by Paul Scully | Sep 10, 2008 | News |
The unpopular £35 green garden waste policy is coming to a welcome but slow and very shabby end. On Friday a cross-party committee will meet to consider the results of the consultation with residents about the changes to waste collection. This involved several meetings of varying worth and polling 1000 residents as I have written about previously. The results are overdue as I write, having been earmarked for publication yesterday.
As usual, the LibDem Executive have not bothered to wait or have an advanced copy. Last Friday, they held a group meeting with the two MPs in attendance and agreed to the expected u-turn. Having agreed to scrap the charge, the two MPs issued a press release demanding that the Council, er, scrap the charge.
The whole episode has been a shambles from beginning to end. I am amazed that they have not learnt any lessons and still seek to treat consultation with such disdain. They have come up with the right answer in this instance but this is not because of the expensive communication exercise that they have just undertaken. This was merely a way of justifying the climbdown. Either they have sat on an advanced copy of the results and are refusing to let others seat it or they have decided without considering residents’ views.
LibDem backbenchers are seeing their future on the council melting away in the light of this incompetence. I hope that you as residents share my anger that you are just a pawn in the LibDem hierarchy’s game of political survival. I’m afraid that you have another 18 months of being treated as someone whose chequebook should be seen, but definitely not heard.
by Paul Scully | Sep 8, 2008 | News |
Sutton Guardian are reporting a fight in the Love2Love nightclub where a shotgun was produced and fired. The nightclub on Cheam Road, Sutton attracts DJs from across South London and their friends and entourages. It is too early to say whether this was such an incident or if it was someone more local. Sutton has a low incidence of such crimes unlike some other Boroughs. We need to take the very strongest action to ensure that it stays this way.
It is striking that this incident took place next to the Council Offices and just yards away from the police station which is also home to the Safer Sutton Partnership.
I came back from London on the train recently where I overheard a couple of black ex-Brixton residents talking. One explained to the other how a girl that he knew was “kicked to death”, whilst the other knew someone that had been shot in his car. I got into conversation with them. It was illuminating that despite being relatively young and people that had “been up to tricks” in their youth, they escaped Brixton to Thornton Heath because it was too dangerous.
Knives have become a fashion accessory in parts. Guns must not be allowed to become the norm in gang culture here in South London. Knife arches in Sutton have produced some results, increased stop and search also. Boris is right to have concentrated on transport police. Everything that we can do to stop importing this problem will help before we get to the stage that we are producing too much of our own serious crime.
No-one was injured by the gun but one man is in hospital and a further ten arrested. The surrounding roads remain closed whilst the police investigate.
by Paul Scully | Sep 7, 2008 | News |
Just to reinforce what was said yesterday in my post and subsequent comments, I’ve reproduced below a letter that I sent a little while back to the Guardian for publication:-
As I pointed out in last week’s Sutton Guardian good communication between residents and their local council is pivotal, after all as residents we’re the ones paying for it. However, Lib Dem-run Sutton must remember that good communication is a two-way street, and that means listening to residents. Not the sham consultations we’re used to – I mean really listening.
The Lib Dems are skilled at telling residents how good they think they’re doing and are adept at pumping out material to that end – often flying in the face of reality. A recent Ipsos MORI study shows that only 4% of residents feel they can definitely influence Council decisions, compared to roughly 50% who feel they can’t. Even this is rose-tinted, I suspect. Let’s not forget the response of 22 residents was the ‘justification’ for the above-inflation council tax increase affecting tens of thousands of households.
Blasting messages at the public doesn’t work; as residents we need to feel we can respond, and more importantly that we will be listened to by the Lib Dem Council. The garden waste controversy shows us this. This will be the challenge for any Council PR team and a chance to mitigate cynicism over its cost.
As Conservatives real and meaningful consultation with residents is enshrined in our values, along with real value for taxpayers, complimenting the hard work of Sutton staff. An incoming Conservative administration will implement policies to breakdown the barriers that separate the Council and the community it serves, so that the organisation we all pay for really starts to listen.
by Paul Scully | Sep 6, 2008 | News |
Sutton Council made it to the venerable pages of Private Eye, in the Rotten Boroughs section as a result of changes in their communications department. The service was outsourced to Westminster Communications after they had been brought in to write a report on the in-house provision. LibDem Lead Councillor Tony Brett Young said at the time that the new arrangement would not cost ‘more than we spend at the moment.’ In fact, according to the magazine, costs have increased by around 51% from £379k to a massive £573,600.
I am not an advocate for slashing communication budgets. It is important that residents do know the good things that the Council does. The Council also needs to act as a central repository of information and to share bad news. Many people are unsure how to access council services, or indeed do not know much about what their council do, despite paying through the nose for the privilege.
The biggest failure of this Council with regard to communications is understanding that it is a two-way process. Whereas there will always be messages that the Council wishes to get across, it is even more important to be able to receive, digest and act upon messages that members of the public want to pass on. After all, the Council is only an extension of the residents in Sutton, acting as the provider of collective services paid for by them, when it is most convenient to have a community-based service rather than everyone fending for themselves. Imagine the number of dustcarts that would be driving around if it was a free-for-all.
The unpopular green garden waste charge is but one illustration of this failure. Logic dictates that the Council should consult before introducing a policy, not six months into the service. The LibDem Executive knew that it would be an unpopular policy, therefore they knew that they wouldn’t like the answer that was likely to come back. This was failure no. 1. Secondly, they did not clearly articulate the changes. Many people were not aware of the changes until their old clear bags were left uncollected. Others were not aware that the £35 was per bag and not the total charge. Few people knew that the £35 got them a bag that was half the size of the original.
Finally, the consultation that has just ended was strictly controlled to exclude debate. Colin Hall made the mistake of walking into the Carshalton Local Committee where an open Q&A session raised some interesting points, with some shall we say animated residents. None of the other Local Committees allowed this, instead having Colin Hall and or officers standing to the side whilst residents quietly filled in a form. The communications team contacted 1000 residents to gain the views of a statistically relevant sample, which is to be commended. Unfortunately, the LibDems held a meeting on Friday night, before the cross-party group charged to suggest changes had seen the results. Therefore, either the decision has been made behind closed doors without worrying about what residents actually said, or the results are back and are being ‘analysed’ before general release. Either way, it’s not the transparent U-turn that we might have been expecting after the grief that the LibDems got for making the original decision in such an intransigent fashion. The cross-party meeting is next Friday, so we won’t have long to wait.
by Paul Scully | Jul 29, 2008 | News |
A couple of weeks ago, an eagle-eyed resident from Clockhouse saw a truck emblazoned with the Sutton tree logo tipping cuttings onto an overgrown area near Corrigan Rec. He took a photo of the truck as it left and reported it at a residents’ meeting attended by Cllr Tim Crowley. Further investigation showed that this wasn’t the first time that this had happened and that the rubbish was being dumped over the borough boundary into Banstead & Reigate.
It is not acceptable that we are lectured on fly tipping when the Council takes a different line for its own actions. Although we were told that there was nothing to worry about, the waste was hurriedly cleared up by several employees and a couple of tractors on a Sunday, presumably at double pay. Whilst the political administration continue to attempt to ‘contain’ the issue, Council officers seem to taken action, holding their hands up and started an investigation to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The unpopular £35 green garden waste policy is coming to a welcome but slow and very shabby end. On Friday a cross-party committee will meet to consider the results of the consultation with residents about the changes to waste collection. This involved several meetings of varying worth and polling 1000 residents as I have written about previously. The results are overdue as I write, having been earmarked for publication yesterday.
