Gagging attempt by Labour City Council IT department? Or just a mistake?

I received a slide pack today to read thorough about the Council's ICT policy. All councillors (members of Oxford City Council) are asked to sign it to say they will comply with it. I'm afraid I'm not happy about it at all.

Most of it is all good common-sense and common-decency stuff but there are two bits that worry me as a member of the council rather than an employee.  The first is about privacy:

I am not at all sure I want council staff to be able to examine data that is confidential to  political parties or worse, about constituents. Elected members work for our constituents, not the Council!

The other concern is about the blogging policy.  I am of course  more than happy not to divulge confidential information but this blog already has links to the council website and criticism of some council policies and decisions.  As a representative of the people of Carfax Ward I feel it is entirely appropriate that I should be able to express those views in a public blog.

Us councillors are here to work for and represent you, our constituents.  Our job is to represent you to the council as an organisation.  It is NOT to represent the council to you!

I have made my concerns known to the Head of IT and will update this post if and when I get a reply.

The launch of the Blavatnik School of Government

I attended the launch of the Blavatnik School of Government today at the Examination Schools on the High Street in Oxford.  It was a very grand affair and one of those cross-hat things where I am attending as a Councillor even though I'm also a member of The University of Oxford.

We had inspiring speeches by the Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes, the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Andy Hamilton, Leonard Blavatnik himself and Dr Ngaire Woods.  We also had a pre-recorded video message from Bill Clinton.  Lord Patten commented that the lighting in the room made it look rather like a nightclub and I have to say I agreed!

Proceedings then moved to the formal signing of the agreement to open to school and for Mr Blavatnik to give a record-breaking £75M towards the establishment of the school.   This was followed by a reception which was an excellent chance to meet many foreign dignitaries and diplomats and many interesting academics. I also met and spoke to Oxford West and Abingdon's new MP for the first time.

I really appreciate the opportunity to attend these events as a councillor.  Next week I'm going to listen to concerns and issues at the wet (i.e. alcohol allowed) room of O'Hanlon House, an excellent project used by many of Oxford's homeless folk.  Oxford is an amazing City of contrasts and I find experiencing them first-hand very humbling.

Full Council: Core Strategy and New Executive Board Member

We had a full council meeting at 4pm today.  It was primarily to discuss the council's response to the Core Strategy.  The leading group had tried to get our leader to jointly sign a letter with the leader but our group was of the view that this is far too important an issue to sign off behind closed doors so we asked for a full council meeting.  The main areas of contention were the numbers of new houses in the strategy, whether the Northern Gateway should be included and whether the employment land allocation needs reviewing, in the light of how much land earmarked for employment use has been fallow for such a long time.

The amendments to the response proposed by our group were:

Delete "8,000 new homes" in line 2 and substitute with "9,000 new homes" to read:

(1) Endorse the housing figure in the Core Strategy of at least 9,000 new homes between 2006 and 2026 and confirm that this level of growth is considered appropriate in the absence of the target from the South East Plan

After point (1) insert the following paragraph:

Council urges the Leader and the two Members of Parliament for Oxford to campaign immediately for a recognition that the housing needs of Oxford City over the plan period cannot be met solely by building within the city; and that a mechanism to meet economic, social and environmental needs of the economic unit of which Oxfordshire and the neighbouring Local Planning Authorities (unitaries and District Councils) should be formed as a Local Economic Partnership.

and

After point (1) [and amendment 2] insert the following paragraph:

Council calls for a new employment land study to be undertaken before any targets for quantity and diversity of jobs are enshrined in the Core Strategy
The Labour group outvoted all these amendments and I must say I have never seen them quite so tetchy.   I felt that the meeting was essential so that the Council's response could be debated and voted on in public but unfortunately some administration members had said they thought it was "silly politics.  The building and development plan for the next 20 years in Oxford doesn't seem like that to me!

Healing in Carfax?

I was in town today doing chores and was slightly alarmed to find a group of Christians performing healing on Cornmarket Street.

This work is a partnership between Oxford Vineyard Church, St Aldates Church, Living Stones Community Church and Emmanuel Church.  It happens in Oxford City Centre every Saturday from 1pm to 3pm according to the flyer.

Now don't get me wrong, I am a committed Christian and entirely approve of taking faith out onto the streets (I am after all about to start serving as a street pastor) but I just feel slightly uncomfortable with the claims the flyer is implying about the healing.  While I'm sure faith can cure serious diseases in some cases I can't help thinking that this sort of open air practice, with a huge banner, rather belittles and trivialises all the medical research and treatments that there are into such terrible diseases.  What do you think?  Comments welcome on this post.

RIP Temple Cowley Pools

After about an hour of propaganda from the consultants and the council officers the City Executive Board (CEB) unanimously decided to close Temple Cowley Pools and sell off the site.  This is a sad day for Oxford and I feel hugely sorry for the Save Temple Cowley Pools group, particularly Nigel and Jane, who have worked so hard and with such sincerity to try to save the pools.  I was particularly disgusted at the way at least one member of CEB sat and scowled at those making such well-considered and serious points.  I also didn't think it was very polite of the member who arrived late to clomp through the room in extremely loud shoes not once but three times while a member of the public was trying to address CEB.

I also note here that Cllr Malik, councillor for Cowley Marsh,gave apologies and was absent from the meeting.  What a shame there was nobody at the meeting to represent those who have Temple Cowley Pools at the heart of their ward.

