Councils selling electoral registers - the truth is not what the Daily Mail would have you believe

Tomorrow's Daily Mail leads with the splash headline:

"Sold for £5 - your personal details"

The story sets out the details of something that has long been the case - that councils are forced to sell copies of the electoral register to anyone who pays the appropriate (low) fee. All of this is covered by the law and local authorities have no say over the sales or the amount charged.

When councils ask for your personal details to compile the electoral register, the form contains a box which you can tick if you do not want your details to appear on the edited version which is made available for sale. Again, this form is prescribed by law and we cannot alter it. The only way to make more information about the consequences of not ticking the box available would be to spend more money on extra awareness campaigns. Whilst I would like more people to be aware of the edited register, I can't see that these information campaigns deserve money as a higher priority than, say, schools or adult care.

My personal view is to agree with Big Brother Watch who compiled this report. I think that the electoral register should be compiled for the management of elections only and not to enable junk mail companies to bombard my letterbox. Even with the 'edited' version and ability to opt out, the use of the register by junk mail companies is a disincentive to register and therefore disenfranchises people.

But the law is that that two versions of the register will be compiled by councils like Cornwall and we have to comply with it. The full register may only be used for limited purposes and every elector has the right to opt out of the edited version that is made available for sale to businesses. It is unfair to put the blame for sales of the register (and the subsequent junk mail that results) on Cornwall Council. We are only following the law in this respect.

So the true version of the Daily Mail front page should read:

"Councils obey the law"

But that's not going to sell many papers, is it?

UPDATE: The WMN is also running the story.

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Budget comments - part 3

I'm back from a week off and thought I would answer some more of the comments posted as part of the council's budget consultation:

Suggestion:
Well, Cornwall Council, you are still charging the poorest in Cornwall 25% Council Tax (Cameron's reintroduction Poll Tax from April this year), and are still taking people to court for non-payment of this by the thousand.
Wouldn't it be much better if you sorted that out for the next buget?
Other councils are refusing to pass this burden on - and you must do the decent thing too.

Response:
I well understand the concern that this change generated. The decision was made by the full council last year. It's a decision I disagreed with at the time and voted against, but I have to respect the decision made by the majority. The council has, however, started a review of the impact of all welfare changes and, if this has created a problem that we can address then we will ask the full council to do so in time for next year. We are not allowed to make changes mid-year.

Suggestion:
how much does the chief exec get paid ffs, if you need us to provide the answers isn't he paid too much ???

Response:
The previous chief executive was on a salary range of £180,000 - £200,000 and was actually paid at the top of that range. When he left and an interim chief exec was appointed, the council asked for and received expert advice that the salary ranges for top officers had fallen in recent years by about 10%. We chose to cut that salary range for the interim by 12% and so the job now pays between £158,000 and £175,000. I would anticipate that, if any of the other directors leave, then we would be looking to cut the salary range for their replacements by a similar proportion.

Suggestion:
I believe in local solutions most definitely. I am 25 and disabled and I want to see people like me able to use the skills that they do have on a voluntry basis throughout our county to contribute to the lives of others, even if it is just in some small way and maybe even for an hour a week doing whatever we can get involved in without being talked out of it by the job center or being treated like a total convict by ATOS. People that are on disability benifits may have a physical or mental incapacity but it does not mean that they are totally absent of any need for human contact, social integration, learning new skills, enjoyment etc... You see people like myself at times can be the Local Solution that you are talking about but instead on a national level their is no encouragement for us disabled folk to be anything other than written off. I am 25 years old, fairly intelligent... before i got ill I was very good at working with young people, I was very good at talking to older people that perhaps had a mental disability like alzheimers and the point is I didnt mind talking to these folks and yet I sit here day in day out being frightened to do anything at all in case i get told that i am fit to work. This isnt the case but for those of us that want to do things like this for maybe an hour a week to just help someone else out, just out of kindness to give carers a break or to help out local charities to improve our own mental health and the skills i mention above- we get the impression that we cant or arent allowed to. So many people in this county go above and beyond and CC isnt utilizing those skills or coordinating it in a way that could actually save the services many people desperately need. I cant believe we are talking about Budget Cuts again because pretty soon their isnt going to be anything left to cut. All of our services for vulnerable people are turning into skeleton services - you are giving just enough money for projects / schemes still to be run but it is the absolute bare minimum to see the staff and services through especially vulnerable people support services and it is absolutely appalling and negligent. We as in a collective we need to start looking after people again and then may be people will be bothered to get behind your "local solutions" idea.

