Photostream of ARSN campaigners at Kilmory on 5th January 2011

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

Photostream of ARSN campaigners at Kilmory on 5th January 2011, Continue reading →

Argyll and Bute School closures: the political dimension

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

Kilmory 5 Jan 2011 3

The bald fact is that the political reverberations and consequences of Argyll and Bute Council’s botched Continue reading →

LibDems, the school closure issue and the Scottish Election 2011

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

The LibDems are running Councillor Alison Hay in the Scottish Election 2011, a former Council Leader and Argyll and Bute’s standing representative at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).

The LibDem group has seen its actions in the school closure affair result in a catastrophic loss of public support. and the political judgment of its candidate open to the most serious of questioning.

Political intelligence is in short supply in Argyll and Bute. What the LibDems did this case in could not be a sharper example of that.

They have six councillors. The majority are competent, with Alison Hay among their number.

Before – and immediately before – the key meeting on 25th November, several of the LibDem six had confirmed to constituents and colleagues that they would oppose the proposals going to public consultation on the grounds of serious flaws they openly discussed.

Then, during that long day, the SNP walked out of power.

As any political party would do, the LibDems gratefully received Council Leader Dick Walsh’s invitation to them to join the Alliance of Independents in power. No one would have argued with that and many would have celebrated it. It’s what politics is about.

But with a stupendous lack of political nous, they were conned by Dock Walsh into an automatic acceptance that they must support the closure proposals if they wanted to join a new coalition. The group leader, Councillor Ellen Morton, whom we have described as a street fighter, harangued two reluctant colleagues into changing their vote.

In the chamber, to the horror of the observing representatives of schools in their areas, Councillors Currie and Colville got to their feet and voted for proposals they had- even in that meeting- described as flawed, approving them nevertheless to go to statutory public consultation under the Schools (Consultation (Scotland) Act 2010.

These votes were greeted by involuntary gasps of shock.

To a man, all six LibDems voted for the proposals, Al Reay rushing to his feet, defending his vote with an astonishingly eager loudness.

No one will ever understand why on earth the LibDems did this. They were in command and control. The Alliance could not survive in power without their numerical presence in a new coalition and so were in no position to dictate conditions. All the LibDems had to say was: ‘We’ll join you and keep you in power but we will vote against these flawed proposals’.

But they sold out their schools, their communities and their political integrity – all completely unnecessarily.

Soon after that meeting the goody bags of paid senior posts were allocated amongst the members of the new coalition and the LibDems did remarkably well, obviously negotiating hard in their own interests.

It is difficult to describe just how catastrophically bad for them this decision and its management has been.

At a time when their party is at a very low level of national popularity because of its Westminster coalition with the Tories (which, in principle, we support and respect as an exemplar of good political management), the Argyll and Bute LibDems have replicated that unpopular relationship. The two Tory councillors joined with them in entering the new coalition.

What is electorally much worse – the LibDems have been seen and heard to betray their constituents – for personal and political gain.

So what are their chances?

We see the LibDems as profoundly damaged by their councilors’ actions in the school closures issue.

They changed their minds in favour of the proposals just as the weightiest evidence was gathering of their fundamentally flawed state. They did so in an utterly unnecessary gesture to go into power with the Alliance of Independents. They could have had the power anyway.

They have fought resolutely to progress the proposals in defiance of the evidence both of their flaws and of their inability to deliver anything like the claimed cost savings.

They have been the most dishonest in refusing to admit any flaw in the proposals. They have, with the Alliance, pretended that the withdrawal of the proposals was not due to to any flaws in the proposals but to the shock discovery of the unexpectedly savage budget cut inflicted by the Scottish Government upon Argyll.

There is worse.

Potentially most damaging of all, it has now emerged that the members of the senior council delegation representing Argyll at a Leaders meeting of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) on 19th November, were themselves directly and solely responsible for the additional cut to the Argyll budget.

This meeting took place before the budgets were finalised or known – so firstly it is dishonest to claim that the additional cut was a shock. They knew before anyone.

The Argyll delegation actually approved the introduction of an eccentric formula by COSLA which accounted for the additional £5.6 million budget cut for Argyll (in a total cut of £11.9 million). Then they agreed the disastrous budget for Argyll that this measure produced.

