SOS Bus

The Medway SOS bus is an important local resource

Am currently working very closely with fellow Labour Councillor's to identify further funding streams for the SOS bus.

The SOS bus is a well supported scheme that deserves to be safeguarded given its good work in the community.

There are questions about future funding; but with a Big Lottery Grants for inner ward areas of Medway I do feel that the Council could be doing more to safeguard this resource and we are communicating that to senior Council officers.

The bus does have a big impact; it not only aids people in distress but also provides a useful resource for street pastors and other emergency services. The presence of such individuals reduces the likelihood of anti-social behaviour which did blight the highstreet from 1995-2005.

Statement of Clarification

When I was elected as Councillor I stated I would be open to scrutiny so I wanted to highlight the summary of the Code of Conduct standards board investigation on my postings on fraud.

Before I state my clarification statement on the allegation it is interesting to note the Government guidance documentation on the current nature of the Standard Boards across all Local Authorities which I believe is worthy of contribution:

This statement of clarification is in response to the Decision Notice MO/159 following a complaint from Cllr Jarrett.

On Thursday 24th November 2011, a meeting of the Audit Committee of Medway Council was convened.

The councillors in attendance at that meeting were

Cllr Clarke, Mackness, Jarrett, Griffiths, Maple.

Agenda Item 7 of that meeting was on the issue of Fraud Resilience. The minute regarding agenda item 7 is laid out below

This report presents the work carried out by PKF, the Council’s external auditor, in respect of the Authority’s fraud resilience. It also sets out an action plan for strengthening this resilience.

Minutes:

Discussion:

The Chief Finance Officer introduced this report on the outcome of PKF’s assessment of the council’s fraud resilience. The report provided details as to the national context and explained that following the publication of ‘The Resilience to Fraud of the UK Public Sector’ by PKF an assessment of the arrangements in place to address the risk of fraud in Medway had been undertaken. The PKF report resulting from this review was attached at Appendix A to the report.

It was reported that the key findings highlighted the lack of a proactive approach to fraud prevention and detection, a lack of joined up approach to corporate fraud, and no measurement of the level of potential losses.

It was noted that these results placed Medway within the fourth quartile of public sector organisations. An Action Plan for strengthening fraud resilience was also attached at Appendix B to the report.

Members were also given details of the paper “Options Paper for the inclusion of Local Authority Benefit Fraud Investigations Teams in the Single Fraud Investigation Services”. A copy of this, together with the Council’s response, was attached at Appendix C.

Members discussed the assessment and considered the ranking, as Medway’s assessment was based on site visits and interviews whereas the ranking of other public sector bodies was based upon a self assessment. The Action Plan was considered by the Committee to provide clear objectives for moving forwards. Members also considered the importance of fraud detection as part of the category management process under the Better for Less transformation programme, audit responsibilities for school academies and the importance of exploring the introduction of a fraud hotline to increase the number of fraud referrals.

The Committee agreed to adjourn the meeting for 5 minutes at the end of this item.

Decisions:

a) The Audit Committee noted the outcome of the PKF report and approved the Action Plan.

b) The Audit Committee agreed that a further report is submitted to the Committee on progress in March 2012.

c) The Audit Committee agreed that officers explore the introduction of a council-wide anti-fraud hotline.

All references on my blog to Fraud relate to the above meeting and minutes and I am happy to make that clarification

However, to state that on my personal blog that it is the most 'fraudulantly run' authority did require clarification as it suggests or implies that individuals within are engaging in such behaviours knowingly. I have since clarified this position after request.

I do note from the report however that 'key findings highlighted which included the proactive approach to fraud prevention and detection, a lack of joined up approach to corporate fraud, and no measurement of the level of potential losses'

Therefore for the avoidance of doubt all statements on this blog, including the specific statement raised in the complaint, were highlighting the Conservative led council's position being in the bottom 25% of councils for managing fraud detection, fraud prevention and having no measurement for potential loss.

On this particular case: I do not believe however that it was reasonable for significant amounts of tax-payers money to be spent on an issue which was subsequently clarified upon challenge.

The cost to the tax-payer of this investigation I therefore believe to be wholly inappropriate, and I will continue to represent the tax-paying public against poor financial management, as noted from the Fraud report and copious other reports on poor financial management that we have read in the press and beyond.

Whether you support the opposition or not; it is important for robust scrutiny to take place. Though unwelcome to many in positions of authority it is responsible in a democracy to ensure that this occurs.

