#givetowhothefuckyouwant

Apparently there's been some strange posters popping up around Nottingham telling you what to do with your own money

Reckon they should sack the graphics designer mind...

Addendum - in case you're wondering what this is all about it's NCC's latest campaign to demonise beggars

Approved Rebellion

Funny old world this. One day you get an email from Nottingham City Council including the following;

"We were successful because of the link to the riots of October 1831 when a crowd of Nottingham citizens surged towards the Castle, furious with the residing Duke of Newcastle who had just openly declared his opposition to the Reform Act. This banner is a representation of the democracy the Nottingham rioters were protesting for.

The people of Nottingham burnt down castles for the right to vote. What a talking point for the electorate of the city today!"

Riots! Protest!! Burning down castles!!! Heady stuff. This concerned the planned transformation of the castle which will include a museum of rebellion.

Another day we get this in the paper from Leader of the Council Lord JoCo;

"[Staff] were subject to some frankly appalling behaviour from protesters at the weekend when they vandalised this building at significant cost to local council tax payers.
 
Let's be absolutely clear, they were not homeless, there have not been homeless people in any number in any of those protests. We are talking about the same people who have been involved in taking advantage of Mickey Summers around his particular issues, and Tom Crawford around his particular issues.

This is a small number of antiestablishment protestors whose interest is in protest, damage, threatening and actually, from time to time, violent behaviour towards council staff."

Anti-establishment! Appalling behaviour!! Chalk on buildings!!! What a wanker.

You see, there is approved rebellion eg, that which happened a long time ago or which was against someone else, and there is forbidden rebellion, that which tackles the unfairness and injustice happening today which the council is at least partly responsible for. This is the kind of thinking that requires us to celebrate burning down castles yet condemn chalking slogans on the Council House.

Fun fact; this celebrating the reform act riots was actually my idea, I included it in an April Fool post about 6 years ago. We all know they read the blog (nasty letters threatening me over the state of my garden tend to coincide with my now occasional flurries of blog posts or anti-council Twitter rants) but strangely, I haven't been given any credit yet.

Wonder if the homeless camp will find it's way into the forthcoming 'Museum of Rebellion'?

Fun fact 2; more people have been arrested and/or charged over the homelessness camp and associated protests than over the entire housing allocations scandal which saw hundreds of council houses misallocated and several disappearing off into dodgy right-to-buy deals. It also included a council employee attacking squatters with a cricket bat...

Contempt For Democracy Part 2 (Subtitle; What's That Burning Smell)

As well as the important stuff as detailed in the last post, we also have the questions the Tory councillors asked which seemed to mirror my own doomed attempts at playing democracy and holding the Dear Leader to account.

Now, I'm the first to admit that you could quite happily replace the Tory councillors at NCC with garden gnomes and it would be some months before anybody noticed. Frankly you could say the same with 75% of the Labour councillors too. I can say stuff like that out loud, I'm just a blogger. If you're the leader of the councillor I think it's traditionally expected that you respect the fact that people did actually vote for them and that you at least pretend to give a shit what they say.

Not JoCo.

Again, straight from the minutes -

"Councillor Georgina Culley asked the following question of the Leader:

Would the Leader of the Council inform the council how many questions for City Council meetings addressed to him by the public have been refused and deemed unworthy of submission and response?

Councillor Jon Collins replied as follows:

Thank you Lord Mayor. I'm happy to say I've answered all the questions from the public I've been asked in this chamber."

I bet JoCo thought he'd been REALLY CLEVER with that. You can see what he did there, he said he'd answered every question he'd been asked 'in this chamber'. So presumably, he meant not including the ones he'd been shielded from by ever obliging and sycophantic Lords Mayor. I bet he got many congratulatory pats on the back for that piece of low cunning.

But, whatever you think of the Tories, it's clear that he didn't answer the question that he was actually asked so JoCo* is clearly guilty of LYING by omission. So, as I said before he is a LIAR and the burning smell is his PANTS ON FIRE, the lying liar.

*If I get sued I will just state that when referring to 'JoCo' I was simpply referring to an obscure clown without a moral compass.

Think the Tories Are Reading the Blog

Today is the full council meeting which pals from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be attending. Good luck to them with that.

On looking at the agenda, and in particular the questions to be asked by councillors, I came across this -

Think they might have been reading the blog...

Just for the record, it did cross my mind contacting one of the opposition councillors to see if they'd be interested in asking questions about the issue but I kind of draw the line at working with Tories. I also briefly considered contacting one of my local (Labour) councillors but ... yeah right.

My guess is that JoCo will answer this by throwing a few insults, claims of 'needlessly' re-openiing 'closed' issues and not actually answering the question at all. Bonus points if I get a mention by JoCo as the inspiration, probably as a 'sad blogger'. Be interesting to see what happens.

Is Jon Collins a Shameless Liar Part 2

So, following on from yesterday's piece about JoCo's fibbing to Leftlion, here's what happened next.

Rather than barge in accusing JoCo of untruths I thought it would be an idea to give him the opportunity to publicly explain himself. After all, there could have been further developments since that report four years ago. So I submitted a question to be answered at full council in the following terms -

"In a recent interview with local magazine Leftlion, Cllr Jon Collins was asked about the mis-allocation of council houses and the perceived lack of action taken.

In reply Cllr Collins stated -

"A number of people were prosecuted and lost their jobs, others had formal warnings and several of the houses in question were re-allocated."

http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/councillor-jon-collins/id/6994

The report to the Council's Executive Board in December 2010 said that no houses had been re-possessed due to legal arguments being weak, one right-to-buy application was being contested and one overpaid right to buy discount had been recovered and that was it.

As far as disciplinary action was concerned, one agency worker was let go, three permanent staff were investigated, in only one case was disciplinary action pursued and a final warning was issued.

http://committee.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/Data/Executive%20Board/20101221/Agenda/$PIRreport%20-%2046138.doc.pdf

Of course, it may be that more things had happened since that report, despite it being presented as a final summary. Perhaps the leader could update citizens with the full picture of action taken and thus explain the apparent inconsistency.

Lastly, did the City Council explore the possibility of individuals being charged with misconduct in public office? Was any advice sought on this possibility? If so, what was this advice?"

