Labour's death wish: September Copeland Council

The September full council meeting of Copeland Borough Council took place today. 

It began with presentations to various schools who had done excellent work to improve their local environment, and there was some discussion on traffic (see previous post) but the meeting was dominated by an extraordinary row about the "Choosing to Change" programme. 

When an administration at national or council level has been in power for too long it sometimes develops a kind of "death wish." When this syndrome takes hold there seems to be no sequence of events which they cannot turn into a festering self-inflicted wound. It's a bit like the political equivalent of Necrotizing fasciitis. 

 And both Gordon Brown's Labour government and Elaine Woodburn's Labour administration in Copeland have advanced cases of this "death wish" syndrome. Cases which, if the electorate makes the right decision, will be terminal. Having repeatedly been the subject of truly dreadful audit reports and surveys, which provided objective evidence for the view that Copeland is one of the ten least effective and most unpopular councils in England, the administration finally decided earlier this year to apply to take part in a government reform programme called "Choosing to Change." 

As one aspect of "Choosing to change" is supposed to be about boosting local democracy, and making decision making more clear and transparent, it's ironic that the manner in which the decision to take part was made appears itself to have left something to be desired in terms of clarity and transparency. But it appeared to be a good sign that the council was recognising the need for improvement and taking positive steps to try to do something about it. 

 Copeland council's Overview and Scrutiny Management committee, which has a Labour majority, held a meeting on 1st September at which virtually the whole programme was taken up with an investigation into the decision to apply to take part in "Choosing to Change." Because it clashed with a meeting of another council committee of which I am a member, I was not able to attend the whole of this meeting, but what I saw of it was positive and constructive. 

The committee members voted unanimously for seven recommendations to try to help the reform process, which were due to be presented to full council this afternoon. I thought that these were very sensible recommendations, and most of the noises coming out of the administration were positive. If the administration had the sense God gave a wombat, they would have accepted the recommendations, today's council meeting would have been extremely boring, and the Whitehaven News headline this week would probably have read something like "Copeland Council finally start to get their act together." 

Well, I don't know what the headline's going to be, but I suspect it is more likely to feature words like "Blazing Row," "shambles," or "Defection." 

A number of sections were removed from the report of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee without the agreement of the chairman or vice chairman. Now this may sound boring to most people, but stop for a moment and think. How would you feel if you had put a lot of hard work into an important report which you would be presenting in public, and somebody took six paragraphs out of your report without consulting you? 

And at the council meeting the Labour group, while accepting six of the seven recommendations, put a "party whip" against the last one which called for cross-party working. As I was not at the Labour group meeting last night, or at either of the impromptu meetings which Labour councillors were dragged into in a room next to the council chamber this afternoon, I only have hearsay evidence for what went on. But it would appear that there was some heavy duty arm-twisting. 

What is beyond doubt is that the Chairman of the O&S Management Committee, Cllr Brian Dixon, was so cross at the pressure being brought to bear on him that he resigned the Labour whip at the meeting and crossed the floor, taking a seat near the Independents. A Labour amendment to delete the "cross party working" recommendation was carried on a recorded vote with at least two Labour councillors, not counting Brian Dixon, refusing to support it. The mood of the debate was fairly poisonous, and what should have been an opportunity to start the process of reform which everyone agrees Copeland needs turned into yet another destructive row of the kind that brings local politics into disrepute.

Comments

Jane said…
The Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee, for ‘Choosing to Change’ preserved his personal integrity in crossing the floor to the Independents, at Copeland Borough Council’s meeting on 8th September.

It is not as a Conservative that I wish to commend Cllr. Brian Dixon, but for his courage in putting his commitment to truth before obeying Labour’s tyrannous party whip. It is because he refused, in a culture of bullying and ‘eye gouging’ to take the order to “Get thee glass eyes; and like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not.” (King Lear 1605/6.)

Cllr. Dixon made it clear at his appointment to the Committee that he had every right to challenge any decisions brought to the attention of Councillors. In fact the independence of Overview and Scrutiny is protected in law. Scrutiny’s constitutional role is to act as a check and balance in local government and is at the very foundation of the principles that underpin this country’s Liberty. Therefore Cllr. Dixon was quite correct in saying that “there will be no holds barred”, when it came to looking critically at how the Council had conducted itself in the delivery of services. It is in the public interest to bring all matters out into the open.