The only good thing is that Stephen Brown (leader of our group) immediately called in the decision to the Value and Performance Scrutiny Committee of which he is chair. I don't think it will change anything but it will at least give the CEB members some time to reflect on the gravity of their decision and the disastrous impact it will have on Temple Cowley and the surrounding area's residents.

Lib Dem Group Meeting

Another group meeting tonight with lots on the agenda.  We discussed the outcomes from a recent Group away day and our response to the Core Strategy that will direct planning and development control until 2026.

As usual we worked through the paper's for next week's City Executive Board.  That promises to be a busy and controversial meeting as it will consider the future of Temple Cowley Pools.

I am really enjoying getting to know the new LibDem councillors since I was last on the Council in group meetings and I'm pleased to see good consensus building in the group on most issues and the very definite support for and confidence in our leader, Stephen Brown.

Back from Hols and a Temple Cowley Pools Meeting

Well I'm back and refreshed after a lovely three weeks' camping in France where the weather was fantastic.  My first council meeting was another public "consultation" about Temple Cowley Pools.  It was held in the Town Hall on 17 August and ran from about 7pm to 9.30pm.  There was a big panel of presenters including City Council officers and folk from MACE, the consultants the City is using to advise it about pool provision in the City.  I reckon around 100 members of the public attended.

Cllr John Tanner chaired the meeting which started with 30 minutes of so of presentation from Richard Smith of MACE and several others.  MACE did seem to spend a long time trying to convince the audience why they were the best for the job.

I put "consultation" in quotes because it is abundantly clear that the council officers have already decided what they will recommend to executive board (CEB) that makes the decision on 1st September.  One of the executive directors, Tim Sadler, even said as much! The chair said that the 1st Sept CEB would be a "public meeting".  That will be interesting.

Here is the financial "argument" the consultants were trying to put.

After the presentations many questions were asked and raised and it was quite a useful information gathering evening, even if it felt like the answer had already been decided.  A big flaw I think in the argument is that I believe the number of people living in close proximity to Temple Cowley Pools has been vastly understated.  I asked MACE to check the figure.  It also omits all the people who work near it on Cowley Business Park.

We had several excellent speeches and I was particularly impressed by the work Jane Alexander had done to work up a plan that would cost about £3million.  MACE did at least agree to discuss that with her but I doubt it will happen before 1st September. Here's Jane's proposal.



The comments from the Cowley Marsh councillors was interesting. One of them just wanted everyone to know how good he had been to arrange the consultation meeting and the other one suggested a vote of all present about whether they wanted Temple Cowley Pools to be closed and replaced with a new facility at Blackbird Leys.  The chair did that vote by show of hands at the end of the meeting and the result was about 5 in favour and almost everyone else there against.    An overwhelming disagreement with what the City Council officers were recommending.

You can read much more about this at http://www.savetemplecowleypools.webs.com/

and join the Facebook Group.

Labour may have a majority administration at the moment but if they close Temple Cowley Pools I can't see that lasting.  There was talk of it not happening for another two years so I have a nasty feeling they'll wait until just after the next local elections in 2012 to do it. We'll see.

Luther Street Neighbours Meeting

A fascinating meeting today that showed all the signs of being extremely useful. It had people from Oxford Homeless Pathways who run O'Hanlon House, PC Paul Phillips from Thames Valley Police, The Practice Manager and a Senior Receptionist from the Luther Street Medical Centre, a housing officer from A2Dominion, that runs Luther Court, me and a county councillor for the area.

Lots of  useful links were made and I felt there was much good will and willingness towards partnership working.  I'm glad to have attended and made the links.  I'm also extremely impressed with the breadth of services that Oxford Homeless Pathways provides for the people of Oxford.

Compulsory planning training

Today we had a 90 minute session about planning and how the law and all the various guidance works and importantly, what are and are not material considerations in making planning decisions.

We looked at a real case and how it had first been refused by officers and that decision upheld at an appeal but then on a second application with changes a new appeal was allowed by a planning inspector.

Councillors are in a difficult position because on the one hand we want to represent our constituents and decide according to their wishes but on the other hand we must abide by planning law because if we don't we can lose appeals and planning inspectors can award costs against us if they think we've refused something unreasonably - and that of course is a waste of public money.  Colin Cook put it nicely saying that it is the quality (i.e. is it a material consideration) of opposition rather than the quantity (300 people just not liking something) of opposition that matters in taking planning decisions.  It is for this reason that the planning training is compulsory as it's important that councillors get these decisions made as well as possible.

Central, South and West area committee

We met at the town hall this evening.  It was a long meeting, appropriately enough held in the Long Room.

There were lots of members of the public present and we heard about many issues. Some residents who live on Stable Close near the railway line and sidings and staff car park were being disturbed by train diesel engines being left idling for hours (something to do with the braking system) and by shunting and very antisocial small hours of the morning.  We also heard from a resident on Hamel Walk who was having trouble with an access route to his area that some developers were blocking off at times.  It sounded like the City Council had failed to put a proper enforceable legal agreement in place to ensure right of access was preserved for occupiers of the social housing on Hamel Walk.

