Leadership Kingston-Upon-Thames Leader Liz Green
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TransformativeSPECIAL government FEATURE December 2013 For Councillors from the LGiU LEADERSHIP Kingston-upon-Thames leader Liz Green Interview Transformative Award winner Roberta government Clare Feeney Blackman- Johnson Manchester’s Woods trams nside page 12 page 21 page 28 I www.lgiu.org.uk Contents Yes don’t know Denitely Good. Maybe I disagree I think I think so Yes, I agree it’s true, yes! with that. Yes! No thanks True LocalAbsol Governmentutely! Great! Information Unit OK Third Floor, 251 Pentonville Road, Islington, London N1 9NG 020 7554 2800 [email protected] 8 Editor Alan Pickstock Deputy Editor Jane Sankarayya 20 31 Design Whatever Design Ltd 3 First words 9 Ten things you 16 LGiU 26 Social Policy Jonathan Carr-West looks to need to know... The LGiU celebrates Kent’s troubled families the future 30 years serving councillors programme …about corporate parenting 4 Chris Game’s 10 Finance Special feature 27 Food banks local government When success means Budgeting for prevention on transformative marginalia government failure 11 Social care 17 Dave Burbage says dare to 28 Environment Reality Check – Zero hours contracts deliver be different Dave Wilcox poorer care C’llr award winner Clare 19 Do elected Mayors make a Feeney Johnson difference? 5 LGiU Update 12 The c’llr 20 Transformed cities: 29 Housing The LGiU’s recent activity transformed economies interview The importance of tenant Shadow town centre 21 Trams lead Manchester’s engagement minister Roberta revival 6 Wheeler’s World Blackman-Woods Heather Wheeler’s notebook 22 Bucks – a commercial 31 Another view council Alan Waters argues for 14 Environment greater equality 7 Media Watch Brent’s winning green 23 Sir Merrick Cockell on David Brindle – dog poo hits civic centre rewiring public services the headlines 24 The changing face 32 Postcard from 15 Leadership of case work San Francisco 8 Public Services Kingston-upon-Thames’ Chris Mead on his city’s People still rate local Liz Green parking problems government 2 www.lgiu.org.uk First words This December marks an important milestone for LGiU, writes Jonathan Carr-West. We are thirty years old. That’s thirty years of supporting councils and councillors, thirty years of encouraging innovation and excellence and thirty years of making the case for greater localism and stronger local democracy. Here’s to the next 30 years e’re tremendously grateful to elected members in all Wour LGiU affiliate authorities who have supported us over the years, both those who have participated formally through our management assembly or executive board and all those who have worked with us, argued with us and participated in our work in a myriad of ways. LGiU is owned by and driven by its members and that gives us a grounding and a depth of experi- ence to draw on that few other organisations can emulate. I’d also like to pay tribute to the LGiU staff team, past and present who have worked so hard; often way above and beyond the call of duty to make the organisation so successful. local economies; how to care for an in broad terms about the future, We’ve also been working with But while we may permit ageing population; how to provide we also need to look through the the London Borough of Camden to ourselves a moment’s self-congrat- young people with the skills they other end of the telescope and ask help them map their preventative ulatory backwards glance, we’re need and decent homes to live in; ourselves what these ideas might spend and the impact it has. much more concerned with shaping how to build resilient supportive mean in practice and how they In January we’ll be publishing the future than with celebrating the communities and many, many should influence the ways in which research with CAMRA on how past. To that end we’re marking our more, we will need local govern- councils work now. local authorities can encourage birthday by asking thirty leading ment to play a crucial role. So rather than resting on our and support community pubs. thinkers and practitioners to tell us These challenges are too birthday laurels, we’ve been And we’re building towards our how the council of thirty years time complex and too particular to be working hard to do just that. Personal Debt Summit, a major might look different to local govern- solved by broad-brush national We recently published new national conference on how local ment as we know it now. We’ve solutions. We will need local research with the Mears Group, authorities can improve people’s been showcasing the results on our government to think and act inno- Strong Foundations: Building capacity to mange their finances website for the last month and will vatively, to harness the creativity better