The usual delegation is Council Leader Dick Walsh, CEO Sally Loudon and Councillor Alison Hay, the council’s standing representative at COSLA. It would be unusual for any of these three to be absent from such a crucial meeting.We have no reason to believe that Councillor Hay was absent but until the COSLA minutes are published, we cannot confirm that all three were present.

The only explanation for such an awful error is sheer inability to understand the issue and to do the sums – and unwillingness to admit it.

It is inconceivable that these senior operatives, including the present and former council leaders and the Chief Executive, could have realised the impact on the Argyll budget of the additional measure they were agreeing to – and then signed off their approval of the consequent budget whose unusually massive cut we must now all confront.

If Councillor Hay was present; if she did not record her reasoned objection to the financial measure COSLA proposed , on the grounds of the unwarranted financial penalty it imposed on Argyll and Bute; and if indeed she approved, by vote or by default, the measure and the consequent budget for Argyll, there could be no weightier instance of culpable negligence.

Argyll will be crippled by this unnecessary loss and at a particularly dreadful local economic circumstances.

SNP, the school closure issue and the Scottish Election 2011

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

The SNP are running Michael Russell for the Argyll and Bute seat at the Scottish Election in 2011.

Russell is currently Education Secretary, with previous ministerial experience at Environment, Culture and Arts and Constitutional Affairs.

The SNP have been, since 2007, the junior member of the ruling coalition at Argyll and Bute Council – with the Alliance of Independents as the senior partner – under Council Leader Dick Walsh, leader and Drill Sergeant of the Alliance.

In the distribution of senior responsibilities, Councillor Walsh has always been careful to hand the tar babies to his partners while keeping the main infrastructural and business briefs close to home in the Alliance. So the SNPs Councillor Isobel Strong from Bute was Education Spokesperson in the chair when the music stopped in the Autumn of 2008.

She was then formally the front for the development of the cost cutting school closure proposals and, at the first meeting on 2nd November 2010, came under sustained politically motivated attack for her role in the affront.

However, between this and the following meeting on 25th November, papers released to the Scottish Rural Schools Network under Freedom of Information, proved revelatory.

They showed that a cabal of the CEO, the Council Leader, a responsible service Director and a consultant hired to deliver the necessary ammunition to close the schools had driven the initiative and had conspired to exclude the Education Spokesperson from a key series of meetings where the closure strategy was developed.

When they woke up and when they saw the evidence of the core unsoundness of the closure proposals, the SNP group tried on several occasions to persuade their partners in power, the Alliance of Independents to withdraw the proposals. When they were rebuffed, they tried (wrong-headedly in our view) to get 12-14 schools removed from the closure list.

Finally, at the meeting on 25th November, they evidently made one last attempt to persuade the Alliance of the unsoundness of the proposals as they stood, failed again and walked out of power on the spot.

From then on, they were, expensively – politically and personally (several lost their paid senior responsibilities) – free.

They are guilty of taking their eyes off the ball at the state where the proposals were being prepared; and Isobel Strong, although indefensibly excluded from major development meetings, should have been in touch to the point where any move to sideline her would not have been possible.

But the electorate rightly forgives those who admit mistakes and do all they can to rectify them. The SNP group’s action in leaving power to fight against the proposals and for the schools has been redemptive.

So what are their chances?

We do not see the SNP damaged by their initial dilatoriness and loss of judgment in the development phase of the closure proposals. Crucially, their Education Spokesperson is proven to have been deliberately excluded from the key strategy development meetings.

They showed themselves to be the only party group capable of recognising how bad the proposals were, willing to admit it and keen to get a just outcome.

They also led the move to requisition the special meeting which, with the presentation of the Scottish Rural Schools Network’s comprehensively damning evidence on the unsoundness of the proposals, gave the council administration the opportunity to dump them – which they did.

People forgive mistakes where they are admitted and by their subsequent actions the SNP have made new friends.

Conservatives, the school closure issue and the Scottish Election 2011

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

The Tories are running Jamie McGrigor in the Scottish election 2011, very much an individualist rather than a machine politician and one of the most capable and engaged of the List MSPs at Holyrood.

