Swindon Election - Within a Hair's Breadth

Labour came within touching distance of taking control of Swindon Borough Council last night, but it was no cigar for the reds.

They did claim a significant piece of turf, taking another seat in the Eastcott ward, out of an area the Lib Dems often claim to be their Swindon home (that home now very small, a bedsit room in an Eastcott HMO probably).

But the yellow's did win in Wroughton & Wichelstowe from the Conservatives, showing that the retired, wealthy blue voters over the M4 can't always be relied upon.

So there is now a one seat Tory majority Swindon Borough Council. Full results here.

Labour will now be pinning their hopes on a by-election that they can gain a seat and the council by.

Any families or gardens out there that need to have more time spent with them?

Anyone?

Swindon Election : The Tory Legacy - The Monetisation of Swindon

If the Tories lose their majority on Swindon Borough Council tomorrow it'll mark the passing of an era that's a microcosm of Conservative national policy on one location.

Ultimately it'll mark the passing of the era that shifted from a full-service local authority to the tendering-out of much of it's function, then as the financial crisis started to bite the spinning-off of various remaining parts in an effort to make them profit-centres for SBC. Realising that was impossible for most parts and the cost of bringing them back in house and the final incarnation, an SBC cut back to beyond the bone, with vital bits missing, operating barely with minimal or no financial support and an entire absence of experience and knowledge from it's senior officers.

It saw a body of politicians so out of touch with it's own electorate (scared? Probably) that it imposed a new level of local bureaucracy (parish councils) to offload services and itemise the parish precept to them with explaining it away with "you're paying more because there's a parish now" despite the idiocy of many Borough councillors also now being Parish councillors at the same time.

The loss of economies of scale in contracting, purchasing and administration mean you are paying more and you are getting less, be in no doubt. This advert shows nearly £26,000 for a deputy parish clerk in one parish, plus they'll need an office, a PC, printer/photocopier, a website, I.T. support...

That's not even mentioning wringing cash out of Thamesdown Transport in the good years, then turning face and saying it was responsible when councillors chose to cut bus subsidy to lightly-used routes that could never be commercially run. Then of course selling it off in the end.

Then there's the £400,000 they gave to a businessman and we never saw again, the closure of Sure Start Centres, the axe swung in Dial-a-Ride's direction, the shock-doctrine threatened closure of all the town's libraries (except one), the Lydiard Park cock-up but the continued subsidy to Steam, the sacrifice of land around Coate Water, the roads to nowhere for a decade at Wichelstowe, the privatisation of Swindon Commercial Services (then that being reversed), the spinning-off of adult social care (SEQOL), the bizarre situation where they sponsored the town's half marathon, then it's return to council ownership, and on and on and on.

None of the above was inevitable, councillors get to choose what happens when they run a town, the choices may be limited in some situations, but they still exist.

Swindon has a choice tomorrow, we can choose to have a town with a council who's officers and politicians truly are the servants of the people. Or we can carry on like this.

The choice is ours.

Swindon Elections : Welcome to your Rotten Parish

The hopes of the new Swindon parishes being a haven from traditional party politics were dashed, as the usual battles were fought last night.

The only things to note :

- The uncontesting of many wards by the Tories, are they afraid of Labour in their traditional strongholds?

- The number of independents that ran and won.

- The level of 'gotta get a double seat' by candidates who now have the bizarre, but self-inflicted situation of representing the same ward as a local Borough councillor and now as a Parish councillor, surely a conflict of interest and pointless ultimately. Are they going to disagree with themselves?

- The return of the previously politically dead former local Borough councillors that were persuaded by HQ to return as a parish councillor as they can do it while they sleep the sleep of the undead.

- The very unwelcome return of the disgraced former Mayor.

- The family affair of many candidates, often in the same seats, husbands and wives, mothers and sons, partners, you can imagine it must be a riot in those households of an evening.

So parishing has done exactly what people feared, created an entirely unwanted and unnecessary new layer of administration, with, mostly, the same people in charge of the biggest parts of the town (bar the independents) and a lack of imagination, especially from the Tories, with the wheeling out of undead former councillors to fill the gaps.

Onto the general.

U-Turn If You Want To : Courtliff's Back In The Room

Less than 24 hours after announcing he was crossing the floor to Conservatives, Councillor Matthew Courtliff (Labour, Conservative, Labour. Freshbrook & Lydiard) has now u-turned and is back with Swindon Labour.

