was nothing of the sort.

 

But then we are pretty used to the hysterical reaction from Reading Labour when it looks as though we might shine a lght on one of their little fiefdoms.

As the result of the motion (which was grudgingly agreed by both Labour and the Conservatives) a ‘task group’ was set up taken from councillors from CCEA scrutiny panel.

This explored the following areas:-

- To what extent does the money we pay as grants meet council priorities?

- What does the Council get in return for its investment in grant aid?

- Is the process of awarding grants fair?

All very important questions, you would think.

And, questions that councillors and members of the public should be encouraged to ask on a regular basis.

I argued that this more rigorous approach should become embedded into the way the Council allocates funding and Labour and Conservative members rejected it, saying a one off review was sufficient.

I disagree.

The group also scrutinised recent grants to see whether they had offered value for money and whether they met Council priorities.

It's hard to believe but this appears to be the first time this has happened.

Some facts:

• In 2009/10 groups applied for £3.5 million in grant aid
• This year alone, the Council funded voluntary groups to the tune of £2,665,92 in ring fenced grant aid.
• It is estimated that with this and other external funding, Reading’s economy gains more than £4.4 million pounds via the voluntary sector.

Overall the review was fairly positive about the Council’s process of allocating funding. It found that overall the process was pretty fair.

This doesn’t surprise me.

 

The value came in getting opposition councillors, as well as those in power –  all publicly accountable people - in to ask detailed questions, rather than just nodding officer recommendations through.

And I’m not having a dig at officers here.

 

Responsibility rests with members, not officers, to make sure this sort of questioning happens in relation to all big decisions.

I’m pleased to say that the review also found that money channelled into the voluntary sector has had really positive effects including generating large amounts of ‘social capital’. This is something which the Council cannot produce on it’s own.

However, it did identify some important areas for improvement, including:

• The need to involve and engage all councillors in the funding relationship with the voluntary sector. Councillors will now be given more opportunities to scrutinise grant proposals ahead of officers making recommendations to applicants in December each year
• Lack of flexibility in response to new proposals and change priorities. A cross-officer group will be set up to ensure that there are no gaps or over-provision
• Need to reflect changing demographics and to make it easier for new voluntary groups and newer communities to apply for grants

This is not an easy area. It is perhaps inevitable that some established community groups that have attracted funding in the past may find in the future their bids are rejected in favour of others.

 

That's democracy.

 

But we should not be in the Council in the business of handing over cash to community groups no questions asked.

This is public money after all.

And let’s not forget the context we are operating in. Council budgets are coming under severe pressure at present and as a Council we will need to be able to justify every penny we spend to our electorate and to be able to answer the questions: "will the community benefit?" and ‘is this value for money?”.

So this has been a welcome exercise. And surprise, surprise both Labour and their echoes the Tories think it has been a huge success.

 

What a shame they lacked that foresight when I came up with the ideal orginally all those months ago.

And, once again, greater scrutiny by councillors has been shown demonstrably to add value to yet another Council process.

This is scrutiny of what goes on in the Civic Offices that until only a couple of years ago was pretty much absent in Reading.

I would urge you to read the report of the review yourself on the Council’s website.

 

However, I've just checked and for some reason it's currently not available.

 

Hopefully (given all this talk about transparency) this is more cock up than conspiracy!

UPDATE

 

Thanks to the wondrous Committee Services team, here's the link to the report.

 

Shortage of school places: when will Labour sort it out?

Almost exactly a year ago I blogged about the dire shortage of good secondary school places for children in South Reading. Reading's Labour-run Council have had years to sort this problem out.

My colleague Kirsten Bayes highlights in the Evening Post today that things are little better this year.

23 children who applied to go to the popular John Madjeski Academy failed to get in.

Kirsten also highlights the awful situation whereby some children in the Borough are being forced to travel long distances to school - bad for them and bad for the local environment.

Providing a bus between Whitley and Tilehurst to allow children to attend Prospect School is also not cheap when Council finances are under more pressure than ever.

Through the budget process we have got the Labour administration to review school transport to ensure we are getting good services and value for money.

Kirsten has also played a key role in getting the long overdue scrutiny review into school admissions in Reading off the ground.

Reading Borough Council must address this gap in education provision as priority, as the local education authority responsible.

One wonders how this is going to to be achieved in the current economic downturn, however.

Back in January, Cllr Jon Hartley, Lead Member for Education suggested that funding to extend a South Reading secondary school could be found via the  Labour Government's Building Schools For the Future Programme.

