Standards Committee Fail

Here is the text of an email that I have just sent to Glen O'Connell, Nottingham City Council's monitoring officer concerning the consistent and ongoing failure of the Standards Committee to deal with complaints against councillors -

"Dear Mr O'Connell,

It is nearly two months since I last heard from you with regard to the complaints I have made against serving City Councillors and yet I have heard nothing further. Both of these go back as far as May yet as far as I can tell absolutely nothing has been done.

In addition I notice that complaints about other councillors appear to be making no progress and yet the Standards Committee appears to be repeatedly canceling meetings. Even if they do manage to get it together the agenda rarely seems packed. I think it is true to say that the Standards Committee have yet to hear any complaint against a serving councillor.

It is hard not to conclude that the internal regulation system for elected members' behaviour is collectively dragging its feet. At best it is utterly failing to do its duty to the citizens of Nottingham. I realise it would be politically embarrassing for the Lord Mayor, Leader and a Portfolio Holder to be investigated at the same time but I hope that this is not playing any part in the delay.

Please will you take this email as a formal complaint under Nottingham City Council's complaints procedure for the unacceptable delays in dealing with all complaints against councillors. As part of dealing with this complaint I would be grateful if you could provide an update to the cases that I have referred at least, however it would be preferable if The Standards Committee were to provide a public update on all cases. Nottingham City Council is quick to name and shame individuals when it sees fit and sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

The reference to cases that I referred concerns complaints I made in May in May about Cllr Ahmed's role in the decision to cut CEHRNN's funding and against JoCo for, ahem, 'making a mistake' when telling the call-in sub-committee that the sale of Radford Unity Complex would raise twice as much as he had already offered it for sale to a bunch of artists. In addition there is still the Cllr Grocock issue outstanding which is becoming farcical in the extent of its delay.

I can't help wondering if the agenda is to make sure that nothing is heard before the elections next year.

Update - no response by end of play Friday

PR Fail

You may have noticed that the comments section to my piece an Cllr Mick Newton's story of his illness looks a bit busy. If you haven't already I recommend you go have a look. It presents an interesting view of how to make a total ass of youself online NCC's PR strategy.

Corporate Media Manager Stephan Richeux took offence at my quite clear statement that baseball batting someone in the face would be an 'unacceptable reaction' which is slightly bizarre. Does this mean he thinks that it is acceptable?

The point I was making, which I am sure is plain and clear to all lifeforms above the 'drunken amoeba' level is that, after being treated extremely badly in a life/career ruining kind of way, there are good ways of channeling your anger and bad ways. I like to think I've picked the good way. Perhaps Mr Richeux disagrees.

Of course he missed the bit where I was praising a NCC councillor for his frankness and honesty and the bit where I wrote about my own personal experiences, including the hint of an admission that not all of my feelings in response to the way I've been treated have been good but at least I've not been daft enough to act on them and never will. He homed in on an admittedly flippant remark which I used as part of my attempt to make light of the issue. It's a defence tactic I often use when things get a bit heavy.

And it all seemed to go downhill from there, the result being that Richeux makes a total dick of himself. Not a bright thing to do in the world of PR I'd have thought but there you go.

Council House to be Wrapped in Cotton Wool - Or Is It?

A while ago I wrote about the council's refusal to allow the East Midlands Vegan Festival to be held at the Council House, citing all those DM clad vegan feet causing 'wear and tear' as the reason. I was a bit cynical so I did the usual and put in a Freedom of Information request to see if this policy was being applied consistently. Results are in and they are somewhat inconclusive.

First thing to note is that the restriction on usage doesn't appear to be part of a formal decision making process. They provided a copy of a portfolio decision to review the charging policy but there's no mention of anything to do with new numbers restrictions. They provide a separate document setting out events they no longer accept but that looks like it was drawn up specifically for my FoI response.

Looking through the list of events (MSExcel document) that they provided it is apparent that there were still a number of 200 capacity events held throughout 2010 but none listed as 'drop-in', which EMVF is described as in earlier years. It seems that it's this 'drop-in' nature of larger events that seems to be the deal breaker in their eyes.