We considered several planning applications - the most interesting was the one by Oxford University which would make internal changes to the Radcliffe Camera and the Old Bodleian.  It would open up some of the underground store for public access and would alter the level of the (1970s) paving in the schools quadrangle of the old Bodleian to improve level access to the building and remove the need for the unsightly temporary ramps.  I had to declare a personal interest in this application as I am a senior member of The University of Oxford.  As these are very well known buildings I don't consider that I have any more or less interest in the success or failure of the planning application than any other member of the public so I did remove myself from the meeting and did vote.  I did make the point that if lots of heavy vehicles were to be using the junction of Parks Road, Broad Street, Holywell Street and Catte Street then EXTREME care must be taken and enforced to ensure no nasty accidents with any of the hundreds of cyclists a day that use that junction.  There was a nasty and fatal accident at that junction not long ago and I don't want a repeat.

Full Council

Well this is always a bit of a theatrical experience.  Lots of political gesturing and lots of people who are normally perfectly polite being a little less than civil. We started with announcements and the one I want to mention is the forthcoming retirement of Jude Skipp, the members' support officer and Lord Mayor's secretary.  Jude is a wonderful woman and the council will be a poorer place without her.   She started work for the City Council in 1971 - the year I was born!

We then heard some excellent addresses by members of the public about Temple Cowley Pools.  Nigel Gibson and Jane Alexander spoke especially well.  I was amazed to hear that 120 people had turned up to the public meeting at Temple Cowley Pools to ask for it to be saved but only about 12 turned up at the meeting in Blackbird Leys where a new pool was being proposed.

We moved on to questions from the public and 24 had been notified. Quite a few people didn't turn up to ask their questions which I think is a shame as councillors had put time into preparing answers and the large number of questions were part of the reason the briefing note was 49 pages long!

Next up was City Executive Board recommendations.  The interesting one was the new governance arrangements forced on local authorities by the previous Labour Government. We had to choose between having an elected mayor and having a "strong leader". We chose the latter and that means the leader of the council has lots of power and can essentially hand-pick her or his cabinet.  The proposal for an elected Mayor was not supported as Oxford City had voted fairly convincingly against it in a referendum in 2002.

We broke for tea then and returned after 40 minutes for members' questions on notice. There were another 24 of these and they were used to quiz the administration further about Temple Cowley Pools.  The IWCA councillor was particularly nasty to Antonia Bance and it felt like he accused her of racism and homophobia, which knowing Antonia as I do, are both ridiculous.  I may disagree with her politics but she is most certainly not a racist or a homophobe.  The questions I liked most was the one from Graham Jones to the leader about how much the "Your Oxford" council publication costs to distribute and circulate.  I know that many of us see it as an administration propaganda device rather than being useful at actually getting to the most excluded people in our City.

The longest item in Council was the motions.  The Greens in particular seem to have had their creative hats on overdrive this time.  Of course with a majority administration the motions rarely change anything but they do enable open discussion of important items.  The notable motions were the one to recommend to the remuneration panel that councillor allowances be frozen for the next couple of years; a rather nasty motion about senior officers' salaries (rather embarrassing as they were all there for the discussion) and an important motion from Jean Fooks about biodiversity and applauding the work of the Oxfordshire Nature Conservation Forum.

Sadly I think the Greens won the bad behaviour award this time.  The leader of the Green group trampled all over the allowed 3 minutes for speeches and had to be reprimanded by the Lord Mayor.  Another Green councillor had a rather unfortunate outburst about Green attitudes to students that had to be stopped by the Lord Mayor standing to silence her.

We finished around 10pm - a long evening after a full day at work.

A new report on Temple Cowley Pools

It looks like the council officers may be having a rethink.  This was published yesterday by the Council's press office:

Temple Cowley Report

A report into the future of Temple Cowley Pools has been delayed after a draft report on the feasibility study raised a number of cost and affordability questions regarding the options. 

These are being pursued with Mace, the lead consultant, however, at present the report is incomplete and not ready to be published.

In the context of the challenging financial circumstances that we find ourselves in it is vital that cost and affordability issues are clear.  Only then can officers properly advise councillors on the affordability and risks of the options and place this in the overall context of the Council’s capital programme and budget.

The report was due to be discussed at Value and Performance Scrutiny yesterday (Wednesday). It was also due to be discussed at City Executive Board on 12 July.

There will be an opportunity for the scrutiny committee to consider the feasibility study and report to the City Executive Board prior to its meeting.

Tim Sadler, Executive Director, City Services, says: “We are disappointed that there has to be a delay but the financial circumstances are changing so rapidly that officers have to reassess the position carefully before advising councillors on this major strategic decision. We will also publish the feasibility study as soon as it is ready.”

Another group meeting

We met at 6pm today to discuss how we would approach everything on the agenda for Full Council on 12th July.  It's important that political groups do this so we can agree our line on the important issues at Council so that our constituents and the press get a clear and consistent message from our party.

We had a bit of discussion about how to handle the fact that our party is now part of the government.  We reminded ourselves that there has not been a Lib Dem-Tory merger and that it is OK not to agree with everything the Government says or decides.

Licencing hearing: My first premises licence review

I was part of a licensing hearing today where the Police had asked the City Council to review and revoke the premises licence for R&H News on St. Clement's as it had failed three test purchases of alcohol to under 18s, carried out by Thames Valley Police.  The Police only do test purchases where there is local intelligence that there is an underage sales problem in a premises.  The test purchasers are not allowed to lie or use fake ID in the premises either.