However, BSF depends almost entirely on private sector finance. As a result of the recession, many such schemes are drying up and Labour minister Yvette Cooper announced only a few days ago that the taxpayer is likely to foot most of the the bill for more public infrastructure projects, including school buildings.

The Times revealed in Febuary that money for school building projects could be taken from the public sector pension pot which just beggars belief.

It could be argued that this is academic given as far as I'm aware, Reading Borough Council is not one of the local education authorities set to partcipate in the (secondary school) BSF programme.

So, for now, the likelihood of more school places being made available for Reading children seems a long way off. My Lib Dem colleagues and I will continue to press the Labour administration to put this right.

Lib Dems plan for cleaner,greener Reading gets green light

Last night, the Council budget was finally set - after three attempts. The final text of the motion reflected almost exactly the alternative budget we had put forward, three meetings earlier. Labour politicians could have saved the people of Reading time and money if they had accepted our ideas sooner, but they were too arrogant to do that.

 

Our proposals focused on three key areas:

1. Reduced the Council tax as far as possible, and we were told 3.99% was as far as it could safely be reduced, by the Director of Resources - without seriously affecting services.
2. Put an cash back into the reserves - after Labour had been raiding them, year-on-year
3. Targeted service improvements:

• Reduction in charges for bulky waste collection for low income households

• A “Green Hit Squad” – a dedicated two-man team to tackle fly tipping

• A communications budget for the local police Neighbourhood Action Groups (NAG), outlined by Daisy yesterday

• More speed guns for the police – to help target speeding hot-spots

  

Back in October, we tabled a motion to extend free collections of bulky waste. We argued that if  more people , particularly those on low incomes, could get ride of their fridges, freezers or sofas for free then fewer residents would turn to dumping their rubbish out of desperation.

 

At the time both Labour and the Tories voted down our proposals. It would seem  they were quite happy to sit on their hands rather than make Reading a cleaner fairer place. .

 

The problem of fly-tipping continues to be a massive problem across Redlands and the Borough as a whole.

 

5 months on since we debated the issue in Council and after years of campaigning by the Lib Dem team (link to earlier blog post), we have now succeeded to get real action on fly-tipping on the books.

 

Officers will now be instructed to reform the scheme including extending free collections to people on low incomes. In conjunction with timely and targeted environmental enforcement - this scheme should have an impact on many of our cramp terraced lined streets.

Streets, which currently feature many front gardens filled with bulky waste. At present, residents just have to look out houses – and draw there own conclusion on how effective the current Labour policy is. We have been reporting dumped rubbish for clearance across Redlands for months.

We are pleased that Labour politicians in Reading are finally waking up to the need to take action for our local environment. Once again, it is the Lib Dems on Reading Borough Council who have put the environment first. As ever, the Conservatives have been silent on the issues that matter, beyond the occasional blog post.

Budget

There has been a great deal of discussion this week over the setting of the Council's Budget for 2009/10, with two very long meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday night.

The discussions are taking place in the context of a very tight settlement from the Government this year, and a low pre-election Council tax rise last year (which happened in the last year Labour had full control of the Council, and was essentially under-funded). In other words, the cupboard is bare.

The Budget has to be approved by a majority on the Council. The balance on the Council is:
Labour group 19, Conservative group 18, Liberal Democrat group 8, Independent 1, which means for a Budget to pass, either:
- two of the three groups on the Council need to agree (in which case, the remaining group can't change the outcome however it votes)
- one of the three groups has to abstain (in which case the largest of the two voting parties wins)

I'm not a lawyer, nevertheless it is clear the Council has a legal responsibility to pass a Budget, and to be lawful, this Budget has to comply with fiscal rules which say that if you want to spend money, you have to say where it will come from.

Now, while there are points of disagreement about where savings need to be made and how these might be used, it is clear that both the Lib Dems and Labour put forward lawful budgets. Meanwhile, although the Conservatives stated their aspirations on the Council tax, they did not move an alternative budget, nor did they say where the money would come from. After failing to put forward a lawful alternative, they then voted against both of the lawful alternatives put forward.

Essentially, it is Conservative behaviour that has so far made setting a lawful Budget impossible.

The Conservatives need to choose between backing our budget - which cuts Labour waste and spin to give a lower Council tax and cleaner, safer streets - or they can back Labour. Or they need to put forward their own properly costed budget.

Failing that, they should meet their responsibilities as Councillors by getting out of the way, and allowing the Council to meet its obligations under the law.