For reasons of ease of use I will be posting all future items at this address: http://cllrjeremyrowe.wordpress.com, although this site will still be maintained as an archive of postings since October 2009. If you are kind enough to link to this site I would be most grateful if you could update to the new address.

Yesterday, rescheduled at short notice, Cornwall Council held a long meeting to discuss the Conservative-led administration’s “emergency” budget. (I posted our group’s four amendments here a few days ago, and it won’t surprise you to learn that the Council’s ruling coalition were able to summon enough votes to ensure that none of them were passed. There was also a further amendment on staffing put forward by the Mebyon Kernow group which we supported but which the administration managed to defeat by a single vote.)

It was a disappointing day in a number of respects, and the tone was set by the Leader’s opening speech in which he made a series of lazy party political statements and decided to single out Doris Ansari and me for personal criticism before we’d even taken part in the debate. The end result of yesterday’s deliberations is an unnecessarily savage set of cuts which will do nothing but damage to our rural communities, the morale of the Council’s hard-working staff and – most importantly – those who depend on Cornwall Council in areas like Adult Social Care.

Our amendments tried to protect funding for Adult Social Care, Libraries and Leisure Services from within the budget constraints imposed by the Coalition Government but the administration showed no willingness to listen. In fact, the whole democratic process seemed to be something of an irritation to them. The Deputy Leader (who assured us he is “good with numbers”) questioned the impertinence of the opposition groups for coming forward with other ideas. His message seemed to be “Do as we tell you – we know best”. In addition we asked for recorded votes on these amendments so that Councillors would have nowhere to hide when asked to justify their decisions, but these requests were met with groans from the administration’s benches – democratic accountability is apparently a real pain for them.

I didn’t form the impression that there was much understanding of this budget from those who were voting for it. The Leader’s rhetoric was largely a rehash of every statement the Council’s Chief Executive has made in recent months (especially the stuff about not acting like a glorified District Council) and it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the administration has been led unthinking into the unknown.

And there lies the other great disappointment: the fundamental lack of detail in the budget. This didn’t stop the administration’s backbenchers taking the plunge, however. What many of them failed to understand was that, as elected representatives, they should all have an understanding of what exactly it was that they’d agreed to – it will be no use denying all knowledge when leisure facilities start to close and mobile library services have been withdrawn from remote communities.

The other question that no one was able to give an adequate answer to was, why the rush? I understand the Chief Executive’s logic behind tackling the issue early (even if I don’t share it) but we are just a matter of days away from the government setting out the local government grant position. It would surely have been more sensible to await this information before wielding the axe. Instead Cornwall Council has already played all of its cards and made the government’s job easy. A daft and inexplicable tactic.

In spite of all the damage inflicted by the administration yesterday, Cornwall Council’s staff will still manage to work miracles within the constraints imposed. But questions must now be asked of the Independent group. Many of them were bold enough to think for themselves yesterday and not simply take on trust what they were told by the people on the top floor at County Hall, but how much longer will the rest of them prop up an administration which already seems to have forgotten who it is supposed to be working for?

Tonight (Saturday 4th) will see the last performance of Camhayle Theatre Club‘s production of Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘Table Manners’. I went to see the show on Thursday night and it was one of the most entertaining nights out I’ve had in a long time.

The play was beautifully put together by Cliff Snell, Di Beynon and their backstage staff and there were great performances from the actors, Jaime Hawkey, Kat Vincent, Jem Marshall, Kevin Punter, Ivan Langton and Kym Hall. I can’t recommend the show strongly enough and I’m pretty sure it’ll be a far better Saturday evening’s entertainment than the X Factor.

Tickets will be available on the door priced at £6.

Cornwall Council’s meeting to discuss the administration’s emergency budget has been postponed due to the weather conditions in the west of Cornwall. I will post updated details when I have them.

UPDATE: This meeting has been rescheduled for 10.30am on Friday 3rd December.