Want to know what happened? They refused to let the question be asked. The reply I received on 4 December 2014 was as follows -

"The Lord Mayor has considered your question and decided that it should receive a departmental written response. This is because it relates to a historical issue that has been addressed in Council questions and other public forums already."

I wrote back to challenge this and received the following the next day -

"The Lord Mayor decides which questions are asked at the Full Council meeting and has made the decision that this question should receive a written response.

I have spoken with the department and they have confirmed that the position given in the Executive Board report you have referred to is still the position so I’m sorry but there is no further information that can be provided."

I should first of all say that I've received no departmental written response so far and I don't expect to get one. The minutes of the full council meeting on 8 December 2014 falsely state the following -

"No questions from citizens were received."

The upshot of this is that JoCo can hardly claim that he wasn't given an opportunity to explain himself in a high profile public forum. After all, he was the one moaning that nobody wanted to report the end findings of the enquiry and said that things should be done 'as transparently as possible'.

It also means that the Lord Mayor, Cllr Ian Malcolm, is prepared to spike citizens' questions to council if they might be embarrassing to the Politburo which essentially makes the whole thing meaningless. According the the Lord Mayor's webpage his key task is -

"To act as the a-political figurehead of the City Council; champion of the city of Nottingham and its people and symbolise the social cohesion of the city and its many cultures and faith"

Note the 'a-political' (sic) bit. He should be ashamed of himself.

The one thing the replies do confirm is that no further progress has been made since the Executive Board report, in turn confirming that JoCo's Leftlion comments were indeed a flight of fancy.

Cllr Jon Collins, your pants are on fire.

Is Jon Collins a Shameless Liar?

So the blog awakes from its slumber for 2015. Will it last? Who knows...

But back to the matter in hand. JoCo appeared in local music mag 'Leftlion' for an interview back in October. It wasn't exactly challenging, more 'Left Love-In' than Leftlion if you ask me but he was asked about why 'no action' was taken over the Housing Allocations scandal. I will quote his answer in full -

"We did take action, it was just largely unreported by local media who were very quick to report the early facts, but less interested in covering the action points after that. A number of people were prosecuted and lost their jobs, others had formal warnings and several of the houses in question were re-allocated. The issue illustrates why we don’t want to work on projects like reconfiguring city boundaries and why it’s better to do our core jobs to the best of our ability, as transparently as possible."

The first thing you'll notice is that the last sentence is just gobbledegook, it makes no sense whatsoever. But in addition he states as fact the following -

- 'a number' of people were prosecuted and lost their jobs
- 'others' (note the plural) had formal warnings
- 'several' houses were re-allocated.

Compare this to the only public statement ever made by NCC at the Executive Board meeting in December 2010. You can read it for yourself to check but as far as I can tell the sum total of action taken is as follows -

- NO tenancies repossessed, although one case is said to be 'under review' (paras 1.3-1.5).
- One 'right to buy' application being 'contested' and another right to buy discount being recovered via the courts (para 1.6)
- NO fraud cases brought (para 1.7)

None of this could really be said to be 'several houses re-allocated' and at best it could only be said that two people were prosecuted, more likely only one. Technically speaking 'two' is of course 'a number' but that's not how most people would interpret it in conversation. So far we have clear falsehood and obfuscation from JoCo there.

- ONE agency worker had their 'service terminated'. There's no information as to whether this extended as far as being sacked from their agency but we'll count it up as a 'person losing their job'.
- two workers investigated but no disciplinary action pursued
- one worker who received a final written warning

So one worker lost their job (possibly) and one received a written warning. Not 'a number' or 'others' plural at all. JoCo's account to Leftlion is demonstrably false.

For completeness I would suggest that there is absolutely no possibility that JoCo would not have been kept fully informed of all action taken, in considerately more detail than that given publicly too. He was at the Executive Board meeting where the report was presented and, even though he left early, he would have received a copy of the report.

So in conclusion, JoCo expressed false statements, along with some obfuscation, and he must have known them to be false. The word for a person who does that is 'liar'.

TBC in part 2

Nottingham Labour - Tories in Disguise

As many of you will know the three main public sector unions, along with the NUT, have called a 24 hour strike today.

Here's what council leader Jon Collins of the 'People's Party' had to say about that -

"We understand that people are upset about the reduction in living standards as pensions are eroded and pay hasn't kept up with inflation. However, workers across the private and public sector are in the same position and we don't believe that strike action that closes schools, inconveniences parents and loses pupils a day's education is the best way forward."

Who needs Tories eh?

Open Spaces Everywhere but Not a Spot to Drink

Disclosure; I like a drink. In fact I'm having a drink while writing this now. I went to the 'Robin Hood Beer Festival' and enjoyed heavily hopped strong ales (unfined ones only, I can out beersnob CAMRA). I drink at home, in my garden, in pubs, round friends' houses but I can't honestly remember the last time I drank in an outdoor public place. Of course, the fact that I can't remember it...

So anyway, today I'm writing about Designated Public Places Orders because NCC has embarked on the first steps of establishing one across the entire city and I don't think I like it. There already are small DPPOs in various parts of the city but, to paraphrase Niemoller, when they came for Hyson Green I did nothing. And when they came for me, I thought I'd better write a blogpost.

Oh yes, I should explain what a DPPO is. Broadly speaking, if a local authority thinks that boozy ne'er do wells are making a nuisance of themselves in a particular area, it can make an order making that area as a Designated Public Place. Once it is in place, this gives the police, PCSOs and CPOs the right to order anyone drinking alcohol in the designated area to stop doing so and to hand over any alcohol they might have with them. If you refuse either without 'reasonable excuse', you are guilty of a criminal offence. It's not the actual drinking that matters but the refusing to stop and give it up that lands you in trouble. One last thing to note is that whether a DPPO is made or not, police have separate powers to stop underage drinkers and confiscate their alcohol.

My first thought was that this would hardly be popular with nice middle class voters who like to pop down the Arboretum with a picnic and a crisp Chardonnay. But no, JoCo's introductory report explains that it's not about them -

"Any powers arising from an Order are not intended to disrupt peaceful activities, for example families or groups having a picnic and consuming alcohol in the Proposed Area, but are solely intended for use as a control measure for the consumption of alcohol in public places by those who cause anti-social behaviour..." 

