Nice comments from Oxford University Student Union

Working with and engaging with our Universities, particularly the student body, is always a challenge.  Not because anyone makes it difficult but I think because students come and go so quickly and because the senior people in the Students’ unions change every year.  This academic year, Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) is lucky to have Daniel Stone (Dan) as its Vice President (Charities and Community).  He works tirelessly to try to bring Students and City together and it’s great as a City Councillor to have a meaningful way to interface with the many students who live in Carfax Ward, the residents of which I represent!

Dan recently published a nice column in the Oxford Student, the official newspaper of OUSU, that couldn’t really have been nicer.  You should be able to read it if you click on it here but if not, here’s the middle paragraph:

“City Councillors are here to represent students too!  There are City Council wards running through the centre of Oxford and extending out through Jericho, Summertown and over the Magdalen Bridge.  We’re lucky to have a fantastic group of Councillors, many of whom were former students and consequently want to engage with the student population as much as possible.  But it’s up to us to speak and make our voices heard”

Thanks Dan – it’s a pleasure to be able to serve you and the students of Oxford!

Do read the whole article if you can. Click it to enlarge it.

Lord Mayor’s Christmas Reception

SantaThis is the annual event held at the Town Hall where councillors all get to bring two guests from local charities doing good in the area and one personal guest.

This year I invited Wendy Woodcock, from the CfBT Education Trust, as she is Chair of Governors at Oxford Spires Academy where I am also a governor. CfBT is also the principal sponsor of Oxford Spires Academy.  I also invited Sue Croft, the Principal of Oxford Spires Academy. My personal guest was my sister, Emma, as she’s been living in Oxford for a couple of years now and it seemed appropriate to introduce her to council colleagues.

The event is always a good opportunity to say thank you to those who work so hard for our City in various ways.  Wendy has done a sterling job helping a fledgling academy and its fledgling Governing Body to become effective very quickly and Sue really is an inspirational leader of Oxford Spires Academy.  The difference they will both make to education and educational attainment of Children in our City is, I think, extremely important.  I was delighted to be able to invite them both to the reception.  Some excellent links were made and it was good to raise the profile of Oxford Spires Academy among other councillors and their guests, as well as the City Council’s Chief executive.

My sister is an independent speech and language therapist and had some useful conversations about her work with some of those present too.

Central South and West Area Forum

This forum met today in the Town Hall and focussed on student safety issues as well as homelessness.  It was really good to have Lesley Dewhurst from Oxford Homeless Pathways present to explain to us all the good work her charity does.  We also have the new manager from the Oxford Crisis Skylight Centre to tell us about all the good work just about to start in the Old Fire Station.   Lesley produced the best handout I have seen for ages that shows really well how the homelessness services work in Oxford.  How refreshing not to be blinded by high-tech graphics.  Click on the image here to see it in its full glory!

There was a presentation about student safety from the City Council community safety ream and some useful comments from the many students present .  Student input, particularly from the OUSU Vice-President for Charities and Communities , Daniel Stone, is always particularly welcome as it can be hard to build meaningful and sustainable channels of communication between the council and the University sometimes..  I was alarmed to hear a story about a sexual assault on a student in a bus but pleased that the City Council student safety team will take up the issue with the Police and the bus operator.

Electronic Committee Management

I attended a brief training session today about the new software the City Council is adopting to better manage information about committees and councillors.  I have to say I was quite impressed with it.  It should make finding things much easier for the public and it will hold us councillors better to account as it records meeting attendance too!

Annual Council, Licensing, Mayor-making

Today at 4pm saw the formal annual meeting of council which does things such as approving the scheme of delegation and appointing councillors to committees. I have ended up on the Licensing and Gambling Acts committee again and also the Planning Review Committee.

After that brief meeting we had meetings of the two licensing committees, again very briefly. Mary Clarkson will carry on as chair of licensing and gambling acts committee and I will continue as the vice-chair of that committee. I was pleased to see that Lib Dem Clark Brundin will chair the General Purposes Licensing Committee, with Labour’s Colin Cook being vice-chair.

