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Cornwall can’t afford to go on like this!

The Conservatives at Cornwall Council have left a shameful legacy.

They have threatened our services, but spend £1 million a month on consultants! 

They even hired taxis to ferry tea and coffee around council offices! Instead of cutting waste they have cut front line services.

Since running the council they have...

• Tried to close Bude Sea Pool
• Threatened our libraries 
• Let play areas fall into ruin
• Closed public toilets
• Failed to collect our rubbish
• Neglected our roads

We can't go on like this!

Do you think Cornish and Gypsy is the same?

I'm pretty sure most people would think not, but Cornwall Council seem to. Much to the disgust of many residents, in a form for housing benefit and council tax benefit there is a tick box section for ethnicity in which Cornwall Council has give you the option of ticking the Gyspy / Traveller / Cornish box...

I am not Cornish Born and bred, but I do care greatly about Cornwall. I'm appalled about this and will be supporting Cllr Alex Folkes in his bid to get this changed as soon as possible (see Alex's blog about the same subject)

This adds to the list of missteps and mistakes that Cornwall Council have made. Which leads to the question are the Conservative 'leaders' of Cornwall council incompetent or do they just not care.

DevonWall Defeated

After a long and sometimes hard campaign, Tory plans to create a seat that combined Cornwall and Devon into one area has been defeated. This was a controversial plan on both sides of the Tamar and you could almost hear the sighs of relief after the announcement.

The big question that this situation throws up for me is, who is standing up for what the people of their area wants and who is playing party politics with historic boundaries. Well that became clear at the vote when all 3 Cornish Lib Dem MP's voted against the creation of a DevonWall seat and all 3 of Cornwall's Tory MPs voted for DevonWall.

It could not have been clearer what the people of Cornwall wanted THEIR representatives to do (keep Devon and Cornwall as two separate areas) and yet the Tories chose to do what best suited there own parties interests! In elections to come people will have the chance to show who much they care about their elected representatives acting on their behalf. I hope they remember DevonWall when they are in the voting booth...

Poor tax introduced in Cornwall

Today i attending a Extraordinary Council meeting at which, Conservative run Cornwall Council introduced what the bureaucrats have called "Localised Council Tax".

What 'Localised council tax' is being called by some Cornwall Councillors is 'the poor tax'. What this is going to do is force all working age recipients of council tax benefit to pay an additional 25% contribution towards their council tax. This average at about £265 a year on the 26,000 poorest families of working age
Trees have been cut down to print 213 copies of a 302 page report with regards the Localised Council Tax, but at no stage I have seen in the report any suggestions about were the council could find 4.5 million to help the people that are already struggling. Last year, they wanted a Stadium for Cornwall and officers found 10 million....today, they struggle to make any suggestions...

 

So you might think that this had to happen, but that is not right... There were to options on the table today, one from the Conservatives to tax low earners at a time when they can least afford it. That other from the Liberal Democrats looked to retain the current system and to pay for this by cutting the spending on consultants and agency staff.
Cornwall Council currently spends more than £1 million a month on contsultants and agency staff. Some of this is absolutely essential - it is spending on social workers and call centre workers and the council could not function without them. But that total (according to the figures given to me by the council) is around £5 million out of the total of £13 million. So the council would still be able to save the money without threatening lifeline or essential services.

The Vote today shows just how heartless the Tories who run the council will be to protect their own, while attacking hard working families how need support to make ends meet.

Sheriff's of Nottingham

Please share this outline of what happened yesterday, when the people who are meant to be running Cornwall Council, got together to decide how much tax you should be charged next year.

Below is a press release about it followed by a few choice words from me!

-------- press realease -------

Cornwall Tories: Divided, Disruptive and Endangering Services say Lib Dems

Cornwall’s Liberal Democrats have slammed a divided and disruptive cabinet which is endangering essential services in Cornwall. The move comes after a full council meeting during which members of the administration were regularly arguing with each other.