So the rozzers have discretion, they can pick and choose who they march up to and demand surrender of some of their property. That's completely reasonable don't you think? I mean what could possibly go wrong? I'm sure that black people will be treated with EXACTLY the same level of discretion as they receive when our wonderful police execute their stop and search powers for example. As for CPOs...

What's also interesting, and not a little ironic, is that at the same full council meeting a motion praising 'well run' pubs as community assets, lamenting the loss of local pubs, bigging up the beer festival and local breweries and continuing the battle against the sale of 'strong alcohol' and other 'irresponsible drinking' stuff was passed.

Ok, in isolation there really isn't a word in that motion that I would disagree with but, looking at the wider picture, including DPPOs, it gives the impression of a mixed message. It also has a nasty taste of the double standards. I'll come back to this in a sec.

One of the things I slightly object to is this rather romantic notion of the great traditional British boozer. I'm sorry but it's 95% bollocks. A hell of a lot of pubs are simply meat markets, pre-fight gatherings or hopelessly garish theme parks. Let me tell you about one 'local' 'community' pub.

When I first moved into my current address I thought I'd check out the local scenery. Food shopping was the priority but as I walked round the corner, barely 300 yards from my home, I came across a pub. That's handy, I thought, an actual 'local'. On getting a bit closer, for some reason I started thinking that actually, I probably wouldn't be going in that particular pub after all. There was something about it. And I never did.

About 15 months after this a young chap had his brains blown out in the car park. Turns out this particular pub was unofficially under the control of Nottingham's favourite Robin Hoods the Gunns and somebody they didn't like overreacted to a perceived sleight. You'll have read about the consequences. The pub was called the Sporting Chance and is one of those 'neighbourhood pubs' that have closed down. In this case bulldozed and a housing estate built over it.

The point I'm trying to make here is that pubs as drinking venues aren't always great. I know the motion specifies 'well run' pubs but clearly nobody thought the Chance was badly run because it was still trading quite happily until what happened. I know for a fact it wasn't the only pub the Gunns held sway over either.

The other point is that, even after spending the evening in a 'well run' pub, you don't suddenly sober up once you walk out the door. It's not the where that matters, it's the 'how much' and the 'what sort of person are you when drunk'. Drinking in an excellent pub does not guarantee an absence of anti-social behaviour, as anybody making their way through Slab Square late at night will tell you.

As for the 'strong alcohol' objection, most of the beers I drank at the NCC sponsored beer festival were in the range of 6-7% and utterly fantastic they were too. Both Brewdog and newcomer the Ned Ludd sell beers with a strength in excess of 10%. But as these venues are the preferred destinations of the Sherwood 'Laddie Daddies' who have a lot of money to spend in the City Centre presumably none of that matters.

To bring it all back here, my view is that NCC's attitude to alcohol is that there is a right way to do it and an undesirable way. Middle class people sipping a crisp white in the park or lads after football practice quaffing craft ales in an oak beamed saloon is fine. Anything else means trouble. This distinction particularly applies if you dare to drink outside a controlled indoor environment. I believe that we are talking serious sledgehammer and nut territory here.

Is the 'undesirable way' always so bad? Just because you happen to be a group of young people in the park, maybe playing frisbee or something and *horrors* audibly enjoying yourselves, does that justify the CPO marching over and nicking all your booze? Everywhere in the city? Cos I bet that's what will happen. And from the opposite viewpoint, what about the family with the picnic, is normalising drinking in front of young children always ok? Why are they apparently exempt?

I cannot help suspecting that those who fall foul of DPPO orders will be of certain social, maybe racial groups. There appears to be no checks or balances on the police or CPO use of discretion beyond the 'reasonable excuse' proviso, which none of the NCC documents seem to mention. And you will be faced with the option of a fixed penalty notice or going before those noted liberals the Magistrates Court to argue that, although you were just quietly reading a book in the park with a bottle of Strongbow, the fact that you were bothering nobody is a 'reasonable excuse' not to hand over some of your property to the police. If you don't convince them you get an even bigger fine. Best of luck if you do find yourself in this position.

Like I say, sledgehammer and nut, like pretty much all of the 'Anti-Social Behaviour' agenda. This is especially true of the 'whole city' aspect of the plans. Interestingly, the main justification for the citywide thing is -

"Unless the powers are adopted across the whole city, there is a high likelihood the problems experienced will continue and are likely to continue to be pushed from areas covered by a DPPO into neighbouring areas across the City..."

What do you think neighbouring local authorities think about the possibility of displacement of city drinkers to their areas? Presumably they will be 'consulted'.

It's not good enough is it? I'm open to the idea that DPPOs are potentially a good idea in some local areas, mostly temporarily. as one of the tools to deal with a particular problem. But setting one up across the entire city smacks of a more authoritarian agenda, one where NCC cannot be bothered to deal with difficult problems so picks an easy solution off the shelf. They need to stop doing that.

Like A Bad Penny...

If we thought we'd heard the last of Hassan Ahmed, whilst snooping around the interwebs I found out that he has now been appointed a Director of the Renewal Trust.

The Renewal Trust is a charity with the purpose of carrying out good works in St Anns and Sneinton. However, its board includes three senior City Councillors including JoCo (inevitably) and Jane Todd also appears to be involved.

One of the things it does is run a couple of business centres, one of which, the John Folman Business Centre, houses the Nottingham Labour Party. Cllr Toby Neal, Labour's Chief Whip at NCC, also appears to work there as a part-time administrator.

Cosy then. The gang's all here.

Let's make no bones about this, Ahmed is dodgy*. And as Cllrs Collins, Williams and Mellen, not to mention Jane Todd, were all in front seat positions to see what was going on you have to wonder what the hell they are doing appointing him to the board of a registered charity.

*After I wrote that article, CEHRNN did in fact close down and the District Auditor recommended that Ahmed should be referred to NCC's Standards Committee for the second time for his games with the Future Jobs Fund. That seems to have died a death though.

Collins In New Battle With the 'Post'

Brief announcement; It has come to my notice that this post has been linked to from a BNP Facebook page. If that is the route you got here then please fuck off because it's very likely you're a nazi cunt. This blog is resolutely anti-fascist and anti-discrimination. The fact that I regularly criticise Labour Party politicians does NOT mean I'm sympathetic to the right wing, quite the opposite.