At 5pm we gathered in our robes in the assembly room for the annual ceremonial mayor-making event.  This is a formal occasion but also ceremonial.  The tradition is that the councillor of the longest standing, who has not fulfilled the role before, gets to serve as Lord Mayor for the council year.  This year that honour falls to Elise Benjamin.  Lots of speeches of proposal and seconding are made for Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor and Sheriff of Oxford.  I was really pleased that Lib Dems Alan Armitage and Jean Fooks will serve as Deputy Lord Mayor and Sheriff respectively for this council year.

The evening was rounded off with a reception for civil dignitaries and guests in the main hall of the town hall.

Lib Dem group annual meeting

This was our annual meeting where we choose group officers for the coming council year.

There’s not much to be happy about nationally as a Lib Dem at the moment but this was a good and positive meeting and I remain convinced that LibDem councillors are good for the people of Oxford that we are doing our best to get Lib Dem policies put into effect at local level.  Remember policy is formed by the party, not just by those in government.

Our nominations to council committees for the next council year are:

Value and Performance Scrutiny: Cllrs Brown, Royce, Gotch and McCready
Communities and Partnerships Scrutiny: Cllrs Khan, Campbell, Jones and Wilkinson
East Area Planning: Cllrs Rundle, Brown and Fooks
West Area Planning: Cllrs Jones, Gotch and Goddard
Planning Review: Cllrs Altaf-Khan, Brett and Armitage
Audit & Governance: Cllrs Brundin and Mills
General Purposes Licensing: Cllrs Gotch, Royce, Brundin and Goddard
Licensing and Gambling Acts: Cllrs Brett, Gotch, Royce, Brundin and Goddard
Disciplinary Committee: Cllrs Brown and Mills
Appointments Committee: Cllrs Brown and Mills
Standards Committee: Cllrs Brundin and Gotch

I’m pleased that we have managed to spread what is quite a heavy workload between us and look forward to working with these colleagues and those from the other parties represented on the City Council.

Special Full Council: Core Strategy

We had a short full council meeting today to vote on the finalised Core Strategy document that puts a strategic framework around development of our City for the next fifteen years.

The meeting started with a few words from the Lord Mayor about the terrible disaster unfolding in Japan. We had a minutes’ silence to reflect on all the suffering and loss of life.

The core strategy was then presented by the deputy leader of the Council. Two speeches of five minutes were allowed by each of the Labour (administration), LibDem, and Green Groups. We had decided to abstain on the vote – not because we didn’t approve of the core strategy as presented but because we didn’t think it went far enough on things like the need to build housing and being more energy-efficient. The Green voted against and for some reason demanded a named vote whereby every councillor present has their name read out and has to declare their vote for the record.

There were lots of people in the public gallery who seemed in the most part opposed to the Northern Gateway proposals for housing.

I must say arguing over housing in Oxford, while a serious matter, did feel rather insignificant compared to the troubles some Japanese Cities will be facing for years to come after this weekend’s earthquake.

Labour killing democratic accountability?

I received a consultation questionnaire in my council mail today about the proposed changes to the Council’s decision-making process. I’m afraid I think this is one of those consultations that is basically there to tell people what has already been decided. I don’t think public comments will make any difference to what is going to happen.

The changes are essentially:

  • Abolish monthly formal Area Committees, and their revenue budgets, and replace them with quarterly informal, largely powerless, Area Forums.
  • Remove powers to make planning decisions from the local level and set up two large planning committees that won’t really have any neighbourhood link or context understanding.  There will be a “west” and and “east” committee.  Bizarrely the west committee will include east Oxford!  The committees will be politically balanced meaning each will have 4 Labour members, 3 LibDems and 1 Green.  I think this is shocking as it means the administration effectively takes over control of all planning decisions.  In the current scheme North area has a LibDem majority and East has a Green majority.
  • Remove planning decisions call-in to full council and replace this with a “planning appeals committee”.  This will also be politically balanced, so Labour-controlled.
  • Drastically cut the number of Executive Board meetings and let executive councillors make most decisions that were previously Executive Board decisions on their own with no requirement for a public meeting.
  • Give each councillor a paltry £1500 to spend as they wish on their ward.

