Posts from — September 2007

The flooding of three months ago may be a fading memory for most of us but I have about 50 constituents who are still unable to return to there homes because they have still not dried out.

The reason I thought of the flooding is because I’ve been sitting here at my desk trawling through ‘papers’ on the County intranet and, although I didn’t find what I wanted, I did find an interesting statement buried deep in a report from January this year.

It seems that County Highways haven’t maintained highway drains for several years and the report actually raises concerns about the problems heavy rain could cause. So, as far as I’m aware this gem of information hasn’t come out yet in any of the investigations around the flooding.

Now, I’ve no idea how much difference, if any, it would have made to the extent of flooding if they were still being maintained but I do intend to ask some specific questions around this. Amazing what you find when you’re not looking!

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Well I’m back from Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH) and it was very different from what I expected before I went.

Now, just to get it out of the way early on, this trip was not what the media would call a ‘jolly’ at tax payers’ expense. Yes, we were very well looked after but the objective of the trip, which was arranged by the OSCE and not paid for by the UK, was to share ideas on how to make different sectors of public services work together better.

You’ll probably assume it was one way ‘traffic’ and that the BiH City Government of Banja Luka would learn a lot from the UK. It wasn’t. The UK and BiH like countries throughout the world share many of the same issues, from a less than impressive participation in democracy (voting) to trying to deliver public services within shrinking budgets.

The fact is, the way they deal with social services, everything from marriage guidance to alcohol abuse and care for the elderly to kids with severe learning disabilities is more integrated than we usually have over here. I’ve brought back some really interesting ideas on how we can do things better and those ideas will be shared with others in the public services sector in this country. Anyway, let’s leave the governmental stuff for now and let me tell you why I called this post ‘A real surprise’.

It’s quite simple… my preconception of ‘Bosnia’ was a place still suffering from the aftermath of war with uncleared mines everywhere all mixed in with a post Communist infrastructure and feel. How wrong I was. Banja Luka is BiH’s second city (the capital is Sarajevo) with a population of 250,000 and is surrounded by the most stunning mountainous countryside and has a wide and beautiful river running through the middle.

One of the first things I learned was that the war of the 1990s did not affect the majority of the country and certainly not Banja Luka. The city which took the brunt was Sarajevo three hours drive away. Banja Luka has a cosmopolitan and very European feel with wide tree lined avenues, impressive buildings and architecture and a great deal of modern development underway.

It clearly has the feel of a big city but somehow has a chilled out very civil nature to it as well. The surrounding area, as I wrote earlier, is very lovely and the temperature for the three days we were there was a pleasant 25 degrees Celsius during the day. A major aspiration of the city is to become the centre of Europe for Extreme Sports enthusiasts. Everything from bungee jumping to white water rafting. The fact that this type of tourism is growing so fast there suggests they are well on the way to their goal. They are also hosting the World Rafting Championships in 2009 which, having seen the venue, will be a real spectacle.

And the people? Fabulous and very healthy. Strange thing to say, but what is striking is the almost total lack of obesity or anything close to it. You just don’t see it… people of all ages and both sexes look incredibly fit and healthy. I’ve no idea how with the amount of food the population eat. The food is excellent but I feel I’ve just eaten non-stop for the past few days and will need to get in the gym pretty quickly to make feel less guilty of eating so much.

Unlike the UK all meal times are social events. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that most meals I have tend to be for the purpose of fuelling the body and not really an event in themselves. In BiH lunch and dinner are full on social occasions. I got the feeling we need to slow down in the UK… I doubt it will happen… sadly I’m certain it won’t.

In summary, Bosnia Herzegovina, and in particular, Banja Luka is a wonderful and exhilarating place to visit. I strongly recommend you put any media driven pre conceived ideas to one side and visit what I believe will be one of the most popular places in Europe to holiday in years to come. I will be returning in a private capacity.

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This really is a ‘real time’ blog post. I write this whilst being driven from Zagreb Airport in Croatia to Banja Luka, Bosnia Herzegovina’s second city. It’s about a three hour drive.

I was up at 5 this morning to catch a flight at 6.50 from Birmingham Airport to Munich and then on to here. Seems I was one of very few… both the aircraft were anything but full.

Haven’t seen much of the country yet but the views from the aircraft window on the way into Zagreb were stunning, so I took a few pictures.

Why am I here? I’m part of a UK delegation visiting different places in BiH to talk to the country’s Local Government about cooperation posibilities with the UK. It’s all been arranged and funded by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). I also plan to try and have some talks around the work of ICELE over the next three days.

