ISSUES AND QUESTIONS THAT WON'T GO AWAY
AROUND about 6pm, sometimes later, occasionally earlier, but always on a Wednesday evening one of my jobs on the Cambs Times and Wisbech Standard is to pen 300 or so words for what is generally known as the comment column for that week’s edition.
I scan through the stories making news, look for a topic of interest to all parts of Fenland, and set to work: invariably it won’t involve an issue solely applicable to March, Chatteris, Wisbech or Whittlesey as the feeling is, quite rightly, it would probably alienate a hard core of readers before the second paragraph. So Fenland it is, and Fenland it was around 6.45pm tonight as I considered the week’s hot topics.
The forthcoming local elections? Ok, so what can be said? We have an election due which, through apathy, is already in the bag for the Conservatives. I have no complaint, as the leader/comment column makes clear.
Move on, get used to it, don’t whinge now it’s too late to get yourself nominated, call it what you like but the deed for this election is done: astonishingly in Whittlesey not a single opposition candidate could be found in any ward to oppose the sitting Conservative nominee. Full credit to them, then, and tough if your inclinations draw you elsewhere.
But the May elections will go no way to solving what I perceive to be the biggest malaise in Fenland, and that is the increasing power and influence not enjoyed by the Conservatives – though they do, and will continue to do, enjoy what can loosely be termed bragging rights for the district council’s accomplishments.
No, my biggest beef, growing increasingly large, is the role of the executive, and to define that more exactly, the power officers of Fenland District Council have invested in themselves.
It’s the power to build mini empires, whether in ‘customer care’, planning, legal services or whichever department takes your fancy. It’s the power to increase salaries way out of kilter with that experienced elsewhere in the Fenland economy. It’s the power to enlarge offices, to buy, install and utilise whatever IT gizmos they fancy, and then justify it to anyone who dares question them by referring to the budget which provided for it.
It’s the power that can enable critics among the elected councillors to be isolated, dispensed with, or usurped should the mood take them: can someone PLEASE explain to me the real reasons for Pop Jolley’s premature departure from Fenland Hall? In the months leading up to his resignation/removal (delete as appropriate) he spoke often to me about his new role as deputy leader. Of how he was determined to reduce staffing levels at Fenland Hall. Of how he was determined to bring proper accountability, as he saw it, to the new working from home policy. Of how he intended to probe the staffing requirements of Fenland Hall from top to bottom. As it was put to me this week: to knock on the door of every officer and ask the pertinent question-“and what do you do you for a living?”
Sadly it wasn’t to be, and suddenly he was out. As told to me it was because of his approach to a senior officer and the suspicion of inappropriate behaviour. Bullying maybe? Or simply a blunt Fenman demanding answers in a blunt manner and his actions being mistaken for something improper? I honestly don’t know, but plenty of ‘senior’ councillors have briefed me as to the real reason, which for legal reasons this blog cannot tell you. But his departure should have merited an outcry, should have merited an inquiry, and should have merited a response from the Conservative group. If he did wrong, then let him be punished: if he did not then let the facts come out and let the people decide.
Take, then, the case of Jan French, a friend so maybe my judgement is impaired, but belief you me as a journalist no friend, however valued, will cloud my editorial and professional judgement. She was ousted, firstly from the chair of planning, through an unproven and mischievous whispering campaign.
And she was later removed as chair of overview and scrutiny committee because she dared do her job too well- her work on the section 106 agreements was valuable, important, and dare I say groundbreaking. She proved there was incompetence over a long and sustained period when money due from developers was not paid as speedily as it ought to have been, and there were no proper reconciliation of those payments. Her reward for demonstrating an area of careless administration was to find herself, once again, on the back benchers.
So what of Alan Melton, then, whose leadership of the council initiated many of the sweeping changes (one stop shops, Nene waterfront, etc) but whose ‘crime’ was to leak a standards board document, ironically clearing him of wrong doing, to the media and thus fall foul of the same standards board who had tried him and found him not guilty in the first place? I take some blame for inquiring into his activities but rarely can an elected councillor have been subject to such enormous scrutiny and come out the other side unblemished. His four month suspension should have seen him return to the leadership immediately afterwards, and in a just world would have done. That it didn’t is regrettable, and he now finds himself railing against the top heavy executive that he, and others, had tried to prevent from happening. In Geoff Harper the council has a competent and decent leader, but Melton should have returned post suspension, and the Tories know it, but decline to respond. Could it be the executive did not fancy having him back? To listen to him rant the other day about some recently advertised posts at Fenland Hall (he noticed four being advertised on one day, total salaries over £150,000 and with, as he fondly says ,‘top up’ pension and NH liabilities a total of some £200,000) you would understand why some would not want him back. Those salaries alone, he said, would enable a 2p cut in council tax!
Outgoing Labour leader Steve Cawthorne believes, oddly, that ‘they’ (and I suppose he means both the executive and the elected councillors) like to keep things much as they are to flatten the expectations of an area with few expectations in the first place. An odd thought, but not without merit.
For you can have all the fancy apparatus of a modern local authority at your disposal, but if there’s something missing at the centre of it, then it’s time questions were answered properly.
Rising Lib Dem Chris Howes is one asking many of those questions. His fearsome tackling of standards board issues ( not simply the Jill Tuck and Peter Skoulding cases recently dealt but others in the pipeline) makes some wonder where the information for his inquiries are coming from. Maybe some within the Conservative Party themselves are finding all is not right and are popping thoughts into his head, or maybe some at Fenland Hall are doing likewise. Certainly Cllr Howes is making waves, on a grand scale, and elected or not in May will be there for sometime doing just that.
There is not, never has been, and hopefully never will be, a conspiracy lurking behind every council agenda. But what there remain are questions of probity and integrity and of handling portfolios that need careful scrutiny and attesting in the public arena.
Amidst all the glitter of recent awards to FDC (and to the staff who helped achieve them I wish nothing but the best) there does remain some pertinent questions about the state of the district.
Inward investment looks woefully inadequate to tackle rising poverty, housing has reached crisis point and the ‘Big Brother’ approach to enforcement of everything from litter to tidying up your back garden grows more sinister with each passing month.
I do love Fenland, I love its people, its traditions, its pubs, its schools (there are some fabulous teachers and great kids) and above all the commonsense you find in everyday conservation.
But there are issues and situations that won’t go away, questions that need answering, and innuendoes that either need confirming or rejecting.
Feel free to contact me to keep the debate going.