dialogue between tenants more effectively. be releasing the whole collection and civic energy of local communi- and landlords which found that In all of these instances we’re as publication this week. Extracts ties and to generate new forms while spend on tenant engagement highlighting how councils are from three of our eminent contribu- of partnership across the public, has increased in the last financial thinking and acting differently; tors, including our first Chair, can private and voluntary sectors. year, residents are likely to need how they are reconfiguring be found on page 16. As regular readers of c’llr additional advice and support public services and engaging While predicting the future will know we call this Connected services in future. Purely transac- with communities; how they inevitably offers hostages to Localism: connected across tional relationships between tenants are reconceptualising the very fortune, we are confident that if services, across places and across and landlords will not suffice to nature of a local authority; we are to address some of the the public realm. provide this support. Relationships – how they are building the future profound and complex challenges But while it is useful to think not transactions – are the key. right now. we face as a society: how to reset www.lgiu.org.uk 3 Reality check Chris Game’s Dave Wilcox is chair of the LGiU Local Government Reply in kind When I was a kid I remember being arginalia called “specky-four-eyes.” It wasn’t a term of endearment. Fugit eum inum, nus dolupic tatate But in retrospect, I realise it helped sinus et utassum vellorum faces me develop the rhino hide that has eaquibusam dolorum qui a dolo shielded the sensitive parts of my molectatem quis prorest ionsequam Fugit eum inum, nus Piet venimilis asped invel iur, ullo veruntia porpore anatomy and psyche for the last quid moluptat ped es thirty years. dolupic tatate sinus et adi volor adia dolendi Hurtful comments are utassum vellorum faces tintece assum vellorum faces unfortunately part and parcel of a eaquibusam dolorum qui eaquibusam dolorum qui a councillor’s life. a dolo molectatem quis dolo molectatem quis pr I’m generally of the view that in prorest ionsequam assum vellorum faces the council chamber you only lock invel iur, ullo veruntia eaquibusam dolorum qui a horns and trade the odd exchange dolo molectatem quis pr with beasts who dish it out, based on the principle of a “fair fight.” As Chair of the County Council nowadays I have to admit that I miss oday’s themes are treating, fluting local pubs, openly buying rounds of drinks participating in the cut, thrust and and dagging. For me, treats for allcomers. Guilty of both corruption and theatre of the formal meeting. forever recall my immediately living in the wrong century. By way of compensation, I find Tpost-war childhood: extra pocket Sixty years earlier, he’d have been perverse enjoyment in responding money, chips in newspaper, Southend fine, if considerably poorer. Typical cost of to emails spattered with insults and illuminations, ice creams, and, yes, cream winning a mid-19th Century election was derogatory observations. cakes for Sunday tea. around £3,000. In today’s money, that’s I simply seek to give deserving Treats are exciting; maybe slightly £220,000 using the retail price index, and recipients a coronary spasm. ‘naughty’, but hardly corrupting, surely? ten times that using average earnings – of “Thank you for your recent email Or so Labour by-election candidate, Sue which a third might go to innkeepers and and particularly your carefully Shinnick, probably assumed, as she treated perhaps another fifth to euphemistically considered remarks.” some sheltered housing residents in her termed ‘outvoters’. “My parents didn’t share with ward in Thurrock, Essex, to tea and cakes But enough of that. 21st Century me some of the details which you (cream or otherwise is still sub judice). public life and government are about not have clearly accessed to reach You possibly saw the story, but unfor- spending money, with no more zealous your judgement.” tunately, with most media lacking this champions than The TaxPayers’ Alliance. “It’s always a pleasure to hear from publication’s cerebral news values, reports I’ve space for only one of their latest ‘201 you. You may wish to write again.” focused more on the cakes than the stakes Ways to Save Money in Local Government’, They rarely do. – which were high. but it’s a classic. No. 70 – “Where appro- On the odd occasion a further Thurrock Council was hung: if the priate, use cattle and sheep to graze on response can potentially raise Conservative candidate won, Labour lost council land rather than spending money some more blood pressure. its overall control. He didn’t, managing on grass cutting”.