In Medway, the opposition does take its responsibility seriously, striking a balance between working in the Council chamber, and also trying to engage the public in a way which endorses and encourages political debate. I believe the Medway Political blogosphere, which has a plurality of opinion, should be celebrated and supported for holding authority to account, in engaging the public and highlighting how local government is important for all. It of course has to do so responsibility, which I believe it has done so well in recent years.

On a personal I welcome the public attention and scrutiny on this matter as it has raised this issue of a lack of fraud mitigation up the agenda and I believe highlights how the opposition, under its new media strategy, is and will continue to robustly hold our elected Conservative representatives to account in Medway.

So 50p tax is to go...

Gideon Osborne sneering for the Bullingdon snapper

No gold stars for which class of person the 50p tax cut (on incomes above £150,000) will benefit the most...

Yep; this class above...

Philip Hammond £7.5m - Secretary of State for Defence

Hammond had been expected to take the No2 position at the Treasury until the coalition agreement was struck, but there is little need for him to make personal economies. His stake in property company Castlemead has been estimated to be worth up to £6million in shares and dividends. He also co-owns a £1million house in Westminster and a £400,000 home in Woking, Surrey.

George Osborne £4.6m - Chancellor of the Exchequer

The youngest Chancellor for more than a century holds a £2million stake in his father’s luxury wallpaper company, Osborne & Little, and lives in a £2million family home in London’s Notting Hill. His constituency property in Tatton adds another £600,000

David Cameron £4m - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service

The PM comes from a wealthy background and enjoys substantial property assets of his own: London home has been valued at £2.7million and constituency house at £1million.

Andrew Mitchell £2m - Secretary of State for International Development

Former merchant banker Mitchell retains lucrative interests from his time in the City, including various property shareholdings. He also owns a home in London worth £1.6million.

Oliver Letwin £1.6m - Minister of State, Cabinet Office

Former Rothschild banker Letwin, the Old Etonian son of academics, holds numerous investments from his time in the City. He also owns a £700,000 constituency home in Somerset and an £800,000 home in London.

Average Medway resident earns less then £30,000 a year and unemployment is at a seventeen year high.

Same old Tories; Same old elite

Tobin Tax Revisited?

With the debate over the next week skewing towards the contents of George Osborne's red box - and no that isnt a euphemism - it is worth us looking at a tax which has been bottom-drawed but which could soon come back into prominence.

The election in France looks increasingly like we are about to see a Socialist President who has pledged to introduce a localised version of the Transaction or Tobin tax.

Listening to doom-sayers in the UK you would think this type of idea could kill off our financial services industry, and lead to a 'flight' of capital to other shores. I suspect France will prove otherwise if it is to embark on such a scheme.

I have just finished reading the Merchants of Doubt, authored by Naomi Oreskes - within she highligts how a group of senior lobbyists, scientists and business people, with deep connections in politics and the tobacco industry, ran extremely effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge on the link between tobacco and cancer.

The right excel at such tactics over the left it is argued because they lack a moral core; the same arguments against the Tobin tax, that it will make us noncompetitive, were used to oppose the minimum wage. The right never get it until they are forced too; they lack the progressive urge.

Indeed, it is the same tactics are being used by senior Tories, and their primarily banker-Tory-funding friends, to the proposal for a financial transaction tax (FTT), or Robin Hood tax. It is not the activity of bashing bankers that draws me to this debate, indeed I work within the sector, but the deliberate obfuscation by the sector in telling us of the damage.

Lets just get real: The typical management charge levied by a hedge fund or a private equity fund is “two and 20” — in other words an annual levy on the value of the assets of 2% plus 20% of the gain arising from investment performance.

At the other end of the spectrum it is estimated that the cost of dealing in shares which falls on a pension fund — after all manner of fund manager charges are taken into account — amounts to 0.7%.

Given that these charges exist, and are coincidentally broadly accepted, it is hard to see why the proposed EU transactions tax has stirred up such a nest of derision. Alas the money-lenders squeal loudly.

But given how much financial institutions skim off the funds which flow through the City in the normal everyday course of business, we really have to ask why they think an additional 0.1% going to the taxman would really make such a difference.

If what the City does is of such great economic value, then surely it can absorb an extra hit of 0.1%. If it is not of any economic value, then why are we doing it in the first place?

We really do need to keep a sense of proportion. In economic terms a 0.1% transaction tax is essentially no different from a 0.1% widening of spreads — the difference between the buying price and the selling price of a security. An increase in spreads on that scale would simply put us back in most markets to where spreads were 10 years ago. So why the panic?