The hearing was delayed by an hour because the licence holder's barrister was held up in a difficult case at the Magistrates' court.  After hearing the evidence both from the Police and the licence holder it became apparent to the panel that the problems were caused by the designated premises supervisor (who has to be trained and have a personal licence to sell alcohol) allowing inexperienced casual staff to sell alcohol. These people appeared not to be following proper procedures or checks before making sales.

The panel (me, Mary Clarkson and Rae Humberstone) decided that the public interest would be best served by making sure that only properly trained and qualified people were allowed to sell alcohol in this premises, which is in a sensitive area with an established problem of under-age and street drinking.   We did this by imposing a condition that only personal licence holders would be allowed to sell alcohol at R&H news and various other things such as maintaining a refusals book, having a policy of challenging anyone who looks under 25, and specifying documents that can be used as age proof.

We had to balance the desire not to put local people out of business with the need to protect minors from harm by ensuring that they cannot buy alcohol.  I believe our decision achieved that.

The licence holder has 21 days to appeal the decision and if he does not do so before then our decision becomes a binding part of his premises licence.  If he does appeal then he can carry on operating as he is now, until the outcome of the appeal (which would be to Oxford Magistrates) is known.   If the shop fails another test purchase or breaks any of the new licence conditions after they come into force then Thames Valley Police would be entirely within its rights to refer the premises back to the City Council for a further review of its premises licence.

St Ebbe's loses lapdancing case

It's reported today that St. Ebbe's church as lost its appeal against the City Council's licensing decision to allow regulated sex entertainment at the very nearby Thirst Lodge.  Costs of £12,000 were awarded against the church.

I don't have much to say about this but thought I should comment as it is in my ward.  Firstly, I don't think the City Council is here to be the moral guardian of Oxford, or its people, so should not make decisions solely on moral grounds. Secondly, I feel very sorry for both parties as they have both spent a large amount of time and money at an appeal that should probably have never happened.  The original decision was entirely soundly made and entirely within the licensing guidelines and the City Council's licensing policy.  Finally, I hope that both parties can now enter into dialogue and try to understand the depth and sincerity of each other's feelings and work out a way to coexist as neighbours as constructively as possible.

Oxford City Council Lib Dem Group Meeting

We had a good discussion about Temple Cowley Pools at the group meeting tonight.  Group meetings are confidential discussions but I am happy to report, with permission, that as a new member I discovered that the group view is that we will support keeping the current pools open unless evidence arises that it is a threat to health and/or safety of the public. We will not support the construction of a competition pool on any site at this time.

A walk around the ward with PC Paul Phillips

I met with PC Paul Phillips today and we had a walk around Carfax Ward.  Paul's been policing this area for 8 years now and clearly knows lots of people and is generally accepted and liked in the neighbourhood.

We talked about issues which include homelessness, drug dealing and binge drinking.  It was good to see Paul being firm but fair and polite with people being antisocial in the streets and we came across a couple of worries.  These were the £2 per pint of Stella all day at one pub and the complete blocking of the fire exit of another by a parked car - despite the sign!

Student Safety issues and OUSU Sabs handover

A useful meeting in the town hall this morning to meet the two new OUSU Sabbatical Officers.  Daniel Lowe is the new VP for Charities and Community and we also met the new VP for Women but I'm afraid I missed her name.  I'll update this when I get it.

World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment

I was invited to the launch this event, run by the Smith School of Economy and the Environment at the Oxford Union Society. President Mikhail Gorbachev (Former President of the Soviet Union and Founding President of Green Cross International) was the main speaker and Janez Potočnik (European Commissioner for Environment) also spoke on Climate Negotiations: six months on from Copenhagen.

Gorbachev spoke in Russian and his interpreter spoke at the same time in English.  I'm afraid it was pretty hard to hear what either was saying.

New Councillors Info

I just received this from media and communications.  Good to see they are introducing us to council staff.



I was intrigued to read that the new Green member for St. Mary's appears to see students as a "danger" to East Oxford.  Personally I see students as a positive benefit that adds greatly to the vibrancy, vitality, and viability of the area.  Sure - there are problems with HMOs and Cars but students themselves are not the problem.  Oxford would be a much poorer place without its two world-class Universities and their students.  In fact without them hardly anybody would have even heard of Oxford!  It certainly would not be the great tourist centre it is.

Code of Conduct Training

Almost like a full council meeting with lots of councillors in the room. I guess this is because we get 15% deducted from our allowance if we don't attend these sessions!

We learned about the Council's internal process for dealing with complaints against councillors.  The new legislation means that since May 2008 complaints have to be made to the Standards Committee of the local council. Complaint are then assessed and the choices for courses of action are to take no further action (if the complaint is not covered by the code of conduct), refer to the monitoring officer for investigation, refer to Standards for England for investigation (only in serious or complex cases where it would be inappropriate to investigate internally), or to take other action such as ordering mediation.  Standards for England is however to be abolished by the new government.

An alternative survey on Temple Cowley Pools

The Save Temple Cowley Pools group are an enterprising lot!  They have produced their own survey which I hope you'll take a few minutes to fill in.  The picture here shows me campaigning with some local children back in 2006.  The boy on my right in the picture is now 6'5" tall!

