Rob Shorrock

I would be interested to read the experiences and views of others in local government on the topic  below:

I have been convinced for a long time that that there is a conspiracy of convenience betwen councillors of a certain age that works against making the council more accessible to others, essentially people not like them. I have just been reading Cllr Catherine Wiltons letter in the last edition of Local Government First (22 July) who describes some of her experiences of being a parent and a cabinet member and reflects on this culture of convenience for councillors who are 'white males over the age of 50'.

Here at SKDC, we recently had a training session on equality and diversity. I took the opportunity to raise the issue, that the majority (who weren't at this session) seem to determine that when council meetings will be held are at their own convenience and attempts we have made in the past to get at least 50% of meetings held in the evenings and some on Saturdays has always been met with resistance. We were informed that this may be something that could be explored through the equalities framework and it occurred to me that there needs to be a standard for governance that is integral to the points system.

As a member with a full time job and a young family, I get rather annoyed at aspersions from some white middle-class 50+ members that I may not be properly informed on issues because I didn't get to a particular briefing or consultation. Of course, these are held during the day, and if I went to all of them I could say goodbye to my day job.

The case is made, however, time and time again that for people who are in employment getting to council meetings is a struggle. It can be a struggle to get time off (for some it is then an economic issue as they may not be paid for time off) for some their working lives are made so intolerable that it becomes impossible to continue.

In SKDC there is a deep reluctance. Some of the arguments given for continuing with the existing practice are preposterous, including older members may not want to travel to the outer edges of the district at night (there are lots of wolves in Lincolnshire!); we have to think of staff (they haven't heard of flexible working here!) and the best -employees can just demand the time off! I supect that some members, deep down, believe that the council should be run by  wise and experienced elders and those of us who go on about opening the council up are misguided.

Rob

Last Thursday, the district council voted to push ahead with stock transfer of council housing. We presented a compelling case for the issue to be investigated further, particulary as members were unclear about the impact of prudential borrowing the 17.6 million gap between what the council could do to meet tenants aspirations and the promises being made by South Lincolnshire Homes when it borrows its 71.3 million.

This is a stock transfer based on tenant aspirations - it is not about meeting the decent homes standards as this is something that we can easily do through existing resources.

We also raised a number of questions about the status of South Lincolnshire Homes, its current 'dormant' status and why it appeared to be operating since it was branded on the mobile display units going around the district.

These and a range of other questions were all skipped over by the portfolio holder for housing 'there is no alternative' Frances Cartwright, in a summing up that was a vague and juvenile as I have seen in the council chamber for a long time.

The leader, Cllr Linda Neal, at least made a rather blustering attempt at a response to our reporting of Cllr Gary Porters (Leader of South Holland District Council) analysis in a recent letter to a local newspaper that the declared investment for affordable housing on the back of the stock transfer receipt is way of beam. However, I need to check the tape as I am sure some comments were made by Linda about the level of interest we would need to receive on the reciept are misleading.

The campaign is now well and truly on the streets.

Further details are on http://www.granthamandstamfordclp.org.uk

Rob

Just to let you know that references in a previous post have been deleted. This implied that the council wanted to transfer its stock because of a poor inspection, In fact the council had a poor inspection of its atrategic function - not its landlord function, and no connection should be ascertained between the desire to transfer stock and the outcome of this inspection. It is not my intention to mislead and I will look into the details of the matter further and also explore how differences of opinion are being dealt with by the council.

 In the meatime you can keep yourself up to date by going to www.granthamandstamfordclp.org.uk

Cheers

Rob