“The Conservative led cabinet couldn’t agree among themselves about council tax benefit and they couldn’t agree about the budget,” said Cllr Jeremy Rowe, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Cornwall Council. “Cornish residents will rightly be asking what on earth is going on.”

“On the budget itself, it is clear that Cllr Ferguson, despite being the cabinet member responsible for the budget, does not agree with it. It appears that she will be proposing a wholesale change.”

“We are forced to ask how Cllr Ferguson can remain in the cabinet when she disagrees so completely with major aspects of Cornwall Council policy, including those within her own portfolio. Given that it is the Leader himself who is now writing and promoting the budget it may be that he could save some money by sacking Cllr Ferguson and using her special responsibility allowance to avoid some of the cuts.”

During today’s debate on council tax benefit, Fiona Ferguson, the cabinet member for finance, proposed an amendment that would draw money from the higher education bursary. This move was promptly rejected by Neil Burden, the cabinet member for schools, who apparently hadn’t even been consulted by his colleague.

Commenting on the proposal to strip funds from the higher education bursary, Cllr Geoff Brown, Lib Dem spokesman on Education,said:

“This is sheer madness. The bursary scheme was introduced to assist those young people from the poorest areas of Cornwall to access quality courses and thereby enhance their education and potential for a more prosperous and successful adult life. This is an investment in the future of Cornwall and brings to the scheme many millions of pounds of European funding. To plunder this scheme is like robbing Peter to pay Paul with the added negative matter of losing Cornwall a huge EU investment and I am delighted that Council saw fit to roundly reject it."

The lack of consultation extended far wider than simply among cabinet members. The Leader was forced to admit that he had talked to no organisations representing people affected by his proposal to slash council tax benefit, nor to any individuals likely to be affected. Cllr Fiona Ferguson complained that she “knew nothing about these people”.

Cllr Alex Folkes, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dem group, who proposed the amendment that would have protected council tax benefit said:

“Before Christmas I invited both Cllr Ferguson and Cllr Currie to come to Launceston to meet with people likely to be affected by their council tax benefit cut. Cllr Ferguson refused to come and Cllr Currie didn’t have the courtesy even to reply. I think that says a lot about the Conservative attitude to the least well off families in Cornwall.”

“The Liberal Democrat amendment would use the new income from cutting second home and empty home council tax loopholes to ensure there is no need for council tax benefit cuts. This amendment was narrowly defeated but we will be sticking to our position of protecting the poorest families in Cornwall and not trying to take money that they just don’t have.”

----------------- End of press release --------------

I will say to you what I said to them at full council on Tuesday: 

Having lived in Brazil, I have seen what happens when money is taken from people who don't have enough to get by, they become desperate and have nothing to loose. This causes is an increase in crime rates and violence among other things. I will not let that happen to my country, my electors, or to Cornwall! 

alternative service delivery

More and more, the Council is working with "partners" to deliver our services. Some of those partners are for example: Cormac Solutions (limited company, 100% owned by Cornwall Council)...

After attending one of my Audit Committee meetings, a risk was raised with regards to the fact that the Council need to have tight control over how the companies are run in order to meet our standards and regulations. This raises an issue, in that if you tighten controls over arms length companies too much, you might end up making the company "a department of the council". 

What do I mean by this, well I will tell you. if the council, for example is too rigid on its regulations on tendering, the companies will only be able to purchase services from other companies "approved" by the council. That means that the council might risk not getting value for money from a tender because the council is unable to get proper competitive bids. That is why sometimes, we see some very expensive contract being awarded, because not all companies out there can apply, only the ones that has previously been "approved" by the council. 

With the Conservatives who run the council taking it more and more down the this route we are getting more and more into a sticky situation.

Don't get me wrong, I do approve of regulations, but we need to be careful we are not too rigid or too controlling with our partners. We must get the balance just right, otherwise we might as well do it all "in house".

If Thatcher showed use nothing its that privatisation done badly (without competition) is a terrible. You only have to look at water and the trains to see this, but it seems the Conservatives in Cornwall have not learnt there lesson!

