Cllr David Burbage: How Local Government can help deliver the Big Society agenda

Cllr David Burbage is Leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, one of the four ‘vanguard’ areas chosen to launch the Big Society agenda.

Francis Maude was very clear at the launch of the Big Society in Liverpool on Monday. There is no “top down plan”, there is no “grand scheme” – it’s all about lots of activities, at many levels, to further enhance community capability and of empowerment to residents.

Windsor and Maidenhead have been in the forefront of innovative and progressive government by virtue of our £500 spending transparency disclosure and online energy meters, our incentive based recycling; we already engage residents in how their money is spent through participatory budgeting, and we run an “Adopt a Street” programme for very localised litter picking.

But “turning Government on its head” is a fair challenge indeed. No longer should it be “The Council wants to achieve things for residents” – but “Residents will be able to achieve things with the backing of the Council” and certainly “Residents will be able to achieve things without obstacles being put in the way by the Council”.

As David Cameron succinctly put it, giving real “oomph” to communities.

It may be that it is legislation, regulation or risk aversion that “gets in the way”. Already I have examples of petty bureaucracy we’re imposing on local communities that could be lifted. One organisation has been told they must lock away cleaning materials from young people because of “health and safety” concerns. Result? New lock required, someone must hold a key and manage access . . expense is incurred.

Organisations must fill out innumerable CRB checks which all cost money.

Event organisers must satisfy safety groups of salaried public officials that people won’t be harmed - on top of existing insurance costs.

And we know only too well that as decisions are imposed on councils from above, councils impose their own decisions on local communities, but the public services could and should be delivered - and decided upon - on a far more local basis.

So devolving power – with the funding - to the lowest possible level, will undoubtedly improve services; they can be more responsive and specific to local needs.

It’s not about cuts, but improving the ability of people to get things done in their street, community, parish, town or local authority.

We’re excited to be given the opportunity to make progress.

Windsor and Maidenhead serve notice to leave the Local Government Association

Liam Maxwell is Lead Member for Policy and Performance at the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council.

This morning the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead gave the LGA formal notice that they will leave the organisation. The bizarrely long notice period of a year means that we won't be able to leave right now, but will cease to be a member this time next March.

We have had an interesting time with the LGA in the last year. As a body that counts 30-plus fire authorities as members, the LGA had to act as the arbiter in Windsor's request to keep its fire station open (using the Sustainable Communities Act).

For some time previously Councillors had questioned whether the £40k membership charge has delivered value to the residents of Windsor, Maidenhead and Ascot. Certainly the funding of an organisation which uses taxpayers' money to lobby government and to increase media coverage of positive stories about councils in the press raised eyebrows.

The valuable legal advice it does deliver at times to officers needs to be considered, but the appearance of a list of banned jargon and the considerable effort used to promote that list on the Today programme and elsewhere was more difficult to justify.

So we'll see whether life is better and cheaper without them - certainly our colleagues believe £40,000 could be allocated more effectively - perhaps by giving it back to residents as a small part of another tax cut.

And in further news, Adam Afriyie MP challenged Margaret Hodge to let Windsor have another go at invoking the Sustainable Communities Act to save Windsor Fire Station - something she has now agreed to. Thanks Adam!

Mark Wallace: Windsor and Maidenhead Council has delivered on its promise of transparency - others must now follow suit

Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers' Alliance congratulates Windsor and Maidenhead Council on fulfilling its decision to publish the details of all expenditure over £500.

I wrote here a few weeks ago about the decision of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to become Britain’s first transparent council. I am delighted to report that this week, they implemented that policy – publishing a full list of all expenditure over £500 which can be viewed here.

This is a major development in the relationship between the people and the State, and particularly between taxpayers and their local councils. Transparency is essential to a functional democracy, and it is particularly essential to achieving a low tax, localised democracy, which the TaxPayers’ Alliance would very much like to see.

This gold standard of disclosure has several benefits to taxpayers, to the council and to local democracy in general.

The public clearly benefit by the new power they gain to identify wasteful spending and hold the council to account. If the default position for all public spending was that it would be made public, then large amounts of the absurd, self-indulgent and outright bizarre spending that goes on would never get off the ground, and that which did continue would swiftly be stamped out by public demand. This new gold standard of disclosure also sweeps away the advantage that opacity gives to councillors or officers over taxpayers and voters, too. No longer does one party come to the table armed with all the information on a given issue, while the other is kept in the dark.

Council Tax freeze in Windsor & Maidenhead

Cllr David Burbage, leader of Windsor & Maidenhead Council, on how they are cutting the Council Tax in real terms while finding more money for policing.

With the national economic picture looking bleak - and somewhat scary - here in October 2008, writing some words on shaving a few percentage points off the local Council Tax might seem to some as a rather surreal exercise.

However, for a good number of residents that are on fixed and limited incomes, often elderly, the Council Tax can be the biggest bill that they pay. For those on average incomes the bill is still a hefty charge each month – even at the 1991 rated values, our average dwelling in Windsor & Maidenhead is rather more Band E than it is Band D and tax is therefore some 22% higher than the ‘average’ headline Band D rate that we set in the annual budget.

There is the fundamental Conservative driver that, where money can be left in the pockets of the taxpaying public, it should be. Unlike income tax, Council tax is an ‘after tax’ tax and as such a typical householder in paid employment needs to earn rather more in actual wages to pay the Council Tax because Gordon Brown and friends take a fair chunk before it can be used for anything else.