Copeland’s Labour Group has the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts simultaneously and believe both. This archetypical Orwellian doublethink enables the Labour Group to state that it is committed to ‘Choosing to Change’ whilst at the same time removing the recommendations of the cross-party scrutiny committee from the document presented to Full Council for approval. Cllr. Dixon with support from the Conservative Group and at least two possibly three other Labour Councillors was quite justified in being enraged at this tampering with documents and the undermining of the agreed cross party decision. Blatantly the reluctance for transparency shows no desire to change.

The Labour Group and the official statement of the Copeland Borough Council website, seem determined to play down the seriousness of the mismanagement, presenting it to the public as some mundane routine educational procedure for improving services. Yet Copeland’s rating is the 7th lowest in the national ‘Place Survey’ for satisfaction in the delivery of specific services and for giving local people a change to influence decisions rated at 323rd out 352. Last year’s Housing Commission and Audit Reports were equally damning.

It appears that the Labour Executive have been in denial over their failures for some time now. The inspectors would not have been called in had the Council not failed. It is high time they were called to account for Copeland's poor delivery of services and financial mismanagement.

There is a deeper underlying principle here that Copeland Council, as a whole, owes to its forefathers and to future posterity. The credibility and integrity of the authority, premised on the faith of the people in local democracy is at stake, especially at this time when public opinion is at an all time low. If this Council fails it ultimately fails the public it was elected to serve. Who will govern in the future if no one wishes to become a councillor and in whose name will this body rule, if the people withdraw their trust?

I cannot be so presumptuous as to enter into Cllr. Dixon’s thoughts with regard to resigning the whip, but I will make the comment that he had the bigger picture in mind. I do not believe that he wanted to betray his party. He put his duty to the people of this Borough first.



“Not that I loved Caesar less, but I loved Rome more”. (Julius Caesar 1599.)
Chris Whiteside said…
Thanks for taking the time to share that, Jane. Obviously I agree with everything you have written.

Those of us who are on the council had to be there for that meeting, but had at least the ability to say what we thought about it. It must have been throroughly frustrating for you sitting in the public gallery through the three hours of that meeting without that right.

But I suspect Copeland would be better run if more residents followed your example, took the trouble to watch council meetings and tell councillors what they thought of them.
Anonymous said…
Chris stop trying to blame the public for not taking "the trouble to watch council meetings", if they were held at reasonable times for working people then they could attend.

We have raised numerous important issues with Councillors of all flavours but have without fail been ignored and the issue never properly scrutinised. For example the defective sale of Whitehaven Golf Course for a mere £235,000 cost the Copeland taxpayers far more than the £100,000 ‘Choosing to Change’ programme, admittedly the issues are essentially the same, secrecy, subterfuge, maladministration and downright dishonesty, that’s just the Officers. No one will touch this issue with a barge pole because it is going to loose them votes! This appears to be the state of democracy in Copeland (that includes you Chris), sod the public, tow the party line, don’t upset anyone.

Whilst Cllr. Dixon believes the Oversight and Scrutiny Committee to be the eyes and ears of the public, those eyes and ears are very deaf and totally blind.
Chris Whiteside said…
For the avoidance of doubt, my comment was intended to praise Jane Micklethwaite to take the time to sit through the meeting, and not in any way as criticism of those members of the public who are not able to make the considerable effort required to do so.

I agree that more meetings should be held outside normal working hours at places which are easier for residents to get to, and have said so regularly when the time and place of meetings has been discussed.
Thomas said…
Its nice that Jane - a true blue Tory - is now full of respect for Brian Dixon. Still I suppose the old adage that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" is true.

Brian Dixon been "all about Brian" for years now and I'm just amazed its taken this long for him to walk away.

When my father was a councillor, he was - I think - pretty well respected by all sides for trying to be bi-partisan in CBC . The one councillor he always said you could never trust was Brian Dixon. My father always said that if Brian told you the time, you didn't just check the time yourself, you made sure you still had your watch on.
Chris Whiteside said…
Thomas, as you have not given your surname I can't comment on what you say about your dad but I'll accept it at face value. There have been many Copeland councillors of all sides to whom your words would apply.

Less than six months ago it is clear that the majority of Labour backbench councillors must have had some respect for Brian Dixon or they would not have elected him as their candidate to chair scrutiny management.

It's also worth pointing out that the whole committee - Labour as well as Tory councillors - and not just Brian Dixon, voted for the motion that the fuss was about. And the Labour people who backed Brian were about as firmly Labour loyalist as you can get.

Most councillors have an ego, you have to have a pretty high level of confidence in yourself and your views to put yourself up there as a target, which comes with the job. I think the argument last week was about a lot more than just being "all about Brian."
Anonymous said…
Do a barrel roll!

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