Watch full council live

I'm off to Truro again today to stand up for our part of Cornwall and try to bring some common sense to the Full council meeting. We will be discussing the Governance review - how the council is run. Cornwall local Plan - how many houses we should build in the future and the Strategic Partnership for Support Service - should we part privatise some of our services. 

The Leadership Crisis

I came across a very funny Youtube video the other day and I thought I would share it with you all.. It is very much for those of you who closely follow the inside workings at County Hall (so not many, but those of you who do will love it). My guess is that it is written by someone very close to the front line in Cornish Politics cause although it is funny it is very close to the bone with a lot of the points it makes! Enjoy...
Click to view "Leadership Crisis" by BunkerCC

We must stop DevonWall

Conservative plans are still in place to have a new parliamentary seat combining Cornwall and Devon (Bude will be part are this plan). I am working hard with my Lib Dem colleges to stop this, not because I don't like Devon (Devon is lovely), but because Devon and Cornwall are separate places with separate issues. They must be respected and have there own representation.

This is a case of the Tories playing politics with boundaries that have existed from time immemorial and they must be stopped. I will be talking to Dan Rogerson our local MP about this issue and I suggest you do the same.

you can email Dan on contact@danrogerson.org to let him know how you feel about Cornwall and Devon being kept separate!

Why I voted for Jim Curry

After they kicked their own leader out the Conservatives and Independents went into a frenzy to see who would replace him!

It was quite worrying and disorganised with lots of back biting (even after the vote to get rid of Cllr Robertson) as there were many people being put forward and it took them hours to come up with the final choices from each group (Ind and Con - I am going to have to blog about the INDEPENDENT GROUP soon).

In the end it came down to Jim Curry (con) and Neil Burden (ind) from the administration parties.
They both came before the Liberal Democrats asking for our support, but for me the vote came down to one thing! Who would pledge to stop the undemocratic and unpopular privatization plans that were being pushed through. The answer came back that only Jim Curry out of the two candidate was against this plan and so on that basis only he got my vote.

Jim Curry won the election by 3 votes and I will be working hard to hold him to account not only on privatisation but across the board.

Council leader had to go

Last Tuesday was a dramatic day in Cornish politics and I am glad to have played my part. If you were not one of the over 1000 people who watched it live, Conservative leader of Cornwall Council, Cllr Alec Robertson was thrown out of his position by a vote of 63 to 49.

It is never pleasant when a leader allows a situation to degenerate into a one where the only option left is to take a vote of no confidence but that is what happened. Speaking to Mr Robertson a few days before I told him that I would not wish this on anyone but that is lack of respect of democracy had left the council with no choice.

The new leader is Cllr Jim Curry (more to come on this)

Minimum wage rise

Yesterday saw the coalition goverment raise of the minimum wage for people age twenty one and over from £6.08 to £6.19 an hour. I have to wonder if this would have happened without the Liberal Democrats in power?

Lets look at some of the facts:
The first national system of wage regulation was brought in by the Liberal Goverment in  1909.
The national minimum wage system we have now was brought in by the Labour goverment in 1999; it was supported by the Liberal Democarats and opposed by the Conservatives.

Click to read "the history of the uk's minimum wage" on Total Politics

Many Conservatives still oppose the minumim wage, they just don't shout about it very often! In 2009 a Conservative MP backed by a number of his colleges tried to introduce legislation that would water it down
click to read "minimum wage tory bill"

So the answer to my opening question is that we (the mortals) will never know, but my feeling is no, the Lib Dems were vital in this happening.

Conservatives "infighting" over privatisation

A few weeks ago I wrote about the fight against unwanted privatisation within Cornwall Council.
Click to read "fight-unwanted-privatisation"

It seems the argument is growing with the Conservative leader of the council coming under fire over being undemocratic. Even his own deputy his got the knife out.. Alex Folkes explains the attack letter in his blog:
To veiw "explosive-email" on Alex Folkes blog click here

Let me know what you think of this issues?