Please do fill in the survey. You can contact them at savetcp@gmail.com

My thoughts on the threat to Temple Cowley Pools

Another week of lots of emails from residents, this time upset about the proposed closure of Temple Cowley Pools.  And quite rightly so too.   I have been campaigning against its closure since 2006 and got a lot of signatures on my petition on 2009 when I was standing for the East Oxford Division county seat with Ben Armstrong.

Temple Cowley area has had masses of new residential development in the last 10 years and as such a good local facility like Temple Cowley Pools is absolutely vital. Putting it in Blackbird Leys just will not work as many people don't have access to cars and even if they do we already have a bad traffic problem in Cowley on Oxford Road and Cowley Road. The current site is safe for hundreds of families and children (many of whom are social tenants and living in relative poverty) to get to either on foot or by bike.  I personally have enjoyed being a user of Temple Cowley Pools since 1989 when I first arrived in Oxford.

I don't object to replacing Temple Cowley Pools with a new facility but am very clear that it MUST be within 1/4 mile of the existing site if it is to continue to provide essential services for the local community.  The site of the current post office sorting office on the corner of Hollow Way and Garsington Road springs to mind.  But I don't really see what's wrong with the current site.  Closing yet another local facility off Temple Road and building YET MORE housing surely can't be a good thing.   Temple Cowley Pools are also extremely close to many bus routes and so easy to get to for thousands of Oxford residents.

The real problem is the council's continued lack of investment and neglect of Temple Cowley Pools.  The consultation they are doing is also an utter farce.  The questionnaire is extremely loaded and lots of people have complained to me about that too.  The consultation is a farce in my opinion.

I am appalled at what the ruling group of the City Council is doing and even more appalled at the apparent silence from the two ward councillors, both Labour members, in Cowley Marsh.  Neither of them lives near Temple Cowley Pools as their addresses (Malik and Abbasi) on the Council website will show.

Licensing Training

This was a long but useful session.  It was introduced by Tony Payne, Support Development and Licensing Team manager, and we were given lots of useful information about the structure of the licensing committees and subcommittees in the Council.

There are two main committees:  The Licensing and Gambling Acts Committee deals with alcohol, entertainment and late food licensing as well as gambling establishments.

The General Purposes Licensing Committee deals with street trading; hackney carriage and private hire and sex establishment licensing (table dancing, pole dancing, lap dancing etc.).  There are also several subcommittees.

Julian Allison is the licensing team leader and told us lots about how the 2003 act works and is based around the Council's licensing policy that it is legally require to have and regularly review.  We learned about personal licences and premises licences.

Finally, two of the City council's solicitors, Daniel Smith and Jeremy Franklin, explained to us how licensing hearings work.  A very interesting and useful session.  You may be interested to know that you can check current licensing applications online.

City Centre Neighbourhood Action Group

This is somewhat of a gathering of the great and the good but useful nonetheless.  It is a Thames Valley Police initiative and includes councillors, council officers (including Ben Smith, Neighbourhood Policing Coordinator Community Housing & Community Development; Karen Crossan, Nightsafe Manager; Julian Allison from licensing; and Linda Jones, Estate Manager for Tenancy Services for Central Oxford), and several from Thames Valley Police.   Representatives from OUSU also attended.



We discussed the City Cente Situational Report which shows that most crime in the City Centre has reduced rather pleasingly.  Graffit was a bit on the rise and this would be looked at.

The OUSU reps, Eorann Lean and Kat Wall, also presented an excellent report about Student night-time safety which highlighted a few areas of concern that Thames Valley Police agreed to work on.  According to the survey, which was responded to by 148 students, the current challenges are as follows:

• 41.6% leave clubs and pubs alone more often than not


• 43.5% walk alone in the city centre at night more often than not


• 38.9% walk beyond the immediate city centre at night


• 48.4% never call a friend if they realise they will be walking alone in the dark


• 33.3% sometimes feel threatened, 7.1% most times feel threatened (although 49.2% say they rarely feel threatened when out at night)


• 7.9% sometimes have been threatened when out at night/54% never been threatened or harassed when out at night/37.3% rarely

Central South and West Area Committee

Another area committee meeting tonight.  I can't believe it has been a month since the last one!  We met at St. Barnabas' School in Jericho at 5.30pm.  As the committee is 4 Labour and 4 Lib Dems we voted Oscar and Mark as co-chairs and Susanna and Nathan as co-vice chairs.  So now half the committee is either chair or vice chair :-)



We had an address from John Power about antisocial behaviour at Tumbling Bay, particularly in the light of last week's fatality there.

Then we had an update from Thames Valley Police's Oxford City Centre Inspector. Matthew Bullivant.  Crime statistics have dropped markedly although there are still a worrying number of thefts from the person.   Matthew was also asked why TVP had not objected to Tescos' application to sell alcohol from 6am at the site of the the old lighting shop on St. Aldates.  He reassured us that he has a robust approach to licencing.



We moved on to planning applications and the one we discussed was an outline application from the Jericho Community Association for a community centre.  There were some difficult issues raised and building the centre will not be without cost to some local trees and the amenity of immediate neighbours, but the permission was unanimously granted nonetheless.  I must say I entered the meeting thinking I may well vote against this but the discussion convinced me that the benefits outweighed the losses and that the chance to provide an important community facility should not be lost.