Also, the 'events we no longer accept' document provides specific examples of events they've turned down including two jobs fairs, RNIB low vision awareness day and the Trent Uni fashion show which all seem to be 200 capacity drop-in jobs. So, presuming that the 'drop-in' nature really is more damaging then it all started looking fair enough, if maybe a little over protective.

But doubts remain. This year's jobs fair seems to be a much larger event than in previous years and the Council House wouldn't have been big enough. Trent Uni used the refurbished Newton Building as its venue for the fashion show which is arguably at least as prestigious and they would have been keen to show it off. So that's two events that have valid reasons to switch venues other than so-called 'wear and tear'. I can't find any mention of the Low Vision Awareness Day anywhere on NCC's website or anywhere else.

And then there's the Deaf Awareness Day held on 13 October (might as well give them a plug while we're here, hope they do keep on hosting it at the Council House) which does look suspiciously like a 'drop-in' event and is likely to be very popular. Is EMVF likely to be anymore damaging?

I must emphasise that the point here is not to say 'don't hold the Deaf Awareness Day' but to say why not host the EMVF? It seems to me that inconsistent decisions are being made on the hoof at best. Alternatively there may be some double standards being applied, deliberately or otherwise.

Local Democracy Week

It's Local Democracy Week next week.

The idea is to persuade Nottingham peeps "...to get more involved with the work of the council." Good idea.

Of course, you could satisfy yourself with the uberspun, sanitised idea of the 'work of the council' presented to you by this event.

Alternatively (or in addition) you could drop in back here regularly to see the sort of thing that really goes on.

Update - Couldn't resist a bit of guerrilla marketing

 

Further update - only put this up today and already it's 4th and 5th on page 1 on Google search for 'Local Democracy Week Nottingham'.

Respect is Due

Perhaps unusually for this blog I want to congratulate a councillor, in this case Cllr Mick Newton, for telling his story of his own struggle with mental illness in today's Post.

It's rarely an easy decision for anybody to be public about suffering from mental health problems, as Cllr Newton says, "...some have treated [him] as though I have the plague." It's probably even more risky for someone in public life to do so but so often, that's the only way people find out how debilitating depression and other mental health problems can be. Very often depression is seen as the 'least serious' of mental illnesses and, while I acknowledge that its effects are less dramatic than those of, say, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, it can be very disabling and sometimes deadly; suicide is approximately 5 times more likely for someone with depression compared to the general population (6% vs 1.3%).

Regular readers of this blog will know that I suffer from depression and I recognise many of the experiences that Cllr Newton describes in his article. Unfortunately, one of the many people and/or organisations (along with Nadine Dorries) that shows a lack of understanding of my own illness is Nottingham City Council. This combined with the fact that it was them that caused my illness in the first place is a cause of considerable, um, frustration for me.

There's no point in pretending that the establishment of this blog had nothing to do with this frustration and anger at my treatment at their hands. However, I always wanted to ensure that it was very much a way of channeling this anger into something useful rather than just be a ranty mess. It is a ranty mess in places I accept but I do believe I am starting to have a small effect in making NCC accountable for some of the dodgy things it does. I think that's more constructive than taking a baseball bat to Lisa Black's face (as a hypothetical example of a completely unacceptable reaction) and, as an added bonus, it's less likely to end up with me being Big Ron's 'special friend' in the prison showers.

I don't know how things are going to end up in the long run. I have yet to find a route out of this situation and it's certainly not helped by NCC's ongoing abuse of statutory processes to harass me. I'm very pleased that Cllr Newton is back on his feet but unfortunately I feel a little way off that just yet.

Please note - it is Mental Health Awareness Week, the Post has a list of events and activities here.

You Lift Me Up...

As you can see I'm running out of potential titles with the word 'lift' in them.

A response has arrived from NCC about how much they are paying to Dunbar and Boardman for lift maintenance.

It works out to £3388 per month including VAT which comes to £40655 pa. Not as much as I was expecting I have to admit. In the last year that the internal team was in operation the net cost was £36,070 pa although that was back in 2008.