Response:
I agree. We should always be seeking to use the skills and abilities of all Cornwall's residents and never ignoring the input that any individual can make - whatever their circumstances. The cuts being made at the moment (and in the future) are due to the national situation and the cut in grants being given to us. That is why we have said that we cannot simply continue to chip away at every service - eventually reducing them to nothing. We have to review what we do and what we want to look like as a council in four years time. That is the point of our consultation and why I am starting on a 19 meeting tour of Cornwall.

Suggestion:
Cancel the proposed waste incinerator at St. Dennis. It is too expensive, obsolete technology, and would lock Cornwall into it until 2036, and as I understand it the council of the time would be landed with the cost of decommissioning and landscape restoration etc. rather than the waste company SITA.

Response:
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the decision on handling Cornwall's waste, and on the incinerator, the final decision was made by the previous administration. We are in a position now where any alternative would cost us far more than we could possibly save by adopting a different approach. At a time when money is so tight, we simply cannot contemplate this.

There are a couple more suggestions that I am getting answers to and I will post these as and when I have them.

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Calm down Eric. It's only a bin

Is Eric Pickles scared of bins?

I only ask because his latest rant - about the terror of waste receptacles - seems even more bizarre than usual.

He goes so far as to describe having to exist within sight of a bin as making 'lives hell'. Come off it Eric. To be forced to live in an abusive relationship with no hope of escape might be described as a living hell. To be suffering with a painful medical condition with no hope of cure might be described as a living hell. To occasionally catch sight of your neighbours bins is most definitely not.

Mr Pickles wants councils to ensure that every home has somewhere to hide rubbish bins and bags. Most properties do, of course, but that isn't good enough for the local government minister. He wants councils to rip up their existing planning policies and insist that developers take his new phobia into account. I don't know about the cost of the changes to buildings, but the cost of changing a council's planning guidelines runs into many tens of thousands.

Here in Cornwall, we rely on the good sense of our residents over how to store their rubbish. Apart from some residents of the old Penwith, we don't use wheelie bins and are happy to allow people to buy bins, use seagull-proof sacks or just use black bags. We do ask that they don't put their rubbish out until the morning of collection to avoid problems with animals ripping sacks apart. Generally, this system seems to works pretty well without government interference.

Perhaps Mr Pickles should take a holiday instead of seeking to meddle yet again in the lives of hard pressed residents and impose even more burdens on local councils. If he does want a break he would be welcome to bring Mrs Pickles down to Cornwall to see that we don't need telling how to get the basics right.

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Budget Q&A - part 2

I've had a few more suggestions about the budget in response to the short film I made. Here they are and my comments on them:

Suggestion:
Perhaps cut the wages of some of our Cornwall councillors! Perfect start in my opinion. I'm positive that a gross majority of you lot are very over paid for the work you actually do!?

Response:
The proposal for a basic allowance rise made last year was reversed earlier this year (I voted against the rise in the first place and in favour of cutting it back). A new scheme for special responsibility allowances (ie extra money for those who take on bigger roles) was also agreed earlier this year which saw a cut in both the overall amount paid and in the rate paid for specific roles (such as cabinet members).
It's a valid suggestion to make that rates should be cut further, but it depends on the sort of councillor you want. If you are happy with predominantly retired or independently wealthy representatives then that is what you are more likely to get if allowances are cut back. If you want a more representative cross-section of Cornwall's society then you need to have allowances that compensate members for the time they give up when they could be working.
Overall however, cutting allowances could only raise a tiny fraction of the savings that the council needs to make. So even if this does happen, we need far more ideas as well. 