We agreed to the planning application at the ice rink for a small enclosure for a new chiller without discussion.  This only had to go to committee because it is the City Council applying to itself for planning permission and to do it in a closed office under delegated powers would not be very transparent!

Dave Huddle from Parks then gave us a street scene update.  He promised to look at the litter problems in Jericho and to make sure the bins along the river in Hinksey Park ward were emptied regularly enough during the summer months.

Our final discussion was about the proposed scheme for the licensing of Houses of Multiple Occupation, which is something I am very interested in, living in a very HMO-dense street.  It will be interesting to see how it operates but I'm afraid I can't see the council inspecting an licensing the estimated 5,000 HMOs in the City in much less than a year! I would encourage you to comment during the consultation period (until 21 June) if you have a view.

I was a bit alarmed to discover that HMO licensing appears to be an executive function rather than a council function.  That in my view makes it too political but we'll see how it pans out.

We finished just after 8pm.

Community up in arms about proposed use of Manzil Park as builders yard

I've had nearly 20 emails from East Oxford residents today voicing great concern about the proposal to hand some of Manzil Park over to builders as a yard for 2 years while doing a building project.  I too am rather concerned about this.  My reply to people is:

"I entirely agree that turning a large part of Manzil Park into a builders yard for such a period would be hugely detrimental to the local community and the amenity of all local residents, particularly younger children. There must be better local sites to use as a builders' yard. As a resident of East Oxford myself I am extremely concerned about this.

I am unfortunately not part of the City Executive Board or indeed the ruling political group on the City Council so my absolute powers are limited but I will undertake to do all I can to influence those in power to rethink this potentially disastrous proposal."

I've started a MyCouncillor blog

If you were wondering where all the posts about my work as a City Councillor have gone you can now find then on a different blog at http://tonybrett.mycouncillor.org.uk

Social Landlord tenancy and the problems it brings

A small piece of casework today.  A resident of some social housing in Carfax rang to say his area's glass recycling bin is full and that when he rings City Works to arrange a collection he gets told that they need to check if the Registered Social Landlord (OCHA in this case) has paid for the service.  Then nothing happens.



This would not happen if the City Council owned and managed all the council housing in Oxford City.  And to think the Labour Group was trying to hand it all off to registered social landlords not so long ago.  The problem is there is no accountability - at least Council Housing tenants have councillors to hold their landlord to account.

An interesting discussion with Carlyle Group

I had a meeting to discuss the proposals for the area between St. Aldates and Queen Street today and it seems there is a bit of an impasse between the City Council and the Developer over what to do with the site that we know as St. Aldate's Chambers.   There is a planning application that has been waiting for determination for over a year now and the problem seems to be over a section 106 agreement



I'll write more on this later.

Planning and Development Control Training

An interesting training session this evening teaching how Development Control is a balance between the needs of all interested parties.  I was pleased to see that legislation now better recognises that councillors are political animals and that as such we are able to take part in planning decisions so long as we do so with an open mind (and say so) even if we have publicly expressed strong views before.

I was also interested to hear about the new House of Multiple Occupation (HMO) legislation and how Oxford City Council will apply it.  It could make quite a difference to places like Reliance Way, where I live.

More Street Pastor Training

This evening we learned about the work of Thames Valley Probation and also had a brief but very useful introduction to Mental Health issues.

The range of things the Probation Service does is amazing.  I had no idea there was so much to a Community Order.  I think Community Payback is especially positive.

One more training session to go!

Annual Council and Mayor Making

We had the annual council meeting today which passed off without event and with much good humour.  I wish all full council meetings were like that.

We the had the first meeting of the Licencing and Gambling Acts committee.  I was elected vice-chair and Mary Clarkson is chair.

At 5pm we had the ceremonial council meeting in the Assembly Room.  John Goddard formally took over the role of Lord Mayor of Oxford and many speeches were made proposing and seconding him, the Sherrif (Colin Cook) and the Deputy Lord Mayor (Dee Sinclair) as well as the outgoing postholders.

Induction Training

I was invited to attend this as I haven't been a councillor for four
years and things have changed!

We had a good introduction from Peter Sloman, the Chief Executive and
then some overviews by three strategic managers.  Jeremy Thomas, the
Head of Law and Governance gave a useful overview of services and
decision making, including delegation, and there was an excellent
"Freshers Fair" set up for us new councillors where we could meet all
the council services and their staff.

We had a sandwich lunch and then we were given information about legal
rules.  There was useful instruction about the difference between
personal and prejudicial interests and I was interested to note that the
bar for prejudicial interest is now much higher than it used to be.  It
essentially has to be a pecuniary interest.  We also learned about the
difference between pre-disposition and pre-determination.

The last session I attended was about Partnership Working and this is
extremely important in an area with two-tier local government but also
includes lots of other statutory bodies.

I was unable to stay for the session about Scrutiny and Scrutiny
committees as I needed to get back to my day job!

Criminalising people a success?

I've just read a City Council Press release entitled "Successful Prosecutions for Littering in the City Centre".  I'm afraid to say that I don't really see prosecution and issuing of fines as a success, more as a failure.  Surely the objective here is to make the City Centre tidier - not turn people into criminals?  Now I'm not for a minute condoning littering and I entirely support holding people to account for their actions but wouldn't it have been much better to make the offenders take part in a City Centre clean-up / litter pick rather than just fining them?  I think that would have a much more positive effect on their future behaviour and would be a success in terms of tidying up the City.