Brief announcement over, if you got here via a conventional route, enjoy.

Oh dear, he's off on one again.

Yes, Cllr Collins has picked another battle with the Nottingham Post, claiming that they made up a quote from him. I won't put that in speech marks, you'll see why later.

It all started off with Collins' motion criticising corporate tax avoidance at the full City Council meeting on 11 February. The Post later wrote an article on it with the headline "Council leader: 'Boots are avoiding paying corporation tax'".

Cllr Collins didn't like that at all and responded on Twitter thusly (read from bottom up);

That link to what he says he actually said is here.

So, broadly speaking, Collins appears to be saying that 'Boots are avoiding paying corporation tax' is completely different to saying 'Even Nottingham based Boots paid just £14 million tax on profits of £475 million in 2009/10' in the context of a speech condemning tax avoidance. It's a question of interpretation, obviously.

So, to help us, let's get the impression of a totally unbiased party. Someone who was at the meeting if possible. And who was live-tweeting it. That should prove Cllr Collins' point shouldn't it?...

Oh.

Now the thing is, the Post clearly didn't write exactly what Collins said on the day, they used a journalistic technique called 'paraphrasing'. I think it's fairly common. Collins would have legitimate grounds for complaint if the Post had significantly altered his meaning but, seeing as his own party Twitter feed reported him as saying almost exactly what the Post said, I think he's onto a loser with arguing that one.

Thing is, he's still banging on about it, weeks later, posting these tweets earlier this evening;

Frankly, it's all getting a little undignified, not to mention getting a bit close to the bone re defamation and stuff. This might go on for a while yet.

From Leader to MEP?

A while back I wrote about a rumour that one NCC's senior politicians was planning an exit from local government to be a Labour candidate for the European Parliament.

Well, my source has been busily checking and I now feel confident enough to suggest that you go out and bet five of your British pounds* on seeing Jon Collins' name on the ballot paper when we next go to vote in 2014. I don't think the party selection process is finished yet but the word is that JoCo is a 'shoo-in'.

This will have a marked effect on NCC, almost certainly for the better. It may well mean that the council has a better chance of attracting high quality candidates to be Jane Todd's successor as Collins' attitude to a succession of Chief Execs resulted in Nottingham gaining 'poisoned chalice' status among chief exec circles.

So who will be the one to wear the 'Je suis le maire' t-shirt next? Obvious guess would be Graham Chapman but I wouldn't be surprised if David Mellen has a go at the top job. Jane Urquart shouldn't be discounted, one of the few areas that Nottingham has a good reputation in is transport and at least some of that must be down to her.

A wildcard entry might be Alex Norris. Despite never having had a proper job (he was Labour's political assistant before becoming a councillor) he has that Tory-lite smarm and all important 'Progress' membership that seems to give people the skills to shin up the Labour Party greasy pole. Straight in as a Portfolio Holder, that must have really pissed off his more longstanding Basford colleague Cat Arnold who's been stuck in Executive Assistant purgatory for years.

Very exciting.

*NCCLols takes no responsibility for the betting shop manager looking at you with incredulity and going "you what?", before taking your money and you never seeing it again because of the above turning out to be completely untrue. Caveat emptor, on your own heads peeps.

(H/T Lord Beestonia. See his blog in the Nottingham(ish) blogroll on the right)

FoI Costs/JoCo Hissy Fit; A Further Analysis

I've had a re-read of the spat involving JoCo and his dislike of inconvenient figures demonstrating the relatively low costs of FoI and, with the help of the re-appearance of this follow-up in the Post where some poor spokesdroid tries to give JoCo's side of the story. I have to say, it's a bit muddled.

First of all, let's have a look at what the original FoI response actually told us. Basically, it told us of two exercises where the FoI team had attempted to establish how much FoI cost.

The first, from what I understand from what they say, was a one off exercise to calculate the average (presumably the mean) cost of a FoI case which gave them a figure of £94 each. This is made up from the following;

"Case administration 0.5 hours
Case management 2 hours
Quality assurance 1 hour
Reputation impact assessment 0.5 hours"

They go on to state clearly that this does NOT include the time taken by the bod from whatever department the information request relates to squirrelling about actually finding the info. It does however, include 'reputation impact assessment' which is presumably carried out by the Communications peeps. Other than that, it seems pretty clear that this estimate of costs relates to the internal work carried out by the Information Governance team i.e. staff time/wages etc.

It appears from the Post follow-up the the NCC spokesdroid is saying that this £94 figure has now increased to £138.07 per case. I'm having to assume from the context that we are comparing like with like here, there's nothing to suggest otherwise. The alternative is the possibility that they calculate the average figure now including the costs of workers from other departments chasing down the info. I'm not sure but what we can be certain about is that this figure definitely includes the work done by the Information Governance team. This is important, more on this in a bit.

The second exercise described is one involving a trawl of their new casework system which presumably works out the costs as you go along. This is the system that, we are now told (and it would have been worth this having been mentioned in the original FoI response if anybody's asking my opinion) only had 'half' the case recorded on it, the other half being on the old system. This is the one that gave us the figure of £32,161 for 6 months. As we discussed before, presuming all else is equal and there was nothing unrepresentative about the tie period concerned, our best estimate of the annual cost is 4 times this i.e. £128,644. Note that the FoI response is quite clear that the figure derived from this exercise DOES include the cost of external department bods fishing out the info.

Right. Now let's have a look at the explanation by the spokesdroid in the Post, I will reproduce in full;

"The costs of the Information Governance team clearly form a large part of the overall cost – currently totalling £210,000. (This figure was substantially higher at £320,000 in 2010/11). We estimate that, added to this, the latest full year of FOI responses will amount to £155,577 – giving a total of around £370,000. This is based on the council handling and closing 939 cases between September last year and June 2012 at an average cost which now stands at £138.07. As the number of requests rise beyond 1,000 a year, this total figure is likely to increase."

We first hear about the total cost of the Info Gov team, £210k apparently, which must include all their FoI processing work plus data-protection, advising departments etc. Then we are told that the full year costs of FoI cases is £155,577, based on multiplying up 10 months worth of cases (939) to 12 (1,127) and multiplying it by the new average cost of a case, £138.07. All well and good so far but then HE ADDS THIS TOTAL TO THE FULL COST OF THE INFORMATION GOVERNANCE TEAM.

