I often hesitate to pick on another politician based upon a single article in a newspaper, but the Daily Telegraph of 20th November reported on an interview given by Lord Porter of Spalding wherein he stated that whilst he is not happy with the six figure salaries enjoyed by council chief executives there is little that can be done…because that is the way the world is! Gary Porter is Baron Porter of Spalding CBE, a British Conservative politician, local government leader and member of the House of Lords.
He is also a South Holland District Councillor and most importantly Chairman of the Local Government Association. He was created Baron Porter of Spalding, of Spalding in the County of Lincolnshire on 15th October 2015.
In the article he draws the comparison with top footballers with whom he is also “not happy” about their being paid a lot of money. But as a person in a leadership position he does have choices. He can choose not to support a football team if he thinks they are over promising and under delivering. A top footballer is expected to thrill millions across the globe and has a limited performing lifetime. And for many people the purpose of top footballers is to be the recipient of gratuitous abuse whether it is appropriate or otherwise. A top footballer is always at risk of career terminating injury. I have yet to see a Council Executive whose brain was overworked in the performance of their duties.
The real test of a Council Executive’s pay is whether the recipient provides added value. I have known a few Council Executives directly and I have yet to discern added value. For the most part they are administrators who do not provide leadership but manage to convince senior elected officials that they have to pay the most to get the best. But we do not always need the best. I would like a Rolls or a Bentley but I happily settle for a VW.
When Babergh was enjoying its executive leadership challenges I suggested that we could emulate the Roman Empire and split the job between the three (at most) next senior executives. They would have to work together towards common goals. They would not need a fourth person to coordinate their actions and give them direction as if they were teenagers. They would however need political direction.
Equally I suggested that they should advertise the post at £80,000 instead of £100,000+ and see what they got. They might have got ambitious candidates with acceptable capabilities, qualifications, experience and vision. Instead the senior councillors (i.e. the political leadership) outsourced their problems to an Executive Search Consultant and the rest is history. There was no challenge and consequently I feel that they ended up overpaying.
And what of Lord Porter? Where is his challenge and leadership? What happened to the man I once met and admired? Has he succumbed to the Sir Humphreys of the Local Government Association?
The evidence is clear enough. One does not need to be in the Third World in order to go native!
Author: Brian Riley
Benton Street
Recently I attended a meeting organised by Hadleigh Town Council for the residents of Benton Street to discuss the possibilities of alleviating some of the traffic problems. Quite early in the evening it became obvious that the residents rejected the idea of single lane traffic enforced by a build out and wished for more long term solutions. The build out equipment will now be trialled elsewhere to solve similar problems and we can then see if it is effective and possibly suitable for a revisit in the context of a pilot scheme for Benton Street. Suffolk Highways will be looking at other suggested options but initially this will probably be a desk exercise based on anticipated costs, ease of implementation, likely timescales and expected availability of funding. There are no quick fixes. The Beccles by-pass on the A145 has taken twenty five years to get planning permission. The expected building date for the Beccles by-pass is sometime after 2020. Currently Suffolk County Council are investigating the A12 four village bypass in connection with the new Sizewell C power station. Suffolk has allocated ₤450,000 for studies to support the scheme which would enable the Council to advance its understanding of the scheme’s costs, benefits and development constraints and ultimately to put a business case together for Government funding. So at this stage the alternatives to the build out look to be quite expensive.
The funds allocated from my Community Budget for the build out will now be applied elsewhere in Hadleigh. Well done to the Town Council staff for organising the evening.
Good News – St. Mary’s Primary School, Hadleigh
The Ofsted Report on St Mary’s C.E.V.A. Primary School has now been published. I’m pleased to report that the school has improved its rating from Requires Improvement to Good.
So many congratulations to the Governors, the Headmaster and his staff, the pupils and their parents.
Improvements of this nature are a result of hard work and leadership by everyone directly involved in the school and our congratulations are well deserved.
Small Successes – Christmas Lights
I have been very pleased to assist Kieron Ruddy & Mark Snowling in persuading Suffolk County Council to turn a street light off so that they can mount a Christmas Lighting Display in Long Bessels, Hadleigh as a fund raiser for the Brendan Oakes Trust. Kieron and Mark’s community initiative should be applauded and fully supported – better still visit the display and support the Trust
Corks Lane
Last year the Leader of Babergh District Council indicated that the future of Corks Lane would be decided by the post May 2007 administration. As we know, the Conservatives romped home thirty one seats out of forty three thus celebrating being in full control for the first time since 1974.
On 11th May the Leader of the Council was quoted as saying that the new regime would press ahead with a joint review of Babergh’s headquarters in Hadleigh and Mid Suffolk’s in Needham Market.
And then a period of silence ensued until early September when Babergh decided that it would produce:
a plan for our short-term accommodation usage which will be implemented over the next six months that will rationalise the usage of our existing accommodation, build greater integration and co-location of teams across the two sites and develop some “spokes” within our market towns.
an accommodation strategy (and the necessary complementary workforce development strategy) that is cognisant of and flexible enough to reflect emerging local and national policies and public service reforms.
So, where was the driving force? Certainly it doesn’t appear to be in the controlling party. There was no indication of hitting the ground running. After all this deliberation, discussion and decision making, it definitely looks like a case of the mountain belching and bringing forth a mouse.