He describes it as the "most stupid 24 hours of my life".

More details to follow after we finish hitting our head against a wall.

Does Courtliff's Trust In Swindon Tories Prove Lydiard's a Done Deal?

There may have been more questions last night than answers after Councillor Matthew Courtliff's floor-crossing to the Tories, but has one answer already been settled?

If the assurances that have been given to Councillor Courtliff by the Tories on Lydiard are solid, then does that mean a trust organisation is almost guaranteed to take over the park and house?

Has a councillor's bit of political theatre also given us the last act in the Lydiard saga?

Labour Courtliff's Tory Defection Throws "honesty, integrity and humility" Out The Window

Councillor Matthew Courtliff (Labour, Conservative, Lydiard & Freshbrook) shocked Swindon politics tonight by defecting to the Tories.

He promised "I will always serve you with my values of honour, integrity and humility".

Just five months after being elected almost entirely on a 'no to selling off Lydiard Park' mandate, he has crossed the floor after reportedly being given assurances by the Tory group on Lydiard's future.

He also appears to have deleted his Twitter account.

How can assurances be given when bidding is still underway?

Does this show how desperate Swindon Tories are to hang onto SBC control by making promises in return for a floor-crossing?

How can Councillor Courtliff now defend Swindon Conservative plans for the asset-stripping of Swindon, having campaigned against them to get elected?

How can Councillor Courtliff justify his position without a by-election after changing party?

What state does this leave Swindon Labour in? A dire one it can only be concluded.

There are many questions in the rotten borough tonight, but few answers.

Holland 1 - 0 Mattock

Councillor Russell Holland has been appointed as the new Deputy Leader of Swindon Borough Council following the local election last week.

Labour won in Old Town and East Wichel causing Councillor Former Councillor Brian Mattock to lose his seat and his Deputy Leader title with it as well.

Dial-A-Conservative-Cut

A cut of £100,000 from £300,000 will have to be stomached by the good folk that run the Dial-A-Ride service.

As per usual, Dale Heenan just doesn't get it regarding the Swindon Labour's objections to the cut, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop the ruling Swindon Conservative top brass from objecting in principle to the cuts it is being made to impose by central government.

However, no matter how bitter the pill, Swindon Conservatives have been swallowing everything handed to them by Whitehall.

Have they formally objected once and asked for a better deal? The ability to raise council tax above and beyond the approved level? To ask for a reexamination of the local government grant?

No of course they haven't. They may wield all the power, but none of the courage and compassion of their office.

Swindon Elections - Labour, Lydiard and Losing Mattock Man

Labour gained two seats from the Swindon Conservatives in last night's local elections, and it all couldn't have been more local if you'd tried.

Lydiard & Freshbrook went to Labour from the Conservatives because they campaigned hard on Lydiard Park and House, getting the message and the groundwork right.

Up on the hill, Jane Milner-Barry won for them on pushing the parishing issue (which no-one, even many in the Swindon Conservatives fully understand), but also the Lydiard sell-off/lease-off issue was big too for voters in Old Town.

Worse for the Tories was that Milner Barry took the seat from the Deputy Leader of Swindon Borough Council  Former Deputy Leader, Councillor Former Councillor Brian Mattock (or as we like to call him, Mattock Man after 'his' astonishing list of achievements in his leaflet). But this picture of him is priceless (scroll down to 12.15am)

Once again Stan Pajak retained Eastcott, despite a very strong push by Labour (the Lib Dems won it by 228), and despite being the man who campaigned on being the local candidate, but actually doesn't live in the ward.

Now, you servants of Swindon's people, don't disappoint us.

Swindon Election Leaflets - Of Parishes and Politics

Trying to explain the ludicrous proposals on parishing the whole of Swindon (to save Swindon's Borough Tories foundation-stone of their time in office of not raising council tax, it seems it's the only thing they really do honestly believe in) is difficult.

However Jane-Milner Barry, standing for Labour in Old Town & East Wichel has done it well in her, well, can it be called election leaflet if it was sent round in February? 

Okay, pre-election leaflet.

If there's a single voter in Swindon that thinks it's a good idea, chances are they think the Bruce Street Bungle works were efficiently done.

The Lib Dem League of 'Local' Gentleman

A rash of election leaflets demand a little more than a cursory glance if Councillor Stan Pajak's is anything to go by.