Now hang on, we can be pretty certain that, as the average case cost already includes Info Gov staff time, adding the cost of the team on again is double counting and thus invalid no? So I'm very sorry but Cllr Collins is going to have to be disappointed that his latest claim of the cost of FoI being 'around £370,000' has just been blown out of the water.

So what does that leave us with, apart from the fact that JoCo is a serial bullshitter who bullies council staff when they simply get on and do their jobs? Well, I would have to say that the best estimate for the cost of FoI to Nottingham City Council is probably about £155k. This comes from the above calculation which includes an updated average case cost and a bigger sample of cases than the one derived from the original FoI response. Also, it is of a similar order of magnitude to that earlier estimate which adds to its credibility.

Without an opportunity to closely examine the methodology and to confirm the added assumptions I've made that's the best I can do. However, we can definitely be sure that JoCo's latest claim of the cost of Foi is demonstrably wrong. That won't stop him repeating it ad nauseam mind.

FoI Staff Give Out the Info, Boss Not Happy, Issues Thinly Disguised Threat

Bit of a follow up drama on the true costs of FoI that I wrote about a while back. Seems that Tories have found the original FoI request my article was based on and it's all found its way into the Post.

To recap, a FoI request unearthed the 'surprising' info that FoI doesn't cost anything like as much as JoCo likes to claim. He likes to over-inflate estimates of the cost in order to discredit FoI because he's scared it will reveal the various shenanigans behind the scenes. He's on record as claiming it costs £500k/yr, whereas the above mentioned response said it was less than £64k/yr.

Clearly, this will never do. One might get the impression that FoI is an insignificant cost and certain people should stop blubbing about. So NCC has come up a new figure of £370k/yr, along with an explanation that the £64k figure only represents about half the total cases, the ones that are logged onto the new system as mentioned in the FoI response. The other half, recorded on the old system, represents over £300k of expenditure. They know this despite the open admission that the cost per case wasn't recorded.

Some points to consider. If I had a reasonably accurate new information management system that told me that half of my workload cost me £64k per year, my best estimate for the whole workload would be £128k per year. In order to guess it to be £370k I'd need to see some pretty convincing evidence that, for some reason, the cases on the old system were so much more labour intensive.

What is perhaps the most sinister aspect of the event is JoCo's quote that he gave to the Post, which I reproduce in full;

"I've always referred to costs of the information management team and other officer time spent dealing with questions and queries – so more than FOIs.

With regard to this paragraph, no I don't think he has done at all. He particularly seems to gloss over the fact that Information Governance also deal with Data Protection, which is a big job in itself, and also have to spend time preparing the various policies, keep the publication scheme up to date and no doubt advise others on its operation, the disclosure logs and all the day to day hygiene stuff like team meetings and supervision.

"Still, if they think they can do the job for £30,000 then I can cut their budget to that and save hundreds of thousands of pounds for more useful frontline services."

This part is rather sinister. It rather looks to me like a rather menacing threat that if certain persons don't play the game budgets may be cut resulting in redundancies. Collins is frequently disparaging about Information Governance's work but this does somewhat take the Abbey Crunch.

As I've said before, if Collins and the crew weren't so secretive they wouldn't have to pay the lawyers so much to fight off the requests for information. Not being seriously dodgy in the first place would mean that fewer people would feel the need to see so much information.

Frankly, Collins wants to thank his lucky stars that the Information is a bit of a pussycat as far as enforcement goes. If they started fining authorities a bit more often the costs would snowball.

We Pay As NCC Ramps Up the Guarding of JoCo's Secrets

A couple of months ago I wrote about an Information Commissioner decision notice that looked like it might well open up some of the murkiness around the police's decision not to prosecute anyone involved with the Housing Allocations scandal. The Commissioner refused to accept NCC's claims that minutes of meetings between the council and the police were exempt. The decision notice is here.

However, I did say 'subject to appeal' at the time and this appears to have been sensible. Because, yes folks, NCC has decided to spend your tax pounds on an appeal to the Information Tribunal. It is asking YOU to pay for it's attempts to keep you in the dark, to cover up its shifty little dealings.

Scroll down about a quarter of the way down this document (or do a search for 'Nottingham', it's the first one) and you'll find case number EA/2012/0112, formerly known to the Information Commissioner as FS5031799. Yes, it's the case linked to above with Nottingham City Council up there as the appellant.

JoCo regularly bleats on about the cost of Freedom of Info to the council and we have previously taken the piss out of him for doing so. It must be very time consuming and expensive for NCC's lawyers to be pursuing appeals to this level and you really have to wonder whether to do so is within the public interest.

I won't be holding my breath, waiting for JoCo's principled stand against the cost of his lawyers.

The Net is Closing...

It's the thing that JoCo has been hoping would go away but, in the manner of pulling teeth, NCC is being forced to reveal information on the Housing Allocations scandal. Subject to appeal of course.

The Information Commissioner has just released a decision notice on the issue. You may remember that, despite initial positive noises the police were never asked to mount a formal investigation into the matter. Council officials did meet with the police in 2006 but we don't know what was discussed. That maybe about to change.

Somebody has asked NCC for the minutes of those meetings under the Freedom of Information Act. Amazingly, NCC refused and went off on its usual delaying tactics and exemption bingo and the matter has ended up in the Information Commissioner's lap. He has now released his decision notice.

Initially, NCC's refusal was based on the exemption for information used in an investigation which an authority has a duty to carry out to decide whether someone has committed a criminal offence. The ICO was having none of that, saying that NCC was under no such duty. At most, its possibilities amounted to a power to decide on whether to conduct civil recovery proceedings against individuals but only the police could press criminal charges e.g. for misconduct in public office.

NCC's second objection, that the minutes included details of a 'group' of individuals they were investigating and releasing details of them would breach Data Protection principles was on stronger ground. After all, you can't go around being 'cavalier' with people's personal data can you? Even though the number of people in Nottingham who aren't aware of who EXACTLY that group is now only consists of sub-rock dwellers.

So the Information Commissioner has ordered the release of the minutes of three meetings between the council and the police in 2006 but with the details of the 'group' of individuals redacted. Like I say, that won't diminish their impact a great deal. It might finally shed some light on why the hell the police utterly failed to do their job at the time.

