Cllr. Gavin Ayling

Adur Council recruited Consultants.

That sentence is normally enough to send shivers down the spine. Our Council, that organisation that is struggling so much to balance the books because of favouritism of Scotland by those in London, is wasting money on Consultants.

But that’s not how it is at all! The Consultant gave a presentation to the Council’s State of the District debate yesterday which, along with her report, makes for amazing reading. Linda Phipps’ report picks away at the whole ‘Fit for the Future’ consultation and leaves the PCT’s claims as a bleeding hulk of nonsense.

Never has the word ’spurious’ been used so often by one person with such relevance.

Suffice our response to the consultation will be robust, well written and (if any notice is taken) likely to change the result! It doesn’t hurt, though, to sign the KWASH petition.

Okay, so two things tonight would cause me to be described as a bigot. One will remain a wink between me and one new reader who I believe may be reading this tonight.

The second is in our next Housing and Central Services Committee (HCSC) Agenda (Item 8). By the way, here’s the HCSC minutes and agenda index.

Okay, so before we read it (like you were going to!), let’s discuss some background.

There are two types of racist in my humble opinion:

There is the stereotype (who is hard to find, actually) who believes that black people are inferior, that they shouldn’t be employed if they come to an interview, that they should not be allowed to use the same buses etc, etc. Let us call them ‘old Tories’.

Then there is the more common type: the do-gooder. They say “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you are less able to obtain training than a white person” or “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you need more careful treatment” or “Ah, you have [insert colour here] skin so you must need help speaking English” (Hands up those who thought I should have copied and pasted some of that.). Let us call this, more common and thoroughly more underhand and manipulative racist ’socialists’.

So socialists (read Ken Livingstone or the person who introduced the legislation allowing this) are the ones responsible for some of the measures that our Council must make.

In Item 8, then, there is a survey of Council Tenants in Adur District Council. Apparently ‘ethnic minorities’ (you know, the ones the socialists believe are less intelligent) answered the survey differently to white people. Just to be clear an ethnic minority can only be non-white — the proper definition of the type of respondent the government required us to identify is “black and ethnic minorities (BEM) (excluding white minorities)”.

Scroll to the last page and you will find the bit that has got my goat. This is the ‘Action Plan’ as a result of the survey’s findings:

Black Minority and Ethnic groups are less satisfied with opportunities for involvement in management and decision making. Action – further investigation is required and efforts made to include members of BME groups in tenant participation.

So, basically, a statistical anomaly that should never have been measured throws up something vaguely interesting and the answer is to ’solve it’? Erm no.

I am quite sure no-one is sending letters to white tenants only. I am quite sure no-one is turning black people away when they offer to participate. And even if they were, I’m positive a survey is not the best way to find that out!

To put it to a test I telephoned a tame ‘ethnic minority’ and asked them what they thought.

Warning, the next paragraph contains swearing that is necessary because it is a verbatim quote. If you don’t like it, skip it, okay?

When asked whether we should do this the tame (tame because socialists tell me they are less intelligent etc.) EM said “Why are we collecting that information? Like anyone gives a shit.”

And why did I quote an EM? Because in this ultra PC (but we took their great, great, great grandfather’s land to grow sugar plantations on, sob) modern era, I couldn’t say that myself without being described as an ‘old Tory’. And let’s be honest, if I was one of those, how could I have tamed that stupid (the socialist’s intimation, not mine) EM in the first place?

First, a warning. Adur Council’s telephones stopped working at 4pm this evening. While this is rectified, it is my duty to give you the out of hours Duty Supervisor’s number: 07713 889 128.

Last night’s meeting

Second, at last night’s meeting some more things were said that I didn’t really cover in my post because I was a bit of a hurry. As I’ve said many times recently, one of the items under discussion was key to a merger of services with Worthing and the accompanying savings in salaries which we must find because of the Labour Government’s swingeing cuts to grants and increases in demands on local Councils.