Councillor Pajak's leaflet uses the word 'local' a total of 8 times and even goes to the trouble of pointing out where he lives in relation to Eastcott ward. He rails against the 'faceless' Labour candidate who lives in Abbey Meads and writes 'you deserve a 'local councillor who cares because they live here too!'

Two minutes-worth of checking finds that Councillor Pajak doesn't actually live in Eastcott ward, but in Walcot and Park North ward.

Whoops!

The dismantling of Swindon 2 : Now they've come for our libraries

First it was leisure centres, then it was Lydiard, now it's the libraries.

The dismantling of Swindon's civic infrastructure has taken a frightening twist.

Swindon Borough Council wants to cut the budget for Swindon Libraries by 65% by 2020, and wants to save £300,000 in the next year. Eventually, it wants 14 of the 15 libraries to be run by volunteers, with the Central Library being the only SBC-funded library in the entire borough by 2020 (no doubt with less services in it than currently).

That's it. No other option, it would seem, is being entertained by SBC. 

Last year, Swindon Libraries loaned 1,013,108 books. That's 5 for every person in the borough.

Last year, Swindon Libraries had 1,049,172 people visit.

Out of 16 comparator authorities, Swindon Libraries came third for engaging with the public, placing Swindon 3rd for the number of active borrowers per 1,000 population.

Despite being a smaller library service, in the South West, Swindon Libraries is ranked 2nd for number of visits and 1st for the number of books issued.

Swindon Borough Councillors will talk endlessly about making the town better, about vague visions, aspirations and a town we can be proud of with a new museum and art gallery, a university, waves of private sector investment and a town centre that's nice to look at and be in.

Well here's a bit of our town that functions well, actually, better than well, excellently well when compared with library services in many other places and costs us each 3 pence a day. Yes, changes are needed, but cutting out a town's access to a high quality service that serves children, young families, students, the jobless, the socially isolated, the economically isolated, the geographically isolated, the uneducated, the education-hungry, the elderly, ethnic minorities, the poor, those with learning difficulties, those with dementia, the homeless, the new arrivals, visitors, those with low confidence but high hopes, the weak, the ill, the ambitious, the studious, the driven, the curious - the people of Swindon, is a cruel and cowardly act.

Who amongst our councillors will stand and fight against this and for all these people above? 

Do they have the guts? 

Because they certainly have the votes, because we elected them.

Our town's motto is 'Salubritas et Industria' translated as 'health and industry', a healthy town is an educated one, the Victorians knew that, but it appears Swindon Borough Council either doesn't understand it, or doesn't care. 

Maybe they need to visit a library for some help.

From a Rotten Borough to Rotten Parishes

The proposals by Swindon Borough Council to create parish councils to cover the entirety of the Borough of Swindon should be exposed for the rotten idea it is.

After the regular rises of council tax by the Labour administration, the Conservatives in Swindon have made constant political capital ever since that they have not raised council tax since 2010.

The ever increasing (and shifting) demands on SBC, namely adult social care, make this 'no increase ever' position, look increasingly at odds with helping those most in need.

Rather than bite the bullet and be brave enough to admit that being responsible means paying a bit more, SBC has proposed to hive off most local authority jobs to new parish councils, allowing them to be seen as the bad guys, with the separate cost of the parish handily itemised in the SBC council tax bill.

The result? SBC continues to 'operate' (but what will it be left to do?) at 0% increase in council tax, therefore allowing Swindon Tories to save face (and campaign on it in future elections), whilst being seen to give power back to more 'responsive' parish councils (because if they're small, they must be effective right? Because in the true-blue handbook, small is beautiful, especially when talking about government). The parish councils, which will no doubt be campaigned for and possibly filled by Labour, seen as one step by them to regain control of SBC, who will then take all the flak and blame for the increase in council tax to pay for the new parishes.

In one perfect move, Swindon's Tories are seen to give power back in a micro-devolution, whilst making Swindon Labour shoulder the rise in council tax to pay for the parishes and at the same time, getting a load of SBC services off 'their' books.

Are Swindon Tories about to oversee the final dismantling of Swindon Borough Council? Seems so, and they're going to get Labour to pay for it!

Swindon Political Sense Takes a Walk In The (Lydiard) Park

Swindon Labour claim Swindon Borough Council may be about to sell off Lydiard Park

Swindon Conservatives claim that's entirely false.

This Swindon Borough Council document proves that the ownership status of Lydiard Park (along with Steam, Stanton Park, Coate Water and the Platform) is up in the air in an effort to make them pay their way.