Will they appeal? Time will tell.

Note; I've also still got an outstanding complaint to the ICO about a request that covers the same ground plus some extras. Will let you know how I get on...

Nottingham Picks the 'I Don't Give a Fuck' Option

The real winner of the referendum yesterday was apathy.

The truth is that very few people in Nottingham give a flying one about local government. At the last local election, with the added attraction of a referendum on our national voting system, we only managed to achieve a 37% turnout. Previous elections attracted 32.4% (2007) and 29.1% (2003, pre relaxation of postal vote rules). The turnout for the referendum was 23.9%.

The actual result of 57.5% to 42.5% rather pales into insignificance compared to that dour turnout figure. Despite being in favour of a mayor I would have honestly felt uncomfortable seeing such a significant change if the 'yes' vote had won on a similar turnout.

To make matters worse, over 20% of the votes, approximately 11,000 I was told, over 46% of the votes i.e. 23,019, were postal votes. That dwarfs the actual majority of approx 8,000. I've expressed my concerns about postal voting before and I've seen more than one reference to 'Labour's postal voting machine' about the place, including from someone who would definitely know what that entails. I mean it MIGHT all be above board but I suppose we'll never know.

It can't have helped that local politicians such as Lillian Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South went around telling people that it was all an irrelevance and we should concentrate on jobs and such. Because obviously, if we had a mayor, we wouldn't be able to do that any more. Is there anything less edifying than elected politicians telling us we shouldn't be allowed to vote for something? Still, let's 'get Nottingham trending' eh Lilian? Like she says, back to the things that matter.

And I can't bring myself to write anything else on Nottingham Labour's appalling scaremongering, so if you want to know what I think about it you'll have to go back here. I wonder how much negative campaigning actually puts people off voting at all? I suspect a lot.

But really, the end of it is that Nottingham doesn't give a fuck about local politics. Many of our local politicians rather like it that way as they can get on with serving their own interests without too many people looking. You only have to look at the reactions of the likes of JoCo and Cllr Toby Neal at people who do take an interest.

Still, look on the bright side. I added quite a few new followers on Twitter, with 500 now being a real possibility soon (hello btw), and yesterday generated the biggest number of hits pretty much since I started. So it's not all bad. After all, it's all about me really isn't it?

Addendum

As you can see I've edited the postal vote figure above, following receipt of new information. To put that in context, the 2011 local election attracted 23,986 postal votes on a much bigger overall turnout. There's something deeply smelly about that.

More Mayoral Mayhem

Well, 'mayhem's a bit strong maybe but basically, JoCo's been out being a bit of a dick on Twitter again so I simply have to take the piss. As you've no doubt guessed already he's getting increasingly desperate about the possibility of a mayor nicking all his power so he's been doing a sort of 'why vote no for a mayor' series of tweets. We'll take them apart one by one but first, can I warn you that the phrase '£1m Extra Tory Mayor' gets a repeated look-in...

Here we go then, #1

See? Now then, is Cllr Collins comparing like-with-like here? Of course he isn't. His '£1m' cost for a mayor is a total for of the imagined 4 year cost of the mayor's wages, plus referendum costs, election costs (which in fact will be lower because those costs will be shared with the police commissioner election but that's another story). On the other hand the £80m which the government has cut from the budget is for one year. I agree with Collins that one of those costs is very bad and unjustifiable.

#2

Ok, cost is an issue but Collins as leader of the Council gets about £45k, much of which will be lost if a mayor is elected because the post of Leader will be much diminished (you see how this is going?). Futhermore, it's not yet clear how mayors' salaries will be decided so this is all conjecture.

#3

I've touched on this before but clearly, JoCo has to pretend he doesn't read my blog. To summarise, under the current system, the leader of the Council has huge powers already and as far as the legislation says so far, a mayor won't really get anything extra apart from the ability to appoint assistants. So councillors are largely merely cannon fodder as it is, a mayor won't change that. The difference is we get the chance to vote for a mayor, the vast majority of the city has no possibility of any say in who gets to be the leader of the council.

If JoCo really believes this to be the big issue, he could issue a cast iron promise to return power to councillors by re-establishing the committee system if the referendum results in a 'no' vote. He won't do that though because hius agenda is solely based on his own self-interest.

#4

Oh. Em. Gee. He really said that out loud folks. Can I re-refer you to the link above re power of leader vs mayor but there's too many scandals to link to. Let's just say that Collins' problem is that the 'one person' would no longer be him.

#5

Well, it doesn't really does it? Any mayor is likely to be Labour and you'd worry if their manifesto was radically different to Labour councillors. Of course, if a Leader with much reduced power and influence was to make trouble out of personal spite then that might cause difficulties but I can't see anyone being so immature, can you?

#6

Not the strongest of arguments is it? It's failed elsewhere so the whole concept is screwed. If it had failed in the majority of places he may have had a point. It's worth pointing out that the failure of the mayor in Stoke was partly due to wholesale political meltdown in the city. It was within a hair's breadth of becoming the first BNP council. A lot of that was due to the failure of Labour politicians who lost the confidence of the electorate due to complacency.

#7

Ah yes Doncaster, the ultimate Labour political basket case. People voted for the English Democrats chump due to wholesale disaffection with years of corrupt Labour regimes. Is JoCo concerned about a similar situation in Nottingham?

#8

If they stand and the people see one of them as the best option then that could happen. People vote for 'joke' candidates when they are totally disillusioned with the mainstream ones (how do you think Boris got half his votes?) As it happens, the monkey in Hartlepool got re-elected and his administration does at least appear to be functional.

#8. No, sorry 9

Diff'rent strokes etc. It's a different kind of election. And why keep a leader who can't count?

#10

This is, of course, a particular problem for a politician with no discernible personality whatsoever so you can understand JoCo's hostility. But of course, any leadership election has an element of personality to it. You might as well argue against the tides.

Oh, as you can see, I've left a reply in this one. 'Mayor for Nottingham' is run by Stephen Barker, former PR chief at NCC. Looks like things weren't very happy in the hen-house after all.

