Raleigh’s News & Observer recently brought us the news that three Republican (GOP) candidates are running for seats on the Wake County Board of Commissioners. The Republicans lost control of the Board last year and in the 2016 Campaign they plan to take a page from the Democrats’ playbook.
One GOP candidate was reported as saying that he had found out that education was an important issue.
No sh*t Sherlock!
In 2013 the GOP at state level budgeted to drain US$ 500 million out of public education in the state whilst moving $90 million from public schools into private schools via a new voucher program.
The evidence of detachment from reality was underlined by the rationalisation that the four ousted Republican commissioners were “collateral damage”.
What planet are these people on? Education is a key means of attracting jobs and providing social mobility. Bringing in efficiency is one thing but if you think that you can skimp on education then you are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land and as a politician you deserve what you get!
For more information please see: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/counties/wake-county/article48443000.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sargeant/north-carolina-education-cuts_b_3785414.html
Local Colour
Meanwhile on Planet Babergh
I sometimes reflect how life in/on Babergh District Council seems how life might be on a distant planet/country where rules and standards as we know them do not apply.
So I was intrigued to read that on Thursday 16th December the Joint Scrutiny Community are to look at Council Grants and External funding and resolve that the following be the subject of further investigation:
(a) To include the external funding offer in the work of the Grants Review Project to maximise opportunities for our Districts through externals funders and opportunities locally, regionally and nationally.
(b) To research the reduction of our Communities Grant spending from 2017 to 2020 and align internal budgets for non-grant allocations.
(c) To pay the Annual Revenue Grants in interim stages to ensure robust monitoring, evaluation and meeting of strategic priorities. (my italics)
My initial thoughts were that this business was ultra vires. Scrutiny is a reactive committee and does not promote policy – that is the purpose of the Strategy Committee. At a stretch you could say that this activity comes under the role and function heading of “undertaking the Council’s responsibilities in relation to financial governance issues”. But it is a stretch and my earlier point stands, Scrutiny does not promote or formulate policy – that is the purpose of the politicians on other committees.
The paper for discussion on Thursday tells us that grants in Babergh total £419,000. We are not told what the criteria are for successful applications, where the money went, who proposes recipients and who approves the applications.
I get concerned when I see that grants will be paid in interim stages. As a former lending banker I am familiar with stage payments in building projects. These are usually predicated upon surveyors’ certificates and let builders (and bankers) access the credit ratings of the principal parties. There is unlikely to be a valid comparability with District Council grants.
I get concerned when I see that the stage payments are to ensure robust monitoring, evaluation and meeting of strategic priorities. How many extra people do we need to employ to robustly monitor and evaluate? Why can’t we be happy with the ability of the recipients to employ the monies properly? If we are that concerned with the probity and abilities of the applicants, then we do not advance the funds. If we really need to copper bottom the proposals then let the local Councillors recommend the grants and monitor their usage.
I get concerned when I see the Tory party of smaller government being lead by the officers into the bogs of greater bureaucracy. The Joint Scrutiny Committee has no business in this matter at present and it begs the question as to who is giving leadership in Babergh District Council. When none of Babergh’s political parties had overall control, decisions were (in theory) directed by the Political Leaders Group. Since there was no overall control, the executive and officers of the Council felt obliged to provide the leadership that was lacking.
Despite the Conservative Party’s successes of May 2015 that position seems to continue.
Hadleigh Market
There are times when you see things that you wish you hadn’t. You dismiss them from your mind and then they come back in the early hours of the morning, when you should be dreaming of nice things.
I was visiting Hadleigh last month and noticed a poster in the Co-op inviting comments and suggestions on the future of Hadleigh Town Market. As a market town we have a long tradition of markets and fairs. Within recent years we have seen the market shrink from two days a week to one (Friday) and recently the key anchor merchandiser (the greengrocer) announced that he was retiring.
I’m all for consultation and accessing the community of knowledge and so I welcomed the outreach initiative. And then I saw what I rank as five of the worst words in the English language ever strung together. There at the bottom of the poster is the strap line “Managed by Babergh District Council”.
The disconnect between the reality and the ability to organise tea parties at Twinings is historical and self evident. Babergh are the Council who insisted on trying to foist a Tesco supermarket on Hadleigh despite the overwhelming evidence that it would be an economic disaster and destroy the High Street and the town. These are the people who have sat on East House leaving it empty since 2006 when it could have continued as a community asset. These are the people who gave us car parking charges in the face of overwhelming evidence that small towns need the support that free car parking gives them to continue their vibrancy and to enable small businesses to compete against supermarkets.
Babergh, for as long as I have known it, thinks of itself as the inheritor of the view that ‘the man in Whitehall knows best’. This socialist statist view came from Baron Jay who in 1937 wrote: “In the case of nutrition and health, just as in the case of education, the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for people than the people know themselves.” Babergh self inherited this arrogance which continues to manifest itself in their actions.
And what of Hadleigh Market. The Town already hosts monthly Farmers’ Markets and there is scope for people to enjoy more artisanal as well as more exotic products (I particularly liked the Nile Perch available from Crystal Waters). However at the risk of being a Cassandra, I can’t see the helping hand of Babergh being a significant plus factor in the Market’s future.
Venus Flytraps
I’m often asked about our lives in North Carolina and it sounds banal to say that we moved here because it is very much like Suffolk but with its own quirks.
It’s the little things that matter and so our curiosity was piqued when we read in the local newspaper (News & Observer) that poaching Venus Flytrap plants has been a felony for nearly two years and that two plant-nappers were recently caught in the act and now have bail bonds set at $1,000,000 (c.£600,000) (a figure usually ascribed to murderers).
The plant is native to the subtropical wetlands of North Carolina. It catches its prey—chiefly insects and arachnids— with a trapping structure formed by the terminal portion of each of the plant’s leaves and is triggered by tiny hairs on their inner surfaces. When an insect or spider crawling along the leaves contacts a hair, the trap closes.
In early November the sheriff’s deputies charged two men with taking 1,025 Venus flytraps from the Orton Plantation along the Cape Fear River. The Plantation covers thousands of acres and is sufficiently wild that would-be thieves could be dropped off along the roadside and slip unseen into the woods. From there, they would dig all day on their knees, concealed by tall grasses.
In the current case, a staff member on the plantation spotted two men with a backpack and no reason to be on the private property. They were reported to a sheriff’s deputy and when the officers approached, the men ran across a grassy field. The officers then drove to the other end of the plantation and waited for the men to emerge. Once they saw the officers waiting, the men turned around and ran back to where they started. This apparently went on for some time like a scene from “O Brother Where Art Thou” until the men, exhausted, turned themselves into custody. The dog unit found the backpack along with a machete, which is frequently used as a flytrap-digging tool. All the recovered flytraps were replanted in Orton’s greenhouse.
It is apparently many a year since men could bumble around in the swamps undetected for long. And these particular woods, are known to contain alligators.
So all in all, it’s something that’s nice to know but definitely something to avoid.
For more please see http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/josh-shaffer/article47063170.html
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?
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.
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