Swindon Centric Says : Is the ownership of Swindon's Crown Jewels a line that simply cannot be crossed for some politicians, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem? Looks like we're about to find out.

Will Swindon's May election be won or lost on who will not sell Lydiard?

Partnership Working - The Sop for Swindon's Budget Cuts

Whether it's the Big Conversation, or the One Swindon Partnership, Swindon Borough Council seems eager to keep making a lot of getting by with very little.

In the run-up to the 2010 General Election, much was made of how government departments and agencies would need to work closer, sharing budgets, staff, equipment and more as budget cuts were coming. This policy was embraced strongly by Swindon Borough Council with both arms, as they rushed to work out how to save £15 million from one year to the next. Much was made of moving the council towards just being an 'enabler' (which sounds creepy) that would let contracts to companies to do all the jobs the local authority had previously carried out.

Another main plank was getting departments of the council, it's 'partners' (mainly it's hugely contracted-to-do-everything Capita and Swindon Commercial Services) and even, in the longer term, other neighbouring local authorities, to work in partnership to provide service and projects.

It seems even nearly 4 years later, if the word 'partnership' can be tacked onto anything, no matter how unnecessary the service or project, it's elevated to a solid level of respectability. However there's a big problem that's now being hit and that's money.

Getting departments and organisations to get to know each other and build up local knowledge is fine and should be encouraged, but trying to squeeze the same amount of productivity as pre-2010 from a council that has mostly part-time staff, tiny departments and have lost much of their local knowledge is trying to simply deny the simple truth.

If you want greater productivity and a council that plans properly for the future, we need to spend money on it. Otherwise all that'll be left is a person manning a telephone desk and a warehouse full of orange paint.

Are their any councillors arguing for investment into council manpower? Strategies and partnerships don't empty the bins.

Swindon's Buses : Our Local Councillors' Political Panic Room

If you catch the bus in Swindon, whether it's Stagecoach, Thamesdown, Wilts and Dorset, or even National Express, you may not have realised that your method of transport has become a political safe ground for the town's politicians.

Since the reduction in bus subsidy locally by Swindon Borough Council and the reduction in the Bus Service Operator Grant, the attitude of councillors towards this method of transport has become something to observe.

But even back in May 2010, we got an early warning of what was to come in terms of councillors attitude (http://swindoncentric.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/omnibus-obfuscation.html).

However, after the cutting of carparking charges in the town centre and the rise in people walking through the town centre, those two events were linked as cause and effect. Something that was not taken into account included businesses taking car parking spaces for their employees (that would also show up as a 'shopper' in the council view of things, with an office worker walking past the cameras recording the numbers whilst doing their Monday to Friday '9 to 5') and the number of 'shoppers' traveling to and from the town centre by bus (or indeed train).

Why was the effect of bus travel on town centre footfall not distinguished? It could be the love-hate relationship that Swindon Borough Council appear to have with their own bus company, Thamesdown Transport. Don't forget, the council own Thamesdown Transport. Love, because in the good times, it can generate a welcomed income for the council and the fallback is always available of selling TT if things get really bad and we build even more roads to nowhere at Wichelstowe and we suddenly have to really pay for them. And hate because councillors can (and indeed have been doing a lot recently) of faux outrage when TT announce a proposed change to a bus route to keep themselves in the black. 

These route changes wouldn't be needed if Swindon Borough Council hadn't decided to cut it's bus subsidy in half from £400,000 to £200,000 to balance it's books. What's made worse is that councillors continue to play politics as they 'battle' to save services that everyone knows don't have a hope in hell's chance of lasting commercially because there aren't enough passengers.

But instead of explaining that the only way to keep them running is to put council subsidy into them, councillors rally against the bus companies (including Thamesdown, which the council and therefore every single taxpayer in Swindon owns) and blame the big bad bus companies!

So once and for all, Swindon councillors, stop cutting bus subsidies for unprofitable routes and then blaming the bus company when they can't make it pay it's way with a handful of passengers a day and need to close it.

The town, it's bus passengers and especially all those staff at Thamesdown Transport deserve better transport politics than using the bus as your political safe ground.

Arse!

At least in the Swindon Twitter storm, this wasn't said.

The Councillor Scorecard

The engagement of residents in local politics is something that only often reaches a critical mass on single-issues.

What will it take to engage people day-to-day?