McGrigor has one of the keenest political noses for the issues that really matter to his constituents and it is fair to say that he is known to have stoutly resisted the Tory councillors decisions in the Argyll and Bute school closures affair – to no eeffect.

There are only two Tory councillors (a matter addressed in the linked article on The Politics of Argyll and Bute). They both represent Helensburgh. One of them, Councillor Mulvaney is a politician of genuine ability, arguably the most able in the chamber.

When the SNP walked out of power during the chaotic sessions on 25th November, the two Tories joined the coalition – and no one would have faulted them for that. Power is the fuel of politics.

With only two of them, they were in a different position to the LibDems. They were not essential to the majority Alliance in forming a new coalition but they were desirable, as their addition assures the likelihood of voting majorities.

They were a useful makeweight and, as such, could not have dictated their conditions as the crucial LibDem group could and should have done.

Their support for the closure of 25 rural schools in a single sweep, as a cost cutting measure, would be consistent with the red-blooded Tory priority of financial performance. But it was not consistent with the law governing the closure of rural schols which makes educational benefit the sole final criterion for closure.

Had the proposals clearly made a sound case for the closures, the two Tories might have made few friends in supporting them but their position would have been philosophically defensible.

However, the proposals were ‘riddled with errors’ – running the gamut from legal non-compliance to wrong calculations on the finances of the closures. The claimed savings were heavily over estimated in flawed calculation procedures.

This is what profoundly damages the Tory group in the action they took.

Councillor Mulvaney is an accountant and has a questioning and analytic intelligence. Had he taken the trouble, there can be no doubt that he would have seen the flaws in the council’s financial calculations. He chose, however, simply to accept the reassurances of the responsible Finance Director that the calculations were fine, where the reality was that the potential savings had been heavily overestimated while equally potential losses went unmentioned.

Whatever the Tories may be in the public perception, they are associated with financial savviness.

At a stroke, this casual and unfounded support for proposals so profoundly flawed – and left unchallenged – has destroyed the credibility of the party at local level in Argyll and Bute.

So what are their chances?

We do not see the Tory vote for McGrigor damaged by the conduct of the two Tory Councillors – simply because two is too few to make much of an impact.

But the Tories need to grow their vote,not simply to maintain station – and this will now be more difficult.

They have made no new friends.

Labour, the school closure issue and the Scottish Election 2011

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

Labour are running Mick Rice as their candidate in the Scottish Election 2011. A man with considerable local authority experience in the major cockpit of Birmingham, Rice is no political novice.

Labour are home free on this one – of the four major national parties contesting the Argyll and Bute seat in the Scottish election 2011, Labour, with no councillors, is the only one with completely clean hands on the school closures issue in Argyll.

The party has maintained a genial and supportive presence – usually including its candidate, Mick Rice with his Election Agent, Bob Chicken – amongst the demonstrators outside at every one of the relevant meetings at Argyll and Bute Council.

These have been at council headquarters at Kilmory in Lochgilphead – with the author of one exasperated comment delivering the glorious collective noun ‘Kilmorons’.

Labour can be expected – with reason – to make hay on this issue in the election campaign with each of its main opponents.

So what are their chances?

We see Labour as the principal beneficiary of the shaming conduct of the council’s school closure proposals.

It will have specific ammunition on this emotive subject to challenge each of the other three candidates and they have nothing on this subject to fire in return.

Labour will also have made new friends in their constant non-political presence with the demonstrators outside Kilmory, while the other parties made a hash of it inside.

The politics of Argyll and Bute

Posted on January 8, 2011 by newsroom

The politics of Argyll and Bute are a curiosity and a spectator sport all of their own. The sad thing is that the rustic pantomimes of manipulation they play out do not reflect the very serious economic growth potential of this place.

Indeed they damage it profoundly in managerial and administrative incompetence and a ready indulgence in the lard of pork barrell politics.

The local political stage

Argyll and Bute is controlled by the 13-strong Alliance of Independents, a rainbow rag bag of disguised political views bound together by nothing more than personal ambition. It has no hinterland, no political philosophy, no economic development strategy for Argyll – nor the capacity to create one.