Maybe I'm just too Liberal?  But it would have been nice to see a more positive headline than this.

Street Pastors training

I'd actually started this before being elected.  I am quite excited about it for two reasons:

1.  As an active Christian I believe we are called to take the love and care of Christ to people wherever they are.  This is a great opportunity to do that.
2. As a Carfax Councillor it will really help me to keep in touch with what happens in my ward during the small hours.

We were given a huge amount of useful information about drugs and alcohol and how they affect people we might be assisting as Street Pastors.  There are two more evening sessions to attend and then I'll have attended all sessions bar one which I will have to catch up with as I was in Cornwall last weekend.

Student night-time safety issues meeting

Just had a useful meeting with two VPs from OUSU (Eorann Lean, and Katherine Wall).  City Council staff including Karen Crossan, Nightsafe Manager, attended as did Thames Valley Police.

We discussed issues around student safety; perceived as well as actual threat; street lighting (particularly on Magdalen Bridge and Norham Gardens); the Safety Bus (which has had some less than ideal press coverage) and various other issues.

Attendance at the City Centre Neighbourhood Action group was important and it is good that there will be more student representation now that the OUSU person for that role has more time dedicated to safety.

Meeting with Oxford Hub folk

I met at 9am today with Sara Fernandez and a colleague at G&Ds on Cowley Road.  They explained to me how the Oxford Hub is the focal point for charitable activity at Oxford University. Soon, they're going to bid for a building, at 16-17 Turl Street, so the can open a multi-purpose venue for community benefit.

This looks like a good use of a building on Turl Street that has had a rather chequered history in the last few years and could do with a more permanent use. I may have to take decisions as a councillor about this so will keep my powder dry on it at the moment other than to say it looks like a good idea and a good use of the building to me.

Central South and West Area Committee

An interesting meeting tonight.  Oscar is a good chair and keeps things moving along well.  Now we are 4 LibDem and 4 Labour members we have agreed, I think, to have alternating LibDem and Labour Chairs.  Probably Oscar and Mark. More about Central South and West Area Committee

The main business of the meeting was planning applications.  The first was for a replacement mobile phone mast 10cm taller than the existing one that was given permission on appeal by a planning inspector.  The committee refused the permission although I refrained from voting, having only just been elected and not visited the site.  I also fear the grounds for rejection, given the precedent set by the planning inspector, are weak and that we may get our decision overturned and costs awarded against us.

We also had long and interesting presentations from the planning officers and representatives of Oxford University on the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter development.  We were just commenting on, rather than determining, the application and we were all wholeheartedly in favour of it.  We expressed a desire to take serious action on the safety of pedestrain and cycle approaches to the site, particularly from the West, and I expressed a hope that some of the buildings that will be vacated by the University when departments move into ROQ might be considered for use as further student accommodation.

Official!

Very efficient Council Officers at Oxford City! I've now signed my declaration and received my ID card. All very quick and easy.

I also met a new councillor from another party who I know well. I was sorry to see that party tribalism is alive and kicking as that councillor studiously ignored me despite me extending greetings.

This evening I get to attend my first LibDem group meeting since 2006 when I was last a member of Oxford City Council.

I got elected!

I am now a member of Oxford City Council representing Carfax Ward, which is essentially the western half of the City Centre. I am excited to be back on the council and pleased to have a ward that has an interesting mix of all types of accommodation and people including social housing, private apartments, heads of houses, lots of students and lots more.

I will try to blog here as often as I can with my activities as a councillor.

I start today at 3pm by signing my declaration of acceptance of office and receiving my new councillor pack.

Time to clear some space in the filing cabinet methinks!

Save Oxford School meeting

The Save Oxford School group met at 7pm at Larkrise School in East Oxford on 29th September 2009 to present information about the proposals to close Oxford School and re-open it as an academy under the control of the United Learning Trust. I'm a bit horrified to see "The City of Oxford Academy" already listed as a proposal on their website. There is even a web page "under construction" for the proposed academy.

I was greeted at the door by someone trying to thrust a Socialist Worker in my face. I told him I had come to hear about children's education, not party politics... Not a great start but I was happy to stay and hear what folk had to say.

The speakers, as shown left to right in this picture were:

Anna Thorne (a parent of 2 year 7 boys at Oxford School)
Larry Sanders (Green Party County Councillor for East Oxford and current Governor of Oxford School)
Liz Brighouse (Labour County Councillor for Barton & Churchill)
Chris Blakey (a member of the NUT national executive)
Gawain Little (NUT Oxford, President)
M Altaf Khan (LibDem Councillor for Headington and Marston)

Chris Blakey chaired the meeting and it started with statements from each of the speakers which I'll attempt to summarise:

Anna
Has 2 kids in year 7 at Oxford School. Feels passionately that children's education should take place in a setting that reflects the local community.
Worried that an academy would reduce the amount of say the community has in the the running of the school and makes the school far less accountable to the community.
ULT is a Christian organisation and although the academy would not be a faith school it would be run with a Christian ethos and Anne belives this would mean there was no choice other than Christian Schools in this area and that would be inappropriate given the large diversity of culture and faith in East Oxford.
Consultation has been almost non-existent so far and shows a total lack of democracy. The official consutlation period is too late (not even started yet) and too short.
Parents, governors and teachers are not getting access to the information they need to form a proper view about the proposals.
Land is also an important issue as it involves giving some of Cowley Marsh park over to the proposed academy and loses the current buildings which do not need replacing. This is environmentally questionable at best. Traffic access to a super-academy on the Oxford School site would also be dangerous and problematic.