More about the trip later and I’ll see if I can fit a couple of posts in while I’m here.

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One of the biggest reactions I’ve had during my short time in politics was to my mini campaign against the proposal by Labour at County to spend millions of pounds on an Arts Space in Stafford.

Putting aside the fact that I still don’t believe people in Tamworth or Burton or Lichfield or Kinver (I could go on) as much as 40 miles away from Stafford would get any tangible benefit from it I still think there are many other problems Labour should be concentrating on. Not least of all their very difficult financial position.

When the Arts Space project was launched in earnest 14 months ago Conservatives spent some considerable time demolishing the business case study that was produced. It was like a colander, full of lots of holes. It was visionary I agree but the vision was leading the business case… they were trying to make it fit circumstances and it doesn’t.

At the time the County was in a financial mess and it was also before the impact on vulnerable people and their families of the care homes debacle. The Arts Space project had actually appeared to have bitten the dust quietly as little of what was planned at the time around it has taken place. I’m still sure that John Taylor, the County Leader in waiting at that time, wasn’t keen on it then and I assumed that was still the case now he’s the big boss.

With that in mind I was very surprised when, in answer to an admittedly mischievous Leader’s Question on my part about the Arts Space, he appeared to be breathing new life into it. What political deals have been done within the Labour Party… I felt it was the pet project of one or two Labour Members then and this new position may well confirm that.

So, at potentially £80 for every household in the county for an Arts Space with a questioable business model is back on the table at a time when things are in financial meltdown and Staffordshire tax payers look set to fund Labour’s £100million pay deal fiasco. A busy time to come I think!

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My role as chairman of ICELE, which stands for the International Centre of Excellence for Local eDemocracy (now you know why we call it ICELE!) over the past year or so has led to me meeting a lot of interesting people who do some pretty fulfilling stuff.

Not least of which was meeting a delegation of Ministers and senior officials in London last weekend from the Kingdom of Lesotho which borders South Africa. A developing nation with an impressive vision, beautiful countryside with highlands and lowlands, limited infrastructure and a population where 41% have HIV Aids.

The United Nations, who are one of ICELE’s partners are helping them with their development plans and we were there with the UN, Council of Europe and UK Government to talk about how eGovernment and eDemocracy can be established in their country.

The statistics of Lesotho show that to be a real challenge. A population of 1.3million with many more people who come from South Africa across the border to work. Very basic, but slowly improving road infrastructure and a population which is spread wide and sparsely and is, in the main, very poor. Although some live in what is a modern looking city, much of the population live in the highlands, which are a staggeringly spectacular mountain range, but very inhospitable too.

The pictures I saw were mesmerising. They are building a growing tourism industry. I was amazed to learn that the temperatures, because of the normal cloudless blue skies, can at some times in the year have a difference between day and night of 40 degrees Celsius. That is some temperature range! Part of the tourism industry is based around skiing, something that doesn’t spring to my mind in Africa but looking at the mountains it’s easy to see why.

Back to why they were in the UK. Lesotho has a very young Local Government system. Developing around Chieftains (traditional local leaders), they are building a democratic system whilst trying to ensure that the mechanism of non democratic governance which has been around for centuries can play a part in the new democratic process.

eGovernment is pretty new to the developed world. It’s only really come into its own over the last five years in the UK. We take for granted internet banking or shopping now but it’s only fairly recently that all UK Government, local and national, has websites and it’s certainly not long that we’ve been able to submit tax assessments on-line and only in the last year or so can we get things like car tax over the internet.

It’s taken a long time to get to where we are and there is an awful long way to go. The work already done around eGovernment in the developed world and the billions of pounds spent means that the mistakes have already been made and from those mistakes great experience and knowledge has been has been gained. So in a strange way the developing world, like Lesotho, probably aren’t as far behind as we may think. They can eventually go straight in with WiFi and other emerging technologies without having spent time and masses of money developing physical infrastructure. Things move so fast nowadays, others have done the learning and development for them.

That said you still need some infrastructure. Less than 10% of the Lesotho population have regular access to telephone, landline or mobile. Surprisingly, nearly 5% have access to the internet although I guess that will be entirely those in the City. It was interesting learning from one of the Ministers how they are frustrated by the big mobile phone companies who promised, when reaching infrastructure supply agreements with the Lesotho Government, far more than they are delivering.

It really is nation building; not quite from scratch, but talking to motivational people like that makes me realise how much we take for granted in our everyday lives. A very interesting time with them and their country looks just beautiful despite their issues. I’d like, at some point, to take up their offer that I should visit them.

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