Nor are we alone: they have transaction taxes in Hong Kong, in South Korea, in South Africa, in Switzerland and, amusingly, in the United States.

They don’t call it that in Washington but there is a transaction tax levy on all exchange business with the proceeds used to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission. It raises about $1 billion a year. And we also have to ask why it would be so much worse than the transaction tax we already have. Every British share bought in the UK attracts stamp duty. Every sale of domestic property above a fairly low threshold attracts stamp duty. Both equity and property markets have their ups and downs, their busy and their quiet periods but neither seems stunted or dislocated by taxes which are levied at a far higher rate than the EU has in mind

After hearing some of the bankers’ responses, you would be forgiven for thinking that transaction taxes are a peculiar poison, but the economic and market impact of such taxes is no different than any other transaction cost (such as trading commissions; dealer spreads; fees for clearing, settlement, using exchanges; administration costs and the price impact of trading).

It is not a lunatic left argument; and whats more the right know it.

Bulldozers hum over Capstone Valley?

(Copyright: This artistic piece was designed by the one and only Twydall Tory, Mr Alan W Collins Esq)

It seems once in office the truth will out...

It seems very likely that the Government will publish the final National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) with the Chancellor's Budget on 21 March.

Only when we see the final document will we know whether they have listened to the concerns of Medway residents and made good on the Prime Minister's promise that planning is for people, the environment, and economic growth. Only then will we know if Capstone is safe or whether the Tories are tacitly allowing development by the back-door.

Keeping up momentum, just yesterday the National Trust added their voice to a letter to the Times from like-minded organisations calling for a balanced approach to planning to help towards sustainable economic prosperity while encouraging urban renewal and protecting the countryside.

There is a growing voice of chorus on the left standing up against Tory MPs including several locally who are simply not being heard in the corridors of power; the case of the Estuary Airport consultation last year shows the ineffectiveness of our representatives to fight a case pre-consultation.

In the words of great grand-ma Joan Goddard those who plan to bulldoze can 'naff-off' including Conservative Party representatives in London. You tell the blue-rinsers girl.

Policy process

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has had since mid October to consider 14,000 responses to its consultation on the draft NPPF.

Since then, the final document will have been circulated among Government departments before full Cabinet approval is secured. We have heard nothing.

Medway residents will not accept a watered down planning regime which will give a green light for development on Capstone Valley and other green lungs across our area. The reputation of three MPs and their ability to lobby is at stake.

Newsnight's Allegra Stratton, however, took a much more incendiary tone in her revelations about changes made to the NPPF by HM Treasury.

Here’s the Telegraph’s considered take on what the NPPF will look like.

Please keep your voices up

We'll see the final NPPF any time soon. Labour will be keeping up the pressure on our MPs and will be working closely with residents, 'Friends of' groups and other environmental groups to ensure that Tory MPs cant get away with allowing the bulldozers through the back-door of lax planning

Open wide Dave

Nom nom... love the hot dog...

Not Thatcher the milk snatcher?

Another hot dog...

When at the sea-side... wear a microphone.

And Obama thought our Dave was a light weight... not anymore...

It's all over

And no; we cant call ourselves what we like...

That's it folks. We didnt win City Status.

The sponsored stationary and dust carts can now be pulped and wheeled back into the litter closets and us 'twits' can remove the logo; and we can continue along our merry way as five major towns and associated villages.

Whilst it is beholden on me to congratulate the winners they are I might add a very odd selection indeed.

St Asaph in North Wales has a population of about 4,000 - about half the size of Hoo Peninsula and smaller than Chatham Central ward. Look below to find out more. Chelmsford is an interesting choice but I cant recall any major campaign effort for the new city; as it was most pundits had put them way down the list. Perth had put in a worthy bid and was expected to do well.

Not the winning bid vid...

Im not bitter at all. And on a serious note; we did deserve to win - a lot of people worked very hard and put together a very very strong pitch.

So why did we, including all the bookies, get it all wrong? I do not know; its all a bit odd. This process is even more secretive then the Medway Tunnel purchase...

Still if St Asaph can win it with only 4,000 it does raise the question; could Rochester return for a bid. After all Perth lost there own city status apparently too... only to win it back

I understand from sources the Medway Lib Dems are sipping the bubbly this evening; not only did Cleggers do well at PMQs today but they have something to celebrate today, with the culmination of their superb campaign efforts.

Ooo a hay ball...