High points and low points of today's Cumbria County Council meeting
HIGH POINTS
1) More money to fix potholes
Unanimous agreement this morning by Cumbria County Councillors to spend an extra £1.6 million on urgent work fixing potholes. the government had made more taxpayers' money available for this purpose and although this sum is tiny in comparison with the scale of the resources required to do a complete resurfacing of all the problem roads in Cumbria, it will go some way to helping fix the worst problems.
2) Chasing Highways England to address problems
We have had a fair degree of chaos in the Whitehaven area in the last month caused by poor functioning of the traffic lights at the junctions of the A595 with Inkerman Terrace and Mirehouse Road. The A595 north of the Calderbridge and these junctions are the responsibility of Highways England.
When I raised this at Highways Working Group earlier in the month and asked our local highways team they responded that they had been having difficulties getting hold of Highways England.
I took the matter up at today's full council meeting with the Portfolio holder for Traffic and Highways, who has a meeting with Highways England tomorrow, and he agreed to discuss this with them and hopefully sort the matter out.
3) Three good speeches by younger members of the council.
At the end of the meeting three councillors, all of whom happened to be on the younger end of the spectrum for county councillors and one from each of the major parties, made passsionate and well-thought out speeches about what they would like to see the council doing to approve the lives of people in Cumbria - one about alleviating poverty, one about aspiring to do better, and one about better regulation. I think it's a good thing that we have a range councillors of different ages and perspectives on the county council and that in different ways these three councillors were willing to put energy into improving services and helping residents of the county aspire to a better life/
LOW POINTS
I'm tempted to say "most of the rest of the meeting" which would slightly overstate the case, but some of the most egregious exchanges in the rest of the meeting included
4) A ridiculous debate about the impact of Universal Credit on Free School Meals.
There are some genuine and serious problems with Universal Credit.
The impact on free school meals is NOT one of them.
During the period when Universal Credit is being rolled out, as an interim measure, every child in a family who get Universal Credit will get free school meals. This temporary arrangement is more generous than the previous system which was means-tested. Those children who get free school meals during that interim period will not lose them while their families remain on universal credit.
When the interim period expires, a means test will be reintroduced for NEW CLAIMANTS ONLY which is better targeted because it is based on income rather than hours worked and more generous - about 50,000 more children will be eligible than under the old pre-2010 system.
Instead of focussing on the real problems with Universal Credit one of the Labour portfolio holders had repeated some of the misleading accusations previously made by the Labour front bench, and subsequently exploded, about the Universal Credit causing children to lose access to free school meals when the opposite is very much the case. When this was queried today the Labour group doubled down on the allegation even though it is nonsense. More in another post later.
5) More ridiculous arguments about filming council meetings.
The law states that people can film council meetings. Some councils routinely make official arrangements to film their proceedings and put the record on the web so that people who can's get to the meeting can see what is being said and done on their behalf. I think Cumbria County council should do the same so we don't need to waste any more time and money on debates about whether individual councillors can take a record of sections of the meeting on their mobile phones or other electronic devices.
Following an argument at a meeting earlier this year there was an attempt, which I personally think started out with good faith on both sides, to agree a protocol on filming council meetings.
Sadly it has not proved possible to reach agreement because the Labour leadership wants a much more restrictive protocol than the Conservative group can accept. Cue for a very negative argument.
1) More money to fix potholes
Unanimous agreement this morning by Cumbria County Councillors to spend an extra £1.6 million on urgent work fixing potholes. the government had made more taxpayers' money available for this purpose and although this sum is tiny in comparison with the scale of the resources required to do a complete resurfacing of all the problem roads in Cumbria, it will go some way to helping fix the worst problems.
2) Chasing Highways England to address problems
We have had a fair degree of chaos in the Whitehaven area in the last month caused by poor functioning of the traffic lights at the junctions of the A595 with Inkerman Terrace and Mirehouse Road. The A595 north of the Calderbridge and these junctions are the responsibility of Highways England.
When I raised this at Highways Working Group earlier in the month and asked our local highways team they responded that they had been having difficulties getting hold of Highways England.
I took the matter up at today's full council meeting with the Portfolio holder for Traffic and Highways, who has a meeting with Highways England tomorrow, and he agreed to discuss this with them and hopefully sort the matter out.
3) Three good speeches by younger members of the council.
At the end of the meeting three councillors, all of whom happened to be on the younger end of the spectrum for county councillors and one from each of the major parties, made passsionate and well-thought out speeches about what they would like to see the council doing to approve the lives of people in Cumbria - one about alleviating poverty, one about aspiring to do better, and one about better regulation. I think it's a good thing that we have a range councillors of different ages and perspectives on the county council and that in different ways these three councillors were willing to put energy into improving services and helping residents of the county aspire to a better life/
LOW POINTS
I'm tempted to say "most of the rest of the meeting" which would slightly overstate the case, but some of the most egregious exchanges in the rest of the meeting included
4) A ridiculous debate about the impact of Universal Credit on Free School Meals.
There are some genuine and serious problems with Universal Credit.
The impact on free school meals is NOT one of them.
During the period when Universal Credit is being rolled out, as an interim measure, every child in a family who get Universal Credit will get free school meals. This temporary arrangement is more generous than the previous system which was means-tested. Those children who get free school meals during that interim period will not lose them while their families remain on universal credit.
When the interim period expires, a means test will be reintroduced for NEW CLAIMANTS ONLY which is better targeted because it is based on income rather than hours worked and more generous - about 50,000 more children will be eligible than under the old pre-2010 system.
Instead of focussing on the real problems with Universal Credit one of the Labour portfolio holders had repeated some of the misleading accusations previously made by the Labour front bench, and subsequently exploded, about the Universal Credit causing children to lose access to free school meals when the opposite is very much the case. When this was queried today the Labour group doubled down on the allegation even though it is nonsense. More in another post later.
5) More ridiculous arguments about filming council meetings.
The law states that people can film council meetings. Some councils routinely make official arrangements to film their proceedings and put the record on the web so that people who can's get to the meeting can see what is being said and done on their behalf. I think Cumbria County council should do the same so we don't need to waste any more time and money on debates about whether individual councillors can take a record of sections of the meeting on their mobile phones or other electronic devices.
Following an argument at a meeting earlier this year there was an attempt, which I personally think started out with good faith on both sides, to agree a protocol on filming council meetings.
Sadly it has not proved possible to reach agreement because the Labour leadership wants a much more restrictive protocol than the Conservative group can accept. Cue for a very negative argument.
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