Philip Parkin

The council cabinet has agreed the development framework for Sutton Coldfield Town Centre, setting out the vision for its long-term regeneration. This is a signficant step forward for the town centre, and not just for local residents. As the largest suburban town centre in the city, it has a vital role to play in the regeneration of Birmingham and the wider region.

The document is also an excellent example of the importance of wide, public consultation, a point I made in the press last week:

I am extremely proud of the Sutton Town Centre Regeneration Framework which was approved by the Council Cabinet last week. To finally have in place a Supplementary Planning Document, which will guide future development in the town centre, represents a significant milestone for Sutton Coldfield. Right from the start we were determined to make sure that the views of residents would guide the framework, and Andrew Mitchell MP, as well as your councillors, ensured that the the six week statutory consultation period was doubled to three months so that everyone would have the opportunity to have their say. The exhibitions held at the Mall, and the library, were extremely well attended by members of the public and numerous meetings were held at neighbourhood fora and ward committees. And, of course, we were very lucky to have the whole process overseen by Elizabeth Allison, Chair of the Sutton Civic Society. This was particularly appropriate given our strong determination to preserve the historic legacy of the town. And the views of residents have clearly been taken into account in the finished document. A number of the original ideas remain, of course, because they were supported by the vast majority of the people who commented. However, the consultation has led to either changes or the strengthening of  many of the draft proposals.

The Arts Council has launched a £500,000 initiative to help turn empty shops into creative spaces. With the Local Government Association warning that high streets run the risk of becoming ‘ghost towns’ unless urgent action is taken to find other uses for recession-hit retail units, displaying local art should go some way towards maintaining or improving the vibrancy of town centres.

This kind of initiative is obviously not going to benefit the local economy in the same way that a new (rate paying) business would, and at best it’s a temporary measure, but it should at the very least help shops from falling into disrepair. And of course ‘animating the high street’ and getting art and creative enterprises out of their usual spaces is always a good thing, with a successful town centre clearly being about more than just shopping.

Applications from individuals and organisations in Birmingham should be looked on favourably, with the city fulfilling criteria such as already being in receipt of DCLG funding and having a (fledgling) network of town centre managers in place. And the kind of activity that will be funded is fairly broad, too, with the Arts Council looking to fund anything from art to recording studios to family arts workshops.

If anyone is interested in applying for a project in Sutton Coldfield town centre, please let me know.

Research by The Standards Board has found that the public believe local councillors to be more trustworthy than local MPs.

The Board’s Chief Exec, Glenys Stacey, is pleased that “trust in local politicians (has) held up favourably compared to people’s views about national politicians.” But the figures are really not that good, with 20% feeling that councillors ‘rarely or never’ tell the truth. And although the questions were asked at the height of the MPs expenses scandal, the results are clearly heading in the wrong direction:

Table: Percentage responses to: How often do you think the following types of people tell the truth?

It would be fascinating to see some examples behind the allegations of mendacity, though. I don’t think that a significant number of councillors ‘fiddle’ their expenses (the rules are strict and the amounts avaliable relatively low) and I don’t believe that they deliberately mislead residents, either. And, besides, non-executive councillors (the majority) don’t tend to be responsible for ‘pushing through’ controversial policies – they’re usually fighting on behalf of residents to counter the effects of ill-thought out legislation, ever mindful that this is the kind of stuff that gets remembered come polling day.

The debate rages on about Birmingham’s most famous carbuncle, with Andy Foster, chairman of the Friends of Central Library, continuing to make the case for its survival. 

And there does seem to be a strong ‘architectural’ argument for keeping the building.

Designed by a local architect, John Madin, the library is one of Birmingham’s key Modernist buildings and a notable example of the Brutalist style. Its ‘inverted ziggurat’ form – think upside ‘stepped’ pyramid – has attracted worldwide acclaim. 

And of course, one of its biggest problems is that it was never properly finished: it was meant to be marble-clad but the budget ran out, and plans for the landscaped gardens (with five pools!), that would have softened its design, were never followed through.

Unfortunately, however, the building seems to have long since lost the PR battle, and a lack of maintenance over the years as well as the state of neighbouring buildings means it faces imminent demolition.