Cornwall Council meets tomorrow to discuss and decide on the Tory-led administration’s ‘Emergency’ Budget proposals. Given the climate of cuts coming from the Coalition government some changes to the Council’s budgetary arrangements will be unavoidable but tomorrow’s proposals are deeply flawed in many respects, not least the concept of ‘front-loading’ whereby the administration plans to make savage cuts far earlier than is actually necessary.

The Liberal Democrat Group at Cornwall Council has tabled four amendments to the Budget and the essence of these is as follows:

Firstly we feel that the Cabinet’s proposals for Adult Social Care have the potential to leave elderly care in Cornwall deeply exposed. Shirley Polmounter and Mario Fonk have therefore put forward an amendment to ensure that the administration’s proposed additional fees and charges are ringfenced for use by the Council’s Adult Social Care service rather than disappearing into another unidentified area of Council spending.

Secondly there is great concern about the administration’s proposals for the Library Service. This is probably the most efficient area of Council spending and we believe that the level of cuts proposed simply cannot be nodded through, particularly given the disgraceful absence of detail in the Cabinet’s proposals. Therefore Alex Folkes and Les Donnithorne are proposing that the Library Service is supported until the Cabinet come up with some detail and that any shortfall is provided from the Leader of the Council’s ‘Contingency’ budget.

The third area is around the proposals for cuts to Leisure Services such as Bude Sea Pool, the Jubilee Pool at Penzance and Camelford Leisure Centre. Nathan Bale and Tamsin Williams have put forward an amendment which will stop the wanton destruction of these facilities and allow local people the time they need to come up with alternative funding arrangements.

The final aspect is around the general lack of detail in the budget proposals. Ann Kerridge and I have put forward an amendment which essentially states that the Council cannot be expected to blindly vote on budget cuts when no detail has been provided by the administration. We are therefore suggesting that any cuts that are put forward after tomorrow’s meetings should be fully discussed by the Council’s Scrutiny committees before a final decision is taken by the full membership.

Tomorrow promises (threatens?) to be a long day of debate around the future of public services in Cornwall. If you want to see how this very important meeting unfolds you can watch the Council webcast by following this link.

With a bit of luck the worst of the itching is now over as I attempt to shrug off the ‘unshaven teenage top lip’ look over the next twelve days. I must offer a huge thank you to Andrew Reeves, one of the UK’s top bloggers, for giving me a plug on his page yesterday and for prompting me to post a reminder here.

In case you don’t know, Movember is the annual campaign to raise funds and awareness for the treatment and prevention of prostate cancer, and is the probable cause of many of the foolish-looking moustaches you may have spotted over the past few days. It is, of course, a fantastically worthwhile cause which you can find out more about here and, if you’re feeling particularly generous, you can make a donation to the Prostate Cancer Charity by either of the following methods:

• Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account. Or,

• Send cheques and CAF vouchers (made payable to ‘The Prostate Cancer Charity Re Movember’) directly to The Prostate Cancer Charity – First Floor, Cambridge House, Cambridge Grove, London W6 0LE. Be sure to include the person’s name on the back of the cheque.

The Prostate Cancer Charity will use the money raised by Movember for the development of programs related to awareness, public education, advocacy, support of those affected, and research into the prevention, detection, treatment and cure of prostate cancer.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used and the impact Movember is having please visit http://uk.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs.

Those councillors and members of the public who attended the recent Communities Committee budget scrutiny meeting all appear to have left the room with the same impression of the short term future of Camelford Leisure Centre. The facility had been threatened with closure due to the removal of Cornwall Council funding but – at the eleventh hour – it seemed that the Conservative Cabinet Member had pulled a rabbit out of the hat to finance the Centre for a further year.

This certainly seemed to take the sting out of what threatened to be a highly awkward meeting for the Tory-led administration and local residents, who had campaigned hard to make their case against closure, left feeling that at least there was something to work towards. All of that changed last night.

I and other councillors have received a number of emails from those fighting to protect the facilities expressing their dismay at the administration’s sudden attempt to back away from its announcement. In what represents a blatant moving of the goalposts, Cornwall Council are now saying they only offered the Centre less than half the amount required – not the impression gained by anyone else who was at the Scrutiny Committee that day.