They need each other to form the majority caucus and their combined pool of ability and expertise is shallow. Some, frankly, could exist in no other world. The more able are unhealthily powerful and run unchallenged by anyone – except by For Argyll. The middle band are able enough at a level of common sense, do a decent enough constituency job and do not trouble themselves beyond that. And the cannon fodder are the cannon fodder.

Of the party groups, there are currently the SNP with 9 members, the LibDems with 6 and the Tories with 2.

Between the Alliance and the party politicals there are currently 3 non-aligned independents and the 3-strong new group, Argyll First. Its members are also independents of varying political persuasion but with a unifying policy of putting Argyll first in the decisions they take on any issue. By this they mean putting the larger interests of Argyll before locality, before party and before special interest of any kind.

They have trodden a very steady path since their inception a year ago and it is fair to say that they are the most generally trusted of the councillors.

The political distortion of the ‘independents’

Currently the SNP have 9 seats, the LibDems 6 and the Tories 2. Labour have none,

A look at the voting figures for the constituency in the 2010 UK General Election demonstrates sharply the disguises under which the various independents must run. In this recent election across the full constituency:

The LibDems got 31.6% (3% down on 2005).
The Conservatives were second with 24% (0.5% up on 2005).
Labour were third with 22.7% (0.3% up on 2005).
The SNP were fourth with 18.9% (3.4% up on 2005).
The Scottish Greens, the Jacobite Party and an independent got 2.8% between them.

Proportionately, on this vote and on 35 available council seats (36 members less 1 representing the 2.8% ‘other’ vote) here is pattern to be expected:

The LibDems should have 11 councillors.
The Tories should have 8 or 9.
Labour should have 8.
The SNP should have 7.

The impact of the independents, largely disguising their personal political affiliations for political gain, is interesting.

In a largely rural constituency whose largest town, Helensburgh, is not industrialised, local politicians with Labour leanings clearly run in camouflage – which means the loss of the social justice agenda one would expect to be a lively part of debate – although debate, as we understand it to be, does not feature in the chamber of Argyll and Bute Council.

There is an obvious consensus to disguise significant Tory sympathies. These are openly expressed for Conservative candidates at the General Election and clearly deflected to Independents known but not declared to be of that persuasion at local authority level.

The disjunction between the LibDem general election vote and its representation at local authority level resists political analysis since its political philosophy – until its membership of the current UK coalition government with the Tories – is generally inoffensive. Anecdotally, the reason for several previously LibDem-aligned councillors running as independents is a tendency within the group for being quarrelsome.

The SNP is the only political group punching above its weight at local authority level. Given its core philosophy of fostering an independent Scotland, it is arguable that candidates proud of a strong Scottish identity would be the least likely to disguise their political affiliation in running for election.

How the council doesn’t work

Conduct in the council is poor. Both the elected membership and the salaried staff are riven by a culture of bullying. Some of this is specific to inadequately managed powerful individuals and much of it is endemic to a system of local government which simply does not fit today’s society – and has not done so for some time. Local government reform is long overdue.

Councillors are accountable – only just – but not responsible. Senior executives are responsible (only just) – but are not accountable.

Councilors are not paid to be, equipped to be or, by the relevant Code of Practice, allowed to be responsible.
Senior executives, on the evidence, carry lightly the weight of their responsibilities and willingly shelter behind their non-accountabilty. In the private sector, disastrous projects like Oban Airport, the Port Askaig pier development and the expensive failure to produce competent school closure proposals would incur immediate dismissal or resignation.

These are major public sector problems. It’s only public money, It’s only performance in the public interest. Who”ll notice? Who can prove it? Who cares?

Nobody is effectively in charge of anything. Everyone has some kind of ‘get out of jail free’ card to play. And they do.

Audit Scotland is the major regulator of their financial conduct and performance,.

The government of the day is their interface with funding.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) – a moribund but territorially protective lobby, is their trade union.

And every four years the electors of Argyll and Bute are in the driving seat.

The 2012 Scottish local government elections will be the most interesting for a long time, the most politicised and fought before the most widely knowing electorate.

This is the inevitable result of the eye-opening experience of so many of Argyll’s communities as they watched and suffered from the council’s astonishingly incompetent and cavalier management of the school closures fandango.

Here is our analysis of the situation in the 2012 local government election. (coming)