#11

Yeah, he's supposedly running and if the people of Salford decide that the best person to run their city is an ex-con with a record of violence and no political experience then that's the world you have to deal with and their mainstream politicians need to ask themselves a lot of difficult questions. Who knows, he might decide to run as a ward councillor next time. Is Collins suggesting he should be banned from doing that?

#12

Actually, he might have a point on this one. Another way of looking at it is that it's such a good idea that both Collins and Price oppose it!

So there you go. That's the best our current Leader of our Council, the man who already holds mayor equivalent powers (not that he likes to broadcast that at the moment) can do.

Anybody really want to argue that stripping this idiot's powers and giving them to someone we actually get to vote for is a bad idea?

Leader v Mayor; What Can the Leader Do?

There are a number of issues to think about when deciding whether we should have an elected mayor in Nottingham, some of which I wrote about here. I want to look in a bit more detail at how much power the leader of the council has at the moment, compared to how much a mayor might have.

Nottingham City Council currently operates a 'strong leader and cabinet' model for its executive arrangements. This is a modification of the original form of 'cabinet' arrangements introduced in 2007, designed to give councils a stronger and more visible leadership, apparently.

As a result of these changes, as well as NCC's amended constitution, in particular the part dealing with responsibilities and functions from which I quote below, the leader has the following powers -

"The Leader of the Council may determine to exercise any of the ‘executive’ functions of the Council personally, or may arrange for the exercise of any of the Council’s ‘executive’ functions by:
 
i) the Executive; or
 
ii) by another Executive Councillor; or
 
iii) by a committee of the Executive; or
 
iv) an officer of the Council." (p8)

'Executive functions' means the lion's share of day to day council decision making. Some decision making is reserved for full council or specific committees, the rest comes under executive functions. As you can see, the leader can decide to take any of these on her/himself, or delegate them.

"The term of office of the Leader starts on the day of his/her election as Leader and ends on the day of the next post election annual meeting (under whole elections) unless..." (p26)

Essentially the leader remains in office for the whole term of the council unless a majority of the council pass a resolution to remove him or he resigns. Previously the leader was elected each year.

"The Leader determines the size of the cabinet (Executive Board) and appoints between 2 and 9 members of the Council to be the Executive Board in addition to himself/herself, allocates any areas of responsibility (portfolios) to them, and may remove them from the Executive Board at any time. The Leader determines the responsibility for the discharge of the executive functions of the Council." (p26)

As you can see, should the leader decide not to take on all executive functions, s/he has absolute carte blanche over who does. If you are appointed as a portfolio holder you gotta stay in the good books or you're out.

"(ii) Who can take Key Decisions?

Nottingham City Council has decided (and included within the provisions of this Constitution) that Key Decisions may be taken by the Leader of the Council, Executive Board and the Executive Board Commissioning Sub Committee." (p108)

'Key Decisions' are the big executive decisions which have financial implications greater than £1m or significantly affect two or more wards. Previously they could only be taken by the Executive Board which at least ensured some collective decision making. Now, the leader can simply decide to take them her/himself. There appears to be no rhyme or reason behind which ones s/he can decide to take and JoCo has so far taken five key decisions himself, as you can see here and here.

So, as you can see, if they wanted, the leader of the council could do pretty much everything themselves other than approve the budget (which they would have been responsible for drawing up) and the more controversial planning decisions. All this power for someone who was only elected by 26% of the electorate in St Anns.

As yet, information as to what powers an elected mayor would have is thin on the ground. What little we have seems to be contained in a new Schedule A1 being added to the Local Government Act 2000 (see part 2) -

"Mayor and cabinet executives

(1)This paragraph applies in relation to executive arrangements by a local authority which provide for a mayor and cabinet executive.

(2)Subject to section 9C(5), the executive arrangements must include provision which enables the elected mayor to determine the number of councillors who may be appointed to the executive under section 9C(2)(b).

(3)The executive arrangements must include provision which requires the elected mayor to appoint one of the members of the executive to be the elected mayor’s deputy (referred to in this paragraph as the deputy mayor).

(4)Subject to sub-paragraph (5), the person who is appointed deputy mayor, unless the person resigns as deputy mayor or ceases to be a member of the authority, is to hold office until the end of the term of office of the elected mayor.

(5)The elected mayor may, if the elected mayor thinks fit, remove the deputy mayor from office.

(6)Where a vacancy occurs in the office of deputy mayor, the elected mayor must appoint another person to be deputy mayor.

(7)If for any reason the elected mayor is unable to act or the office of elected mayor is vacant, the deputy mayor must act in the elected mayor’s place.

(8)If for any reason—

(a)the elected mayor is unable to act or the office of elected mayor is vacant, and
(b)the deputy mayor is unable to act or the office of deputy mayor is vacant,
the executive must act in the elected mayor’s place or must arrange for a member of the executive to act in the elected mayor’s place."

That doesn't look like a whole lot more power than the leader has to me but of course, the story isn't finished yet. There will be further regulations and much will be decided locally in councils' constitutions as at present.

What is new is planned regulations for the mayor to be able to appoint an assistant. I'm not sure if that will mean just one or several but it is grist to the mill for 'no' campaigners citing increased cost of a mayoral system. It doesn't appear that there is any requirement that the assistant would have to be a councillor.

The key thing as I see it is that we currently have an individual with powers similar to those planned for a mayor already so any criticisms of a mayor having 'too much power' don't really stand up. And if we must have a single individual with that much power in the City I would very much like the opportunity to vote for them.

One final footnote. As I read the Localism Act provisions relating to all this, if the referendum results in a 'no' vote the council then has the power to change back to a committee system should it want to. The County Council has already decided to do this. They can do so because they are not being required to hold a referendum as to whether to have a mayor which puts such possibilities on hold. Going back to a committee system would result in a lot less power for the leader and councillors who are currently members of the cabinet. Funny that JoCo hasn't made any noises about that as a possibility...

Some Mayor Issues

The debate about having an elected mayor in Nottingham is really starting to stir, both in real life and on the internets. As I wrote the other day the council's poster pushing a 'no' vote was a bit naughty and I thought I'd try and draw together some of the stuff that's appearing about the place.

It turns out that Ministers also noticed NCC's poster, as reported here in the Post. As you can see this article has grown quite a tail of comments of, how can we put this, varying quality. NCC's defence is that the government is openly supporting mayors and they are just putting an opposite view. They sort of have a point, although the issue here is that the code of practice says that council publicity needs to be neutral. If there's an equivalent code for central publicity then NCC needs to argue the toss with the government.