You can read about this in detail and I urge you to fill in the consultation as I think this is an extremely important matter of local democracy and accountability.  You need to register first to do the survey but please do – this is really important!  It’s clear Labour doesn’t want to hear much from you as the boxes only allow 500 characters and that includes spaces! You can see my response on my website.

My main concern is how the changes will effectively render the councillors of the North Area Committee (entirely LibDem) and those of the East Area Parliament (almost all Green) pretty much voice-less and powerless.  My own area, Central South and West will no longer see political balance of 4 Labour 4 LibDem but instead all its planning decisions will be made by committees with a Labour majority.  I have rarely seen such megalomania in a political party as Oxford Labour!

Budget – and council tax-setting full council

A long meeting tonight ably chaired as ever by Cllr John Goddard, the Lord Mayor of Oxford.

We started with addresses from the public and heard a moving speech about the plight of the Oxfordshire Chinese Community and Advice Centre as well as some exciting information about a community-based film called NoBalls that is directed by my friend Martyn Chalk, owner and founder of Chalkstar films, and produced by Rubia Braun, of Metro Brava, who spoke at the meeting. That’s her in the picture.  We heard more about Temple Cowley Pools from Nigel Gibson and Jane Alexander and a speech about Democratic openness as well as an address from a Unison representative urging the Council to save jobs and services with extra money now available in the budget.

We moved on next to the budget proper.  We had a lot of gesturing from the Labour Administration about how this was a budget nobody wanted and how it was all the coalition government’s fault.  Funny how they seem to think the UK economy has got into the state it is in just since May 2010 and that everything Labour when in government did was right until then.  Next the Lib Dem budget was able presented by Alan Armitage and Stephen Brown.  We were the only party to suggests cuts to councillor allowances and we also put in provision to save administrative support for Area Committees and to keep Temple Cowley Pools open for a few more years while finances improved and better solution than losing a pool within the ring road in East Oxford could be found.  The Green budget was also presented and had some bizzare extra additions like saving St. Clement’s car park even though the Greens are meant to be so anti-car.

After supper, of course with a majority administration the Labour Budget got through unamended.

We then set the council tax for 2012 and agreed a zero change in the City Council part of your bill.  Next was questions from members of council.  Jean Fooks asked a useful question about compelling business to be less wasteful with energy and John Tanner replied that there was no legal power to do that but that the administration was working with local businesses through low carbon Oxford to try to reduce the City’s carbon footprint.  I asked questions about the possibility of having a separate dog training area in Cowley Marsh Park but was told the council has no money or policy for this and that it couldn’t be done on the disused tennis courts.   The portfolio holder, Cllr Lygo, did agree to have a meeting with the founders of the Fellowship of Responsible Oxford Dog Owners to talk about possibilities so that’s at least encouraging.  Interestingly he also said the tennis courts were to be refurbished and provided with new nets.  I know that will please Temple Cowley residents and am just sorry it’s taken so long to get agreement to get that done.

We moved on to motions on notice and I tried to amend the one by the Deputy Leader of the Council as it started well, praising the constructive work of the Unions in minimising impact on staff and council services in these difficult times but then moved on to political gesturing and trying to get council staff to engage in political action.  I don’t think it’s appropriate for councillors formally to encourage staff to take part in any political action as many of them will be politically restricted.  The proposer refused to accept my amendment removing the problematic parts of the motion so our group was unable to support the motion at all which was a shame.

The council then agreed the statement of licensing policy very quickly as it had already been past all area committees and the licensing and gambling acts committee.

The final item was discussion of members allowances.  I believe very firmly that if we councillors are having to cut staff and services then we should also take a cut in our own allowances.  We LibDems proposed a 10% cut and also a cut in some special responsibility allowances for City Executive Board members but were voted against by the Greens and Labour who wanted to keep their personal allowances as they are.  Typical do as we do, not what we say attitude from Labour and Green.  One Labour member shouted at us that we should give our allowances to the Big Society – actually several of us in the LibDem group already do substantial charitable giving…

We finished around 9pm.