Rob Shorrock

I have always thought of the Local Government Ombudsman as an utter waste of space, tax payers money and time, as well as being an utterly misplaced in a democratic system. Not suprising really given it is staffed totally by former council officers. In fact all the key senior officials used to be senior officers in local government. Do you see the problem? There is no real independence. This lack of diversity is effectively failing the public when dealing with complaints related to maladministration as the LGO rarely finds for the complainant.

There are a number of cases you can read about here where councils have just refused to accept the LGO recommendations. For example, the LGO recommended £100,000 compensation for the family of Carly Wright, a young woman with profound disabilities whose needs were neglected by the council when she was due to transfer from children's services to those for adults.

There is also a trend beginning to emerge of councils just refusing to honour (and honour is the important idea here) LGO recommendations when maladministration is found. Cash strapped councils know the LGO is toothless and can not enforce its recommendations. For citizens who are forced by council complaints procedures to eventually go to the LGO they face a dim prospect of getting any justice. In fact the record of the LGO is dire. They find maladminstration in only about 1.6% of cases. This statistically demonstrates a bias in favour of the local authority that is scandalous.

Campaigners are calling for reforms to make the powers and rulings of the Ombusman mandatory. For me there is a fundemantal problem with the whole set up. Is it right that the LGO is the conduit for redress? Or should there be a better system enshrined in law and the constitutions of every local authority? More importantly, how do these issues that ostensibly emanate from a democratic process get a full hearing and a final settlement through the democratic process?

The current alternative to the LGO is just not feasible for the vast majority of people; the courts and surcharging of officers and councillors. However, effective and democratic systems of redress could be built into the system that are accessible and meaningful and reflect the democratic process:

• First, abolish the LGO. Use the £11+ million this saves to do the following:
• A request system in complaints procedure of the council that the issue is explored by elected members in the relevant committee. (Under the current system, more often than not, many complaints never get seen by a representative cross-section of members)
• Trigger petitions would enable full debates at committee or full council meetings which would allow the citizen and their legal representatives to make the case, question and cross examine officers before decision. Similar to the planning committee process.
• A legal fund is established though a percentage of council tax and a grant from the above for independent legal advice and representation.
• An independent panel (on a jury system) is set up by the Dept of Local Government and Communities that will consider the evidence and make binding decisions on local authorities.

I have discovered a feature of planning law that I am unfamiliar with. Not that I am totally conversant with planning law, but this element is wonderfully irrational. The context of this is important, so I will take a few moments to explain.

Infinergy has submitted planning applications to build two 12 turbine windfarms on a hillside just outside Grantham near Belvoir. A  protest group was quickly formed called BLOT, which has objected to the wind farm on the grounds of asthetics, impact on property values, noise and the potential impact on health. The evidence that there is any impact on the health of populations living near to wind turbines is pretty conclusive - there isn't one. The mass of international evidence collected over the last 25 years from countries that have developed and established wind energy demonstrates no link between windfarms and ill-health. However, there are some selective studies with very small samples that appear to show a causal relationship and this are exploited by anti-windfarm campaigners. Yet, in the end it doesn't really matter.

Planning authorities need to take into account perception of risk and fear of harm, even if these are completely unfounded, as material evidence when making decisions. Irrational fears and anxieties, it would seem, are being used to determine outcomes through a rational process?! 

South Kesteven District Council have bought into this by playing the trump 'precautionary principle' card to reject Infinergy's appeal. Precautionary Principle, if taking to its ultimate conclusion, would result in no roads ever being built again as we can safely predict that a road has a negative impact on health as people get killed and injured on them. In fact, the correllation between roads and people getting killed and injured is highly conclusive, unlike that of windfarms and ill-health. But on the whole, people are irrational in their lack of fear and anxiety when it comes to dangers to do with roads, and this is what matters.

The problem in all of this is that it allows mass hysteria to have greater influence than science in dictating renewable energy policy and its implementation. Campaigners have cottoned onto this and we see similar approaches in restricting GMO agriculture, phone masts and other initiatives that involve new technologies and materials.

That said, there are some issues with the windfarm being proposed. Noise is an issue. The recommendation is that turbines should be at least 1.5km away from dwellings. However, there are some properties less than 700m away from the site. These are the issues that should be the focus of collective problem-solving. 

Each customer receives four free energy saving light bulbs in the post - the idea is that this will help some people use them who do not do so already.

Every other day or so, I visit my local Royal Mail Parcel office to pick up mail for work. Behind the small counter area the staff work enclosed in a wall of green boxes, the British Gas free light bulbs, which seems to get taller every time I visit. Yesterday I asked why they had so many still here. The member of staff explained that over 50% cannot be delivered as no-one is at home. This isn't suprising as Grantham deliveries do not start until after 9am. If they can't deliver they stick one of their cards through the door saying a parcel needs to be collected from the parcel office. Many people will then drive especially to the parcel office to get their energy saving bulbs and indeed some will then drive onto work and then home with the bulbs.

Hence, the mileage that some of these bulbs are doing is probably quite large and requiring car journeys that people wouldn't necessarily have taken which must have an impact on the claims British Gas is making about carbon emissions.