Anyway, back to first principles. This is NCC's main info page on the mayoral referendum where they put their objections in more detail along with, to be fair, the government's case. Let's have a look at some of the points raised.

1) The mayor will allegedly cost £1m over 5 years. According to someone who was at the full council meeting yesterday this is something of a mantra for JoCo now, something his Twitter feed appears to confirm

The thing is, even presuming that the figures are correct, it includes the costs of two elections and I think you're onto a difficult road if your best argument is that democracy is just too expensive.

2) Mayor set budgets could only be overturned by a 75% majority of full council whereas currently a simple majority can reject a budget. I'm sorry but in what way is this relevant to Nottingham? Labour councillors NEVER rebel and there's no sign that large Labour majorities are going away any time soon. Yes, it's a theoretical consideration for the future but some may argue that such an important measure as the budget set by a democratically elected mayor should require more than a majority to reject it. Whatever, this won't be an issue unless Nottingham's political situation is turned properly upside down and I really can't see that happening in the remotely near future.

3) The government has not announced exactly what powers mayors will have. I actually think this is a very good point and I think that if the government really does want a yes vote it is a big mistake not to have clarified exactly what we are voting for/against. This is one of the main issues that is making me feeling very uneasy about voting yes in the referendum and it makes me feel that the issue is being pushed forward without enough time for local debate.

4) Change of governance imposed from above is against the principles of localism. This is a bit cheap. After all, it is a referendum that we all get to vote in rather than it being decided behind closed doors. You don't get more 'localism' than that.

So that's what NCC wants us to know. Now for some very interesting views from a surprising source. Stephen Barker, former right hand spin-doctor and fixer for JoCo, has come out in favour of an elected mayor for Nottingham. He says he always has been pro but I'd never have guessed considering JoCo's outright hostility. I might be reading too much into this but maybe there is some bitterness following his departure?

His next post on the matter hardly dispels such a suspicion as he somewhat tartly, but entirely accurately, points out exactly how few people you have to win over in order to wield enormous local power as the leader of the council. Surely that's not a dig at his old boss? But of course this is the chief argument in favour of an elected mayor; we already have an individual who has a huge amount of power so surely it would be better if we actually got to vote for them.

Barker goes on to say that 'anyone' could run but I think it's pretty certain that, if we get an elected mayor, s/he will be Labour. I really don't think there's any chance that the other major parties stand a chance and, much that I'd love to see the Church of the Militant Elvis Party swept to power I wouldn't want to put any money on that happening. So why doesn't Collins get foursquare behind the proposal and go for the Labour nomination?

Because, of course, he can't be certain that he'd get it. The problem is known as 'Chris Leslie Syndrome' following the Nottingham East nomination going to him rather than Collins for the 2010 general Election. Apparently, JoCo isn't super popular with the unions and that swung it against him. I'd bet actual money that he is terrified of such a thing happening again so his only way of clinging to power is to ensure that we don't have a mayor at all. Hence NCC's 'official position' that mayors are bad 'mkay?

Lastly, let's have a look at the experience of elected mayors elsewhere. London you know about and has been mostly functional I suppose. Hartlepool famously elected its football team's monkey mascot running as a joke but who has ended up being quite well respected. Indeed he was elected for a second term. Stoke initially elected a respected Independent who was then defeated by the Labour candidate at the next election. Stoke has since voted against continuing with a mayor in the most recent referendum. Doncaster elected the 'English Democrat' candidate who was promptly humiliated as an ignorant buffoon in an interview with radio presenter Toby Foster. In Leicester the decision to have an elected mayor was taken by the council rather than via a referendum and the eventual winner, former Leicester MP Sir Peter Soulsby quickly went on to abolish the Chief Executive post and sort himself a socking great pay rise, neither of which anyone appeared to foresee.

Right, I'm thinking the only conclusion we can really draw from that lot is that looking at others' experience probably won't help us predict what might happen if we end up with a mayor in Nottingham, other than that there'd be everything to play for.

Personally I am still undecided as to how I intend to vote in the referendum. Of course that doesn't stop me from taking the piss out of JoCo's clearly self-interest driven position although I have to say that I would be prepared to bet a small sum of money on a 'No' vote prevailing in the end. As I said above, there has been little discussion or concrete information on the issue and I suspect that in such conditions the public is likely to go into 'better the devil you know' mode. Sadly, I'd also be prepared to bet money on there being a less than 30% turnout.

NCC Starts Moves to Evict Market Square Occupiers

It was pretty much inevitable that, since the Court of Appeal refused to hear Occupy LSX's appeal against eviction from land near St Paul's Cathedral, NCC would start the process of evicting Occupy Nottingham.

Initially, the council and the occupiers seemed to be quite chummy even 'enjoying' a visit from JoCo himself. But how long that'll last remains to be seen.

It isn't absolutely inevitable that the fate of the Nottm occupiers will mirror that of Occupy LSX. Part of the reasoning for the London case was that the presence of the camp threatened 'freedom to worship' human rights of the St Pauls Cathedral congregation. That aspect won't apply to Nottingham because they're not on religious ground. What's more the Nottingham Camp is considerably smaller so the major aspects of the case i.e. that the camp is an unreasonable use of the highway and breaches planning rules, aren't as strong, although these are likely to be the arguments used here in Nottingham.

A lot of research has been done into who owns the Market Square but, in all honesty, that really isn't an issue, it's always been a matter of rights of way/highways law for the most part. I hadn't really considered planning being an issue but I suppose it isn't surprising that it was included in the London case so it's bound to be copied up here.

So far Occupy Nottm are saying that they plan to stay put although they might want to have a read of the open letter to Occupy LSX that the New Statesman's legal blogger wrote last week. On the other hand, the City Council needs to have a good long think about whether it really wants bailiffs charging in at such a high profile public spot.

It could get messy.

Update - Occupy Nottm have released a statement alleging they were on the verge of an agreement with NCC to clear the camp in stages before being served with an eviction notice. Clearly I have no means of confirming that but then, it's hardly uncharacteristic of NCC to go marching in with the big macho size 12s on.