Frustrating and a blow for public transparency

Most of the time I thoroughly enjoy my role as a Member of the County Council…. albeit in opposition.

Of course I’d much prefer to have Conservatives in control of Staffordshire County and you’d expect me to say that we’d do a better job than Labour… I genuinely do believe it and that is what causes my frustration.

But, as I said earlier, even in opposition it is normally satisfying having the chance at committee to interrogate politicians and senior officials and quite often taking quite an adversarial approach to things. I do sometimes feel I’d have enjoyed an advocacy role in the legal profession and this, now, is the closest I get to doing that. Not quite the same I know, but great fun anyway.

Full County Council, when all Members (in theory) meet in the County Chamber, happened last Thursday and it is also usually a good day and certainly interesting with every chance of making a speech or two in the rather grand surroundings which lend themselves well to proper oratory.

But Thursday was unexpectedly depressing if I’m honest. Labour have a new County Leader in the form of John Taylor, an ex fireman and ex senior union official. As the opposition, we weren’t really sure what to expect of the change. Labour at the County have had a very rough ride of late…. the care homes closures controversy, a black hole of tens of millions in the future budget, huge problems with the unions (County are the largest employer in Staffordshire…. over 35,000 people) over something called Job Evaluation and a tediously poorly handled attempt at modernising the structure of the County Council have all caused public outrage and been very politically damaging for them. Add to that a virtual demolition of Labour at the recent local elections and one would be forgiven for thinking the County Labour Party would also be on their uppers like local colleagues.

They weren’t, or so it appeared. And worse than that, the previous Leader, Terry Dix, who gave way in that role at that meeting on Thursday, took up his new role as Chairman of the County Council. What does that mean? Well it means he presides over everything that happens in the County Chamber. He is the local government version of the Speaker of the House of Commons. The Chairman’s word is final on everything… he has ultimate power to control debate, who speaks, the order of business… just about everything. And with that comes neutrality. The Chairman is broadly a non Political role treating all County Members equally and fairly and without overt bias no matter which Party they represent. Well, that is the theory!

However, someone forgot to tell Mr Dix that was his role. In fact, at times, we were convinced he had forgotten he was no longer County Leader. To say there was a large dose of bias on his part is a massive understatement. Extraordinarily, even Labour Members appeared to be at first bemused and, as it went on, embarrassed. At one point a senior Labour Member who had in the past held the role of County Chairman intervened with a tongue-in-cheek remark about Chairman’s neutrality.

It might sound all rather light hearted… and at times it was so ridiculous it was amusing. That said, on a serious note, it is very bad for democracy. The full County Meetings are the main opportunity for the opposition to expose what we believe are Labour’s failures, all in the glare of the media, eagerly scribbling away waiting for something mildly scandalous or more likely of some public interest.

A very big part of those efforts centre around the part of the meeting called Leader’s Questions. Exactly as it sounds… an opportunity for any County Member to submit a written question to the Leader or one of his Cabinet Members, each of whom have responsibility for a County Department. The useful and challenging bit of this whole process is (or rather was) the fact that each Member who submits a written Leader’s question can follow up the written answer/reply with a further three off the cuff verbal questions which must be related to the original subject. And that’s where the fun is and also where almost all the real probing goes on.

The capacity of Labour’s Cabinet Members in tackling off the cuff questions varies tremendously. Some (I will mention no names) are hopeless and some are seasoned politicians who can normally avoid giving too much away. The fact is though that this part of the process usually provides some relevant information on issues like care homes or wasted millions which may not have been forthcoming under different circumstances and in a different arena. So, it’s good for openness, good for democracy and likely to be made very public via the watching media. You noticed earlier on I wrote ‘or rather was’. That is because, courtesy of the new County Chairman moving the order of business around (fiddling it in my view), a motion was ‘put’ and won by the controlling Labour administration to reduce the number of verbal supplementary questions to just one and, to add insult to injury, move the Leader’s Questions business to the very end of the day’s business… coincidentally, long after the media have left to do other things.

I’d got five questions in on the day, all of which had the normal half hearted and rather obvious written replies waiting for me on my seat, and none of which were now subject to the real crux of my efforts, three rather more taxing verbal attempts at getting to the real facts. Very irritating and, in my view, all round bad for openness in public affairs.

What it does mean is that we will have to work even harder at making sure more and more is reported to the media and also find ways of doing what Labour appear to want to do… play the Chamber rules and make them work better for us! Overall though, not a good day.

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