Members of the public are so infrequently in attendance that it is necessary to mention them when they are. Last night former-Councillor Peter Berry was in attendance. He had some questions to ask about the merger and, I quote, said that the Councils were “creating a staff surplus by reorganising the workload”. This, apparently, was supposed to be a negative criticism of the Councils plans whereas, in fact, it was a ringing endorsement of our policy. As a service organisation (as all Councils are) salaries and staff costs are the vast majority of our funding need. So to create staff surpluses is to create savings. To say that we are doing that by reorganising the workload is to say that we are creating efficiencies.

Many people criticise the NHS and other government bodies for ‘having too many chiefs and not enough Indians’; how wonderful then, that I can report that our Council is doing exactly what that adage criticises: reducing the number of managers by sharing managers between the two authorities! It’s really gratifying and a genuine good news story.

SEERA

In my last post I criticised the now dying SEERA for claiming that SEEDA was an unelected quango and I celebrated our Prime Minister’s decision to erase Regional Assemblies.

But I was, not unusually, being naively optimistic. SEERA is, for its faults, at least partially democratic in that some of its membership is Councillors from across the Region. SEERA, because of that, was becoming a thorn in the side of the central government and was likely to refuse to accept the house-building proposals that Gordon Brown recently announced. This would have been [in a fake posh voice] damned inconvenient, what! So in an act of sheer arrogance he decided to give it to the South East England Development Agency instead and close the troublesome assembly which was more and more likely to try to embarass him.

Far from being a positive step for democracy in England it is yet another attack on the democratic will of the people in this area who overwhelmingly do not support the ruling party. As the Tories came to regret using Scotland as a test bed, Labour will hopefully regret pushing the English — and especially those of us in the south — around.

Tonight’s Policy and Strategy Committee…

… was great, what more need be said? Well, actually, it would be nice to have some members of the public at the next one!

If you don’t like your Council tax rises, if you wonder how that hair-brained plan came to fruition, if you watch Newsnight or Question Time (or both!), if you enjoy debate or if you care about your local community then come along. It is really entertaining (normally) and it gives a real insight into how and why decisions are made.

I’m not over-selling it. Really.

No, really.

Tonight’s meeting was fantastically important. So important that even though I’m yet to eat dinner (which I normally eat around 7pm) I’m sat here at the computer telling you what happened.

First, the opposition (actually the lone LibDem cannot officially be called an opposition — but for the sake of clarity) voted for all the proposals which will lead to Worthing and Adur Councils moving toward a single workforce. Adur Council will now work out a basis for moving to a cabinet system of government.

Also, the speech I read and copied below for your information, was well received and you’ll be pleased to know that the Motion was not carried! I’ll take some of the credit for that especially because the Liberal Democrat (apparently not the party of liberalism and freedom) failed to stir even for that.

So all recommendations before tonight’s Council were carried unanimously and Motion 11a lost while Motion 11b (on West Sussex Hospitals) was carried.

My speech in response to the Motion:

Why we should not allow prayer in Adur Council

Councillor Privacy

Religious belief, or the lack of it, is very personal and I believe it should not normally be discussed in this context. One of the problems with public worship as proposed in this Motion is that it may require by implication that a Councillor expose their religious beliefs. A member of the public might arrive during the period set aside for prayers and see their Councillor praying and decide that their Councillor’s religious beliefs worry them or, similarly, find their Councillor not in attendance and decide that they cannot vote for an non-believer.

The reason I mention that now is that this debate could do a similar thing. By standing up now I could be exposing myself either as an immoral man, a godless infidel or a heretical heathen or as a devout follower.

Why should that matter? Surely the voting public have the right to know about their Councillors’ beliefs?

No.