Gawain
There is no evidence that academies raise standards or improve attainment. The only thing that can be shown to increase this is extra resources, including funding, for schools.
New legislation has removed the need for sponsoring bodies to pay any money for taking on academies and the Government has also cut the money available to the academies programme, while not decreasing the proposed number of academies.
These factors can only mean less resource for schools and poorer education for our children.
Oxford School is improving already, with excellent improvement in GCSE results this year.
A 3-19 academy is not necessarily a good idea and it's probably about the Local Authority just getting free land rather than necessarily in the best interests of the local children.
Evidence nationally shows that schools succeed best when they are full integrated into, and are part of, the local community.
With an academy there is no obligation to have community governors and there only has to be one parent governor.
The NUT supports the principle of a good local school for every child.

Larry
There are lots of factors working against Oxford School including local poverty and the fact that many local people don't have English as a first language. Despite this Oxford School has leapt forward in performance recently. Exam results have improved and the school as enthusiasm, vibrancy, ambition and positive multiculturalism. Why is the Local Authority putting this at risk?
The ULT is failing.
It is true that the LA needs a new primary school but the only motivation for putting it on the Oxford School site seems to be to get free land. The academy proposal also enables the LA to sell off some of the existing school site (including the perfectly good 1930's buildings) for money to a property developer.

Altaf
The process for the expression of interest has been terrible. There was confusion in a meeting of the full County Council about exactly which EOI was being considered. Consultation with elected members of the LA representing the catchment areas was non-existent.
The Governors have been kept in the dark by the LA. It has been unclear and evasive about information.
Questions asked about the proposals in County Cabinet meetings have not received clear and unequivocal answers.
Different options for Oxford School need to be considered, not just the ULT academy proposal.
Children have one chance in life for decent schooling and the LA needs to take this on board.
About 50% of the current Oxford School governors have resigned.
The feasibility study will be discussed at a County Scrutiny meeting on Monday 5th October at 3pm. It is a public meeting but if members of the public wish to speak they need to apply to do so by 9am on Friday 2nd October. This is even then only at the discretion of the (Tory) chair of the committee. The expression of interest, and the report to the County Cabinet are available online.

Liz
Has been a supporter of academies but doesn't think it's a good proposal for Oxford School.
Oxford School and Cheney School are at the top of the "Building Schools for the Future" programme list (I'm afraid I can't make much sense of the BSF website).
Liz said that GCSE results were much lower in 1979 (odd - I thought the first GCSEs were in 1988). I don't think I understood the point.

Liz has emailed me a useful clarification: "I have been involved in Education in this City since 1977 and know exactly when the GCSE came in I was comparing results from 1993 until last year. I also know in a fair amount of detail the choices of school made at transfer by the parents of children living in the City and reported that to the meeting and challenged the community too support the school, I went on to say that Andrew Smith was supporting the setting up of a Co-operative Trust School and had already written to the Sec of State, this was confirmed by a member of the audience who had received a letter from the DCSF saying that Andrew had been involved."

Cheney and St. Gregory's are always over-subscribed but Oxford School is normally on open enrolment. Liz suspects the academy proposal is so that the LA can siphon BSF money for other areas of the County. Liz would be getting Andrew Smith MP to lobby DCSF about this proposal.

Others
There was then general discussion in support of the campaign. The thing that I noted with most worry is the statement of ULT's charitable objectives on the Charities Commission website. I quote: "THE TRUST'S OBJECT ("THE OBJECTS") ARE TO ADVANCE FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT EDUCATION IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, IN PARTICULAR BUT WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING BY ESTABLISHING MAINTAINING CARRYING ON, MANAGING AND DEVELOPING SCHOOLS OFFERING A BROAD CURRICULUM WITH A STRONG EMPHASIS ON, BUT IN NO WAY LIMITED TO EITHER ONE, OR A COMBINATION OF THE SPECIALISMS SPECIFIED IN THE RELEVANT FUNDING AGREEMENT, IN ALL CASES TO INCLUDE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN THE DOCTRINE AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY PRINCIPALLY AS THE SAME ARE TAUGHT BY THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND BUT ALSO SENSITIVE TO THE TEACHINGS ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES OF OTHER CHRISTIAN COMMUNIONS AND DENOMINATIONS"

What worries me is that this says nothing about those of faiths other than Christianity and there are many families and Children of other faiths in East Oxford. How will ULT deal with that?

The thing that I think is most important is that the local community be mobilised to stand alongside the school and support it in all the good work it is doing. I think Gawain's point about schools thriving when they are actively and meaningfully integrated with the local community is absolutely key.

The group has an excellent website at http://www.saveoxfordschool.com/ and it has some extremely useful documents including:

• Things you can do to help
• Some Common Questions and Answers
• Petition to print and get friends, neighbours etc. to sign

Many other people spoke and the evening ended with a roundup by members of the panel. Comments welcome and if you are a speaker I have misrepresented please let me know without delay and I'll change this post.