This question sits uncomfortably alongside that of the effectiveness and efficiency of local councillors. As Swindon Centric has talked about, too often local councillors consist of a wide-range of abilities, motivations and interpersonal skills. A way to get councillors who only seem to surface from their sleep at election time is to make them take ownership of their ward.

Why not create a scorecard for each ward, using some simple housekeeping targets? What percentage of streetlights don't work? The level of cleanliness, with scores for graffiti, litter, dumped rubbish, the quality of street furniture and more. Councillors would not be set targets, but monthly totals could be kept and be easily accessible via the Swindon Borough Council website. This would make councillors be responsible (truly take ownership) for 'their patch', would get them out on the streets of the voters who they represent and would give them first hand 'shop-front' experience of reporting defective services and see that report through to the problem being resolved.

This would not be a replacement for residents reporting problems themselves, but many people do not seem to even know they can report a raft of issues for quick fixes, especially the Council's Streetsmart service simply and quickly by phone and email.

Swindon Centric Says ; This would truly give residents the ability to see how committed councillors are to their wards.

UPDATED : I'd like to see a set of figures each month covering those 'basic standards' (percentage of working street lights, graffiti tags logged and cleaned, rubbish dumping logged and cleared, etc). The onus would be put on councillors that they should take an active role in reporting these and reducing them in their wards, walking a 'beat' and noting down what needs doing and reporting it to Streetsmart for rectifying.

The community clean-up days we see most wards have occurring once a year gets councillors a nice shot of publicity, but this type of 'roll up your sleeves' should be a daily, second-nature attitude. Keeping a tally on the 'housekeeping' in each ward would give an indication as to how active your councillor is.

Swindon's Very Own Shock Doctrine

The stateside version of this, with some variances, covered on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show

If your streetlights have been broken for an age and the graffiti on your walls has now got moss growing on it, it could because of Swindon Councillors subscribing to the 'Shock Doctrine'.

The theory by-which governments push through major neo-conservative policies (privatisation, liberalisation of constraints on industry, simplifying government processes, etc) when a citizenry is in 'shock' from a disaster has and is happening in Swindon.

The disaster? The financial crisis, the credit crunch, the following recession, stalled recovery and now double-dip recession.

We're constantly being told, and have been, by the ruling councillors at Swindon Borough Council that there is not any money for basic services in the way they have been provided before.

How has this policy been followed? There's so many to mention -

- The privatisation of Swindon Commercial Services (the works department of the Council, now run to make a profit and wholly owned by Swindon Borough Council as an investment interest).

- The spinning-off of adult social care in Swindon to another organisation.

- The cutting back of hundreds of front-line staff in Swindon Borough Council, from libraries to park rangers.

- The administration of benefits to Swindon residents now provided by Capita, not Swindon Borough Council.

- The attempted privatisation of Swindon's entire assets of it's Council Housing stock. This was prevented after a vote by council house tenants.

- To a derived point, the Wi-Failed scheme. One of the numerous reasons given for the scheme was that the council now had to look at ways of producing revenue (making money).

- The latest, the transfer of green spaces to house-building companies.

- The transfer of the Oasis leisure centre and a chunk of land at North Star to a private investment company to refurbish the centre and build a snow dome and other leisure facilities, to be operated by them and not Swindon Borough Council.

Swindon Centric Says ; The constant banging of this drum of 'if we don't reduce our deficit it'll come and attack you in a lonely alleyway' is spin, as Swindon Borough Council seem happy-enough to run up record debts building infrastructure at Wichelstowe.

Why are Swindon Borough Councillors happy to spend money on easy things like roads and paths to tempt house builders, but won't work hard to come up with a detailed, costed, long-term, council-funded plan to rebuild assets?

Have our councillors become lazy and unknowledgeable? For Swindon, it should be renamed The Shock and Lazy Doctrine.

The Mayor of Simpleton

 How strange it would be if the Queen was to vote in a Commons or Lords situation, shaking the foundations of the system.

On a local level, that's about to happen in Swindon.

The Conservative Group have a majority of one in the recent local council elections, which means in the event of a tie, the Mayor (which is largely a ceremonial position, despite the selected mayor being an elected councillor) will, like-never-before, be called upon to cast the deciding vote. The new Mayor, Councillor Mick Bray (Conservative, of the Lydiard and Freshbrook ward) may find it increasingly difficult to justify his position as he votes on issues in the council chamber one moment, then remains non-political whilst grinning for the cameras and having cake at his official mayor duties the next.

 Swindon Centric Says ; We live in interesting times.