What’s being overlooked is the potential for saving ₤1,000,000 a year in accommodation costs if Babergh’s and Mid Suffolk’s operations are concentrated in Corks Lane. To ignore such a savings opportunity is disgraceful and not what the residents of Babergh expect and deserve. Are Mid Suffolk resisting the logical conclusion of the full merger which they voted for in 2011?
Or will the devolution of powers into a Suffolk/Norfolk powerhouse result in the District Councils becoming irrelevant and ultimately being disbanded with their powers and responsibilities being absorbed and redistributed elsewhere?
Only time will tell, but I look forward to 2016 when hopefully we will be seeing the plans and strategies and stop asking ourselves what’s taking so long?
What is French for Walkies?
I am indebted to today’s Sunday Times for the linked article Allez Archie 151107 on Archie an Irish canine waif and stray who (only) responds to commands in French.
But, whilst the French have a specific word for dog doo (la crotte) the Collins’ Dictionary does not show an equivalent for “Walkies”.
The article poses more questions than it answers.
Are the staff polishing their Franglais skills by watching ‘Allo ‘Allo?
Is the dog calmed down by watching the antics of René Artois and other inhabitants of Nouvion in Northern France?
We, who have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon, demand answers!
With the onset of Winter, little stories like this brighten the day.
À bientôt!
Brexit
Monday’s Daily Telegraph (2nd November) was full of gems. Roger Bootle’s column contained the best arguments I have seen for the Brexit. On past form the EU will continue to stretch its tentacles wider and deeper into every nook and cranny of national life. Hence the costs of its interference will rise substantially. Meanwhile, over time, the EU budget will surely increase. The logic of moving towards a closer union is that the central budget should outrank national ones.
If most of the EU moves towards full fiscal and political union, it will be very uncomfortable for the UK to be inside the EU but outside that bloc. Finally, the EU itself is likely to fall in relative importance in the world.
But if the rest of the world is continuing to grow in importance, the benefits of membership would be proportionally smaller and the costs yet more unnecessary. It is highly likely that there will be a deal which gives the UK special access to the EU markets. We would have freedom to rescind EU laws and regulations – which are estimated to cost several per cent of GDP. We would keep the UK’s net contribution to the EU which is about ₤9bn a year. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/11968813/Three-reasons-why-Britain-needs-Brexit.html
Elsewhere in the Telegraph we are told that Direct CAP payments to Britain will average ₤2.88bn a year from 2014 to 2020 and that without this subsidy many farmers will go bankrupt. But if leaving the EU saves ₤9bn a year, then we can pay for our own food security and not need to have the monies recycled through Brussels.
Take Care on the Road
Travelers who use the Station Road/Pond Hall Road/Duke Street route from Hadleigh to Hintlesham (& beyond) will be aware that at the junction of Pond Hall Road and Clay Lane there is a set of temporary traffic lights with no apparent connected road work visible.
Despite appearances this small, tricky and windy stretch of road has not been forgotten. Part of the road slipped/was washed out in the late summer.
It does not look much from the road but there is a considerable drop to the adjacent land and ditch which runs under the road via a culvert.
Corrective road repair is tentatively scheduled for the end of this month. A permanent repair is required to ensure that the road failure does not happen again. This will not be a shoddy temporary fix – instead it requires detailed design, thorough calculation and full adherence to the standard health and safety aspects of construction to ensure that the workforce is safe at all times.
Let’s hope that nothing untoward gets in the way of a speedy resolution of the problems.
Education Means Jobs
Everyone has opinions on education and everyone thinks that their opinions represent the best interests of the community. North Carolina like many other areas is looking for the best value for their revenues and the State legislature (Republican) feels that if it restricts funding, then inefficiencies will be squeezed out of the system by virtue of some form of budget Darwinism. Unfortunately (like many other Government Departments in N.C. and the U.K.) the thinking stops there and that’s when the inexorable law of unintended consequences kicks in.
The major inefficiencies in education derive from:
- Bureaucratic hierarchy and control
- Inflexible structures at the chalk face
- Misdirected resources
Turkeys do not vote for Christmas so we should not expect the school administrative systems to voluntary devise ways of making themselves more efficient and more focused on achieving continually improving results. Given the unfettered ability to make choices the educational administrative system will pick the low hanging fruit and cull school crossing wardens, teaching assistants and catering budgets. Thus there is a focus on budgets and not on community outcomes. This is the lesson learned by Suffolk County Council. Following the wake-up call of being one step off the bottom of County Educational Performance tables we introduced the Raising the Bar initiative in 2013. Just a few years later we are 107th out of 151 in the league tables. Although, this is still not where we want to be, we are going forward because at County level we recognize that you can’t have decent paying jobs unless the educational infrastructure is in place.
Strawberry Risotto Anyone?
Last week’s Spectator contains a review of the book High Dive* which is a fictionalized account of the bombing of Brighton’s Grand Hotel in 1984.
Fictionalised because the book contains a reference to the chef whose signature dish of “Strawberry Risotto topped with Parmegiano Stardust would be enough to make anyone go on hunger strike”
*High Dive is by Jonathan Lee and published by Heinemann
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