Labour-run York City Council's contempt for residents

Cllr Chris Steward a Conservative member of York City Council on the record of the Labour administrtion that pledged to "make consultation genuine"

It was a simple promise when in its 2011 Local Election manifesto Labour in York said they ‘will make consultation genuine’, however predictably it is one they have not lived up to. In fact ‘not lived up to’ is one greatest understatements since Liam Bryne said there was ‘no money left’, the Labour councillors running York have taken ignoring residents’ wishes to new levels.

The latest low has seen Labour councillor Lynn Jeffries resign from the party, in part due to anger at their spending choices, but mainly due to the way that decisions are made by the leader Cllr James Alexander and his deputy Cllr Tracey Simpson-Laing with no opportunities to discuss issues amongst Labour members……and certainly not amongst residents!

One such example was the decision to cut care of moderate need adults, where the decision was in reality taken by Alexander and Simpson-Laing long before the supposed consultation. In that public ‘consultation’, even the council’s own report admitted 200 people had the wrong survey, some questions were impossible to answer and the key question alleging residents supported the cut was terribly worded to imply not cutting care to those with moderate needs would necessitate cuts to
those with higher care needs.

What is scrutiny for?

"All right, shall we agree to note the contents in the report?" Setting up Scrutiny Committees is a statutory requirement as is that they should look at reports on particular subjects. Usually the process is absurdly expensive with several full time "scrutiny co-cordinators" being employed to organise the meetings - not to mention the time taken up by other Council Officers in writing long reports that say as little as possible. Often the problem is not that the subjects on the agenda are unimportant but that rather they are so vast it is difficult to know where to begin: "Our main item this evening is scrutinising the Council's £500 million budget..."

A tight grip should be kept on the costs of the scrutiny process and the time spent on box ticking items kept to a minimum. But I am not among the cynics who regard the whole thing as inevitably worthless. London Councils have produced a collection of success stories. That is the right approach looking at substance rather than process.

In Ealing a scrutiny committee held "focus groups" with Year 11 school pupils as part of their work on the type of apprenticeships being offered,

In Enfield, the Health Scrutiny Panel, which has power to summon senior Primary Care Trust representatives, investigated a scandal that the NHS had refused to employ a specialist nurse for Parkinson's sufferers - even though the local branch of the Parkinson's Disease Society had raised £27,000 to pay for it. The nurse is now employed.