Moving to energy saving light bulbs is a good idea. But I wonder if British Gas could have done this differently. Sending vouchers out to people who request them with their bills (or using codes in electronic billing) must be a greener way of doing it. Also meter readers could have a supply and provide them to customers they visit if, of course, they need them. Which makes me wonder whether this initiaitive is more about marketing then saving energy.

First congratulations to all the students who achieved in their A levels. I say this every year - ignore those who say they are easier or that they are no longer discriminating enough. Every generation has said this about the following generation.

On the subject of achievment recent figures from the DCSF reveal that selective Lincolnshire has 29% of its schools falling below a standard that 30% of pupils in the school should be gaining at least 5 GCSEs at a* to c. Neighbouring Leicestershire, on the other hand, has 0% of schools underperforming. Leicestershire is like Lincolnshire in many ways: rural, Tory, some areas of deprivation. Unlike Lincolnshire it has a fully comprehensive education system. I have written to Christine Talbot, children services portfolio holder for Lincs county council. I have asked her to explain why this difference and what are the factors that could be contributing to it. My letter is below. I will publish her reply - when it comes.

Christine,   I read your letter in the Grantham Journal (1st August 2008) with interest.

It prompted me to have a look at the information on the DCSF site. According to the table comparing local authorities on the number of schools with less than 30% of pupils achieving at least 5 A* to C at GCSE, Lincolnshire has 18 schools representing 29% of the total.   http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalchallenge/downloads/DataSheet.pdf  

In your letter you explain that Lincolnshire has no failing schools and that it will be challenging for the 18 to meet the targets. However, I would be interested in your views about why Lincolnshire is in this position:  

1) Why do fully selective authorities (Lincs, Bucks, Kent) have a similar proportion of underperforming schools?  

 2) Why does Leiecstershire, as a neighbouring example, have 0% of schools underperforming?  

3) Compared to Leicestershire, which has no schools underperforming, is there something Leicestershire is doing that could help us understand the situation in Lincolnshire?  

4) Is their a link between underperformance in non-selective schools and the system of selection used in Lincolnshire at 10\11?  

5) Has there been any county wide research into the impact of selection on childrens attainment, particularly those that do not pass the selection tests to get entry into grammar schools?  

6) What are the figures, most recent that are available, for the number of children taking selection tests in a given year, and the proportion of passes compared to the proportion of fails?

I have a dull niggle that has been beyond the reach of explanation for a few years. The recent debate about whether Thatcher should have a state funeral or not has brought it to the fore and it has dawned on me what this odd concern is about: I am dreading the day she dies.

I am dreading it not because of the massive wave of revisionism, adulation and base sychophancy that will inevitably gush from the media but more about how the left will react. I feel uncomfortable about the dance on the grave celebrations some of my comrades profess to be planning. The idea of finding joy and merriment in someones death I find bleakly perverse no matter their crimes.

Whilst I can fully understand the joy of liberation when people have been released from real tyranny, Thatcher wasn't a tyrant. She may have headed up an odious government with policies that hurt many people socially and economically. But celebrating her death as though this is a liberation is utterly debased and will backfire terribly.

Spiked are running a slightly mischievous campaign to challenge alcohol bans in public area. They are, however, raising some important issues around freedom in public spaces and petty intrusion into legal pastimes. I have searched high and low and can still find no evidence to justify such zones or if they make any difference in tackling alcohol fueled anti-social behaviour.

In the end this has always been about control. The reality for policing is pub fuelled disorder, disorder in residential properties and youth crime. Yet the police have always had the power to take alcohol off minors anyway. A key ingredient of the philosophy is to make people feel safe, whether or not they are at any real risk or not. The notion of spending resources on dealing with anxiety as a matter of public policing priority is a curious one. It is a key debate however that we need to have; should we invest resources on the basis of low risk but high concern no matter that it may be a waste of money?

Spiked has featured an interesting piece by Catholic barrister Neil Addison ( I am sure his religion was added for effect) on the recent case of the registrar Lillian Ladelle who refused to conduct civil ceromonies on the basis of her religious and moral belief. Addison attempts to show the difference between being complicit in an action that you believe to be immoral and acting morally. The case he makes is the conscientious objection one - I disagree profoundly with what is happening and will take no part, but recognise the reality of the situation. The same position essentially held by objectors to war who pledged never to take a life but were often willing to place their lives in danger on the homefront being firefighters, doing bomb disposal, driving ambulances, as actively saving lives is the moral thing to do.

On this basis, he argues that it was Ok for this registrar to refuse herself to do the civil services as she always ensured that a colleague was able to do so.

On the whole humanists objected to the notion that she could be employed by the state and discriminate against gay and lesbian people but at the same time humanists do support conscience and moral actions that do not result in harm to human beings. There is a strong argument that the registrar in question wasn't denying people the right to civil partnerships - she was objecting to being involved in the ceremony herself. One of the elements that seems to be forgotten in this debate is the notion that entering into a civil partnership is an occasion of shared commitment and happiness and I think you would want your registar to share your happiness also. 

In a way, it was probably good that this case was lost by the council. The alternative is possibly a significant group of registrars who hold similar views to Mrs Ladelle but are less honest about them and simply go through the motions because they have. That is not a great outcome for anyone.