Religion and Politics

Religion and politics do not go together and it is when they do that we are fearful. It is the Islamic AK Party in Turkey who yesterday won the general election which some fear could mean the end of secularism in Turkey. And it is religion in US politics which makes the Republican Party so different from the Conservative Party. I’d like to read a passage written by Fred Halliday on the Open Democracy website on 12 January this year:

From the evangelicals of the United States, to the followers of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to the Islamists of the middle east, the claim about the benefits of religion is one of the great, and all too little challenged, impostures of our time. For centuries, those aspiring to freedom and democracy, be it in Europe or the middle east, fought to push back the influence of religion on public life. Secularism cannot guarantee freedom, but, against the claims of tradition and superstition, and the uses to which religion is put in modern political life, from California to Kuwait, it is an essential bulwark.

I do know that this country has prayers read in the House of Commons before each sitting of the House and that twenty-six unelected, non-democratically appointed Bishops sit in the House of Lords. Nobody ought to think that is unreservedly a good thing. I accept that this is a Christian country, I do not believe it should manifest itself in politics.

Libertarian

English culture is a subject of much debate recently. With the trend for multiculturalism apparently under attack from the former Home Secretary John Reid, the question about what it means to be English has re-started of late. My input to that debate would be to talk of the most obvious of virtues: the ability to tolerate — without trying to — other people’s beliefs. Some people may say that this Motion is something we should welcome as an effort to reassert the English (or in some cases British) cultural values. But if you agree with what I just said then reasserting English culture would not involve reintroducing prayer, in any religion or denomination, into public offices.

In 1906 Evelyn Hall said “I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it” although this is often attributed to Voltaire. That should mean it could be argued, that I could sit out of these prayers and feel warm inside that the libertarian cause was living on. But this is the exact opposite of the case. Using the Council Chamber, or the Council building, for non-Council activities is an abuse of power. I dare say any number of alternative pre-meeting activities would not be considered and this is as personal as any of those.

I like to think of myself as an open minded person. We’ve all read articles in the tabloid press written by a homophobe that start “I have gay friends but…” But I’m going to use that excuse anyway: I have Christian and Hindu friends and Muslim relatives but I don’t believe religion has any relevance to the Council’s proceedings.

Summary

In summary the reasons for refusing this Motion are:
• That it is a violation of each Councillor’s privacy;
• that it is an irrelevant and dangerous melding of Church and State;
• that it does not merit support under libertarian values; and
• that it is a misuse of tax payer’s facilities.

You may have noticed I have reduced my posts on religion. That is for two reasons

1. I don’t wish to upset people and I believe in live and let live
2. I now see more of a place for religion for some people

But I am forced back onto the subject by a motion being proposed by an Adur Councillor:

That the Council agree to prayers being said in the Council Chamber for a period of up to fifteen minutes before each meeting of the Full Council and that the Council invite a minister of the Christian religion from one of the main denominations (Church of England, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Free Church, Methodist or United Reformed Church) to attend at the Council to lead prayers for the Council meeting and the Councillors attending.

That the Council is in agreement with another room being made available for Councillors of other religions to meet for prayers prior to each Council meeting.

I am, obviously, vehemently opposed to this.

Religion has no place in politics and it is completely irrelevant to Council proceedings.

I shall be writing a longer speech explaining my position over the weekend and will post a copy here.

Today’s Council meeting was little more than a waste of two hours.

Most of the time was spent with questions being asked by the apparently-obstructive members of the Liberal Democrats from Worthing who did not appear to have anyone’s interests at heart — just a desire to make the cabinet members work harder.

And our own Council had a thorn in its side with irrelevant questions being asked by one of our number (who shall remain nameless) who claimed to have read the report but continued to ask questions which were clearly answered in the report.

And how many members of the public were there? Two. But frankly I am glad of that because it was an entirely embarassing show because, actually, no-one had a concrete problem with the proposal to start the process of merging services provided by Adur and Worthing Councils, but they all felt they ought to have a debate.

Yawn.

There is a very important Council meeting of Worthing’s Cabinet and Adur’s Policy and Strategy Committee on Thursday. I implore anyone interested in local government to attend that meeting. Just turn up at the Adur Civic Centre at 6.50pm and walk to the left of the digital information sign.

We are discussing (and ultimately deciding) whether to recommend to Full Council to start the process of merging services provided by Worthing Borough Council and Adur District Council.