Suggestion:

PMSL "protect the most vulnerable in society" thats the bggest laugh of the century!! Your making their lives a living hell fgs! what are you trying to do? get us all so stressed that it will make us ill and we dye or top ourselves because we can't cope with paying Council Tax, Bedroom Tax and now this Lifeline Service. All your doing is killing us all off so that you don't have to bother with us! Your all like that councillor who said that all disabled children should be killed at birth! Your all the same! Why don't you all take a cut in your wages for starters! and then refuse to have pay rises! I'm sure that will help by at least 90%.

Response:

See above re pay cuts.

We're genuine in our desire to see services for the most vulnerable protected. If you don't want to engage in this debate and simply stand back and hurl abuse then so be it. But if you don't engage then we can't take your viewpoint into account and we do want to hear from everyone.

Suggestion:

How much do you spend on corporate hospitality? Perhaps a few less snouts in the trough might help. Then of course, we have the good old "minimum wage" I bet that would taste real fine. See you in Lidl

Response:

I'm finding out what the council has spent on anything that might be viewed as 'corporate hospitality'. I'm pretty sure that the amount will be negligible - but any spending in this area needs to be unimpeachable. 

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A short film about our budget consultation

I've made a short film about the council's budget consultation events which are taking place next month. These events are open to all and I look forward to seeing as many people as possible.



Contrary to what some have suggested, these meetings are not the only consultation we are holding. As well as the 19 meetings across Cornwall, we are also holding discussions with staff and businesses and with local councils.

And we are going to use new technologies as much as possible with a webcast meeting from county hall, another online Q&A session and a website which sets out the options and lets you choose between them.

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Correcting a mistake over Redruth allotments

Every so often, Cornwall Council makes a mistake and it is good to be able to meet with someone affected, apologise and put that mistake right. That happened today in the case of Redruth allotment holder Bob Mills.

Most allotments are managed by town and parish councils and a few by allotment societies. But Cornwall Council has inherited 13 allotment areas across 6 parishes. These had massively different rents being charged for them and it is unfair on allotment holders to be charged different amounts for the same sized plot.

So we are introducing a standard charge of £50 per standard allotment with proportionately higher or lower charges for big or small plots. In order to cover our administration costs which are the same regardless of plot size, we will have a minimum charge of £25. We have decided not to increase charges all in one go, but to standardise them over a couple of years to ease any increases.

Unfortunately, in the case on Mr Mills and his fellow allotment holders in Redruth, we failed to take account of the small size of their plots. So they were being faced with an increase in charge from £27.50 a year to £50 over two years despite their plots being less than half standard size.

Today I met with Mr Mills and was able to give him the good news that, rather than increase his charge to £50, we were actually going to cut it slightly to £25. I also apologised on behalf of the council for our mistake and the anguish caused by it.

The other action we are going to take is to seek again to pass these allotments (and others we control) onto local towns and parishes. We think they are far better run locally and, if the town or parish is still not interested, then we will consider leasing the plots to a local allotment society if they can run them securely into the future. It would then be up to these local bodies to set the rental charges themselves.

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Penwith's leisure timebomb

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have been involved in lots of meetings to do with the budget for next year. Our task of limiting cuts to frontline services is made all the more difficult by some of the situations that Cornwall Council has inherited from its predecessors.

One such is the PFI leisure contract for Penzance leisure centre. This costs the council £1.2 million per year.

In comparison, the 16 leisure facilities operated by the Tempus Leisure Trust (most of the rest of the leisure centres in Cornwall) together require a subsidy payment of £1.3 million per year and the Carn Brea Leisure Trust operates without any subsidy.

The contracts are slightly different. The Penzance contract is all in and the company takes care of utility bills and general maintenance. The same is true with Carn Brea. In the Tempus case, the council is still responsible for utilities and maintenance. But the stark comparison is still valid.

And the PFI contract signed by Penwith still has another 34 years to run, so there is no chance of a change anytime soon.

Of course, the company running Penzance leisure centre has done nothing wrong and they are perfectly within their rights to hold Cornwall Council to the contract. But being saddled with such a contractual millstone makes it very difficult to cut costs and balance the budget fairly.

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