But why can’t we save the building (and use it as, say, a modern art gallery, as has been suggested), open up the route from the city centre to Centenary Square and build a new library on a separate site? We desperately need a new library but does that mean we have to pull down the existing one?

We’ve demolished some wonderful Georgian and Victorian buildings in this city, because the architecture was out of favour or the properties were ‘in the way’. And we’ve ended up regretting it. As Andy Foster points out, it looks like history is about to repeat itself.

Amey has been selected as the preferred bidder to deliver Birmingham’s 25 year Highways PFI contract. The 2.7bn deal will see the company repairing and modernising:

• 2,500km of highway
• 96,000 street lights
• 1,000 traffic signal
• 850 bridges and tunnels

The company will also be responsible for any emergency activities such as winter gritting.

With public complaints about the poor state of the city’s roads increasing and a lack of cash resulting in a huge repairs backlog, most of the maintenance work under the contract (£300m) will take place over the next 5 years.

There are, though, some ‘red lines’ that the contractor cannot cross. Most noticeably, that the number of highway trees at the end of the contract must be no less than at the start and no trees can be removed without councillors’ agreement.

Birmingham is to be one of the pilot areas for the government’s new ‘Total Place’ initiative . This is, by all accounts, a Big Deal, with the council calling it ‘perhaps the most significant initiative for local areas and local government for some time’ and the Communities Secretary John Denham seeing the project as ‘potentially a chance to rewrite the future of public services’.

Over £7.5bn of public money came into Birmingham last year and the aim of Total Place is to identify where and how this money could be spent more effectively. It asks the question ‘can we do better for less’? And given the huge sum of money we’re talking about, the answer has got to be ‘yes’. With the project in Birmingham focusing on how various bodies deal with mental health problems, drug and alcohol misuse and ‘guns and gangs’ - we need to make sure that ‘we do better for less’ not just in order to save money, but also to ensure we’re providing the best service we can to some of the most vulnerable people in the city.

Whether the involvement of a non-directly elected body like Be Birmingham - and the bureaucracy and time constraints of ‘yet another government initiative’  – is the best way of achieving this, remains to be seen. And the only way we’ll have a chance of knowing if it’s worked will be if Be Birmingham publishes realistic targets – over which it has direct control – and an outside body gets to scrutinise its performance.

The government’s ‘Strengthening local democracy’ consultation paper, which includes the concept of Total Place, talks about enhancing the power and scope of councillors’ scrutiny role:

Councillors, on behalf of their citizens, should be able to scrutinise public spending provision, influence decision making and hold other service providers to account’.

Unfortunately, however,this is all happening the wrong way round. The unelected quangos have already got the power, and they’ve had it for some time. Yet only now is the consultation beginning on how to keep this power in check. And given the ongoing concern over the running of the Multi Area Agreement in Birmingham, it’s interesting to read in the consultation paper that ‘as sub-regional structures grow in power and influence, it is important that greater power is matched by clear, democratic and accountable leadership‘. It states that ‘these existing and planned sub-regional structures derive democratic legitimacy through elected councillors from their member local authorities controlling their activities‘. Not so in Birmingham, of course, where there are no elected members sitting on the Board set up to administer the MAA.

The consultation goes on to suggest that ‘committee meetings should be open to the public’ and that the council should be able to ‘scrutinise the activity of local authorities working together at the sub-regional level’.

All eminently sensible stuff, and let’s hope the government means it. Unfortunately the conversation about how to best scrutinise the unelected should have begun a long time ago.

Unemployment in Birmingham was a huge problem even before this recession, with levels at 20% in some wards in the city. With the economic downturn particularly affecting the manufacturing industry, and unemployment now considerably worse, getting people back into work has become the city’s biggest priority.

A £500m fund set up for the City Region to tackle this problem, and a new plan – the Multi Area Agreement for Employment and Skills (MAA)- gives us the opportunity to make a real difference to residents’ lives. Unfortunately, however, and even though Birmingham makes up 40% of the City Region in terms of population, there’s not a single elected member for