Here is the text of one of the emails:

Tonight the people of North Cornwall were betrayed.

At the first meeting of the working group, set up to look at the options for Camelford Leisure Centre following the promise by The Leader (via Cllr Symons) of full funding for the next year and a lot less for the year after, the message was clear from the Council – the full funding amounts to £50k for next year and £10k for the year after – less than 45% of what was promised.

This move effectively kills off the hopes of the people that the council would give the time for a sustainable solution to be sought.

A detailed proposal was put to the councillors, but the campaign were effectively told that it would not have the time to put it in place.

All this despite significant issues on HR, joint ownership, and the speed at which a trust could be set up.

The community were prepared to work hard to assess all the options and put in long hours to do so, but the question on many lips tonight is “can the council be trusted?”

Amid claims from the Councillor that the funding was not promised at the level that most who attended the scrutiny meeting thought it had, there were recriminations that North Cornwall has to bear the brunt of the cuts.

There is a nasty wiff about this about-turn.

– 
Save Camelford Sportscentre

I cannot understand why the Council have behaved this way towards the residents of Camelford and the surrounding area. While there would have been great disappointment, there would have been a great deal more respect for this decision had it been announced openly and transparently at the Scrutiny meeting. Instead we all sat through a charade of misdirection intended to take the heat out of an awkward situation. Cornwall Council’s ruling administration will have no one else to blame if, as seems likely, their reputation among many residents in North Cornwall now lies in tatters.

Confusion reigned at today’s Communities Committee when the topic of Localism was raised. Previously this area of the Council’s work had been scrutinised by this committee but questions were raised today as to why it had been moved outside of our remit and who made the decision. Nobody seemed to know. An officer was dispatched to find someone who could answer the question, prompting the above tweet from Robert Rush, who was present for the item on Camelford Leisure Centre.

While this comment made me smile, it does seem that the administration at Cornwall Council has something of an issue with the whole concept of ‘localism’. The Cabinet Member has consistently avoided answering questions on the topic at Full Council, the Area Networks were emasculated early on in the life of the authority and now it seems that the Communities Committee, the obvious place for the Localism Service to be scrutinised, is to be prevented from doing its job in this area. The Leader made some vague comments about a “bottom up” approach but, to be honest, nobody was any the wiser as a result of his intervention.

It leaves me, and many others, deeply concerned about Cornwall Council’s future commitment to Localism.

Cornwall Council’s ‘Scrutiny’ committees have been meeting this week to examine the Tory-led administration’s emergency budget proposals. Today was the turn of the committee I sit on, the Communities OSC. Our remit, among other things, is to scrutinise the Cabinet’s plans for Fire & Rescue, Housing, Libraries, Leisure Services, Historic Collections and Culture. The meeting was long and (at times) painful, but I felt all members of the committee – including the Conservatives – asked the right questions of the Cabinet members and officers whose proposals we were considering.

The recommendations the committee made to the meeting of the Full Council later this month were limited (the process doesn’t leave too much scope for backbench involvement) but largely worthwhile, including a recommendation that the Council should seek to work more closely with the Devon & Cornwall Police to find ways to use budgets more effectively. A Tory proposal to reduce the Community Safety budget (which includes the Fire Service) was easily defeated, but there was serious concern from all sides over the plans for Cornwall’s Library Service.

Significant cuts are proposed for the service (in common with most areas of the Council’s budget) but the detail was painfully thin on the ground. As a committee we felt we couldn’t reasonably comment on these proposals without at least some indication as to where the axe was going to fall, but no information was forthcoming.

To be honest I felt sorry for the officer who was put forward to present the plans. He had clearly been hung out to dry by the administration and had to deal with a range of angry questions from councillors who, understandably, felt that the withholding of such crucial information was an outrage. Consequently the committee supported a Lib Dem proposal to demand more detail from the Cabinet before we potentially give the green light to plans which might see rural communities suffer a further loss of important services.

Full Council on the 30th promises to be a long day…