My guess is that at most NCC gets a couple of days work for that monthly spend whereas the internal team had at least two full time staff (more I think). Remember that this is for monitoring and commissioning work, costs for actual repairs and maintenance are separate.

With this being a suspiciously low figure I hope that my first info request eventually digs up a copy of the decision to commission Dunbar and Boardman via the Information Commissioner's Office. Will have to wait for a bit on that one though.

Update - Been told that D+B only have to look after approx 20% of the lifts that NCC's internal team did as the majority are the responsibility of NCH. Prior to D+B NCH looked after all of them but decided to cut back after the Viccy Flats accident. I think NCH have one f/t worker doing their lifts.

Nadine Dorries 'As Stupid as Nottingham City Council' Reveals Blogger (Or Off-Topic-Post-that-We've-Managed-to-Squeeze-a-Local-Angle-Into of the Week)

Arch House of Commons shit-for-brains Nadine Dorries has been condemned as being as stupid as Nottingham City Council by the blogosphere over the weekend.

Dorries, in a one woman demonstration of the utterly knackered state of our democracy and politics generally, somehow managed to get re-elected as the (Tory, which partly explains it) member for Mid Bedfordshire in May. Last week she decided to let rip with a series of posts of unimaginable inanity. She essentially argued that you couldn't possibly be disabled if you could blog or use Twitter and invited people to report such alleged cheats to the Department of Work and Pensions -

"In the meantime, do you know of anyone else who has Tweeted more than 35,000 times in less than six months? If so, email my office and let me know. Or, better still, if it's someone you know is on benefits, contact the DWP...

If you Twitter all day, every day about claiming disability benefit in one tweet whist arranging a night out in the pub in the next. If you tweet about claiming six months rent from the social fund whilst tweeting how bad your hangover is and if you stride into political meetings and shout the odds with energy and enthusiasm with no sign of any physical disability and if you claim to work for the Labour party and write porn at the same time as claiming your disability benefit - then don't expect someone like me not to a) inform the authorities and b) tell you to get of your Twitter and get a job."

In order to ensure that everyone realised the sheer fat-headed ignorance of her views she got Guido Fawkes (who I refuse to link to) to back her up. He provided the cherry for the cake by naming one of Her Nadness' constituents and regular critics as an alleged offender, thus ensuring that Dorries herself was able to feign surprise and couldn't be criticised for naming the person herself.

Long term readers may remember that NCC questioned whether I had a disability or mental health problem at my employment tribunal, using the fact that I take photos and write a blog as justification for this. This was a pretty similar argument to that which Dorries was using and that means that she is in fact just as stupid as them. That's really saying something, believe me.

I know that this story has nothing to do with Nottingham really (apart from an excuse to again point out how shabbily NCC treats its employees and the lengths it will go to in tribunals) but I do occasionally like to challenge some of the total fucking idiots out there who express ignorant and often wilfully fascistic opinions about disabled people and benefit claimants. Nadine Dorries can therefore join Janet Street-Porter and NCC in the School of Utter Ignorance.

It seems that the Nasty Party is back.

Moving the Goalposts

I was surprised to get another response from NCC to my FoIA request on delegated powers to officers. Surprised because it's with the Information Commissioner who I'm pretty sure is about to issue a formal decision notice.

Obviously they're not giving me the info because it's plain to see that they haven't got it. It turns out to be a fairly shameless attempt at moving the goalposts and I'm wondering if I might have unwisely helped them along with that.

Cast you mind back to the post I wrote when I had received the result of the internal review. This confirmed that the 1998 list was all that they had and so wouldn't be sending anything else, as such they were refusing my request on the basis that they don't hold the information. At the time I said -

"I did wonder if they would claim that the information existed but that it could only be provided at disproportionate cost...It's a useful way for councils to dodge providing information and usually involves claiming that a search of eleventy thousand documents will be required (in reality usually a few hundred) and that each document will take 45 minutes to examine (in reality about 5...)"

Cut to Friday and here's what they've now come up with -

"Unfortunately again without significant time and resource Democratic Services are unable to identify a complete list of delegations made by committees, boards etc since 1998, as all of the minutes from those meetings would require reviewing to see if they contained information about the power to delegate and so sadly, Democratic services are unable to supply this information in response to your request at this time.
 
Democratic Services have estimated that there are in excess of 2000 meetings between 1998 and 2010 and that this would equate to approximately 160 hours work...

However, Should you still require to receive this information prior to next year, the Council would issue you with a fees notice in order to retrieve this"

They then go on to quote me £4075 to provide the info. I think I'll keep my gob shut next time. Maybe they're hoping this will persuade the ICO not to make an adverse decision?

Still, the point is reinforced. NCC simply has no idea who has been delegated powers to act on behalf the council and in what circumstances. This is unacceptable. I think I can reasonably claim the credit for ensuring that they put this right.

Oh, and if you think this is just about people being allowed to order their own paperclips have a look at the delegated decisions section* on the NCC website. On the first page there's one for £4m and several for hundreds of £k. I think that's something I'd like to keep track of.

*For some reason they appear to be listing these in reverse order. More alarmingly they seem to have stopped listing them at all since July.

Someone Does the Wrong Thing

I am genuinely stunned by the latest development in the Harold Tinworth Saga.

The Post has published another three articles on the call-in sub-committee (my report of the first day is here) meeting held to look into the decision to formally award him a contract instead of it being all unofficial. It now turns out that in his pitch he proposed advising councillors on preparing their manifesto for the 2011 council elections.

Yes, this supposedly expert consultant who has been both a Leader of a council and a Chief Executive was happy to include an offer to carry out (illegal) political work in exchange for council taxpayers money in a document that would be seen by officers.

It's been clear from the off that the contracted work was a continuation of the work he had been doing since 2006. It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that at least some of his earlier work included political advice which we paid for, seeing as the last election was in 2007. This might explain some of the apparent discomfiture expressed in an early memo on the subject to the then Service Director of Democratic Services Tony McGovern.

However, the bit that really gets my goat is the fact that NCC was intending to keep this secret on the basis that publishing it was against the 'public interest'. The minutes are out now and there is nothing of this in there apart from a summary of the discussion from which the public were excluded.

In a paragraph which gob-smackingly starts with the phrase "In the interests of openness and transparency..." we hear -

  

"...that the contract, if and when awarded, should have specific managerial parameters; and the work conducted be explicitly non-political in nature;"

and that's it. It turns out that the meeting decided to write to Tinworth to clarify this point.

None of the officers who assessed the bids challenged the original proposal and Cllr Hassan Ahmed must have approved it in its original form with the illegal political activity intact, meaning he had effectively led NCC into an illegal contract. Does approving an illegal contract make you a crook?

Worst of all is that none of the opposition councillors, which included both Tory and Lib Dem group leaders, challenged the decision to hear this part of the meeting in closed session. Way to go chaps, thank you for sticking up for democracy. Although presumably one of them is likely to be the person who leaked the details to the Post.

This is final and conclusive evidence, as if it were needed, that NCC equates 'politically embarrassing' with 'not in the public interest'. See the treatment of the Hardmoor Associates report for earlier evidence of this contemptible attitude.

There appears to have been a brief discussion on the District Auditor's intervention during the second day of the hearing which I didn't attend. Both Cllr Ahmed and Angela Probert the Director of HR admitted that they knew about this yet both were asked about the timing of the tender on day 1 and neither saw fit to mention it then. At the time I thought this info had been kept in the 'exempt information' category but it seems not to be the case.

Despite all this the committee decided that everything was above board and tickety-boo which is something of a whitewash.

Personally I think this was a scandal of the utmost seriousness. £110k of public money appears to have been spent on blatant political activity. I think JoCo should be surcharged for this and I have written back to the District Auditor to request that she reconsiders her decision not to investigate the legality of the payments.

In addition I believe that the contract with Tinworth should not be proceeded with as he is clearly tainted, not just by a willingness to engage in illegal spending of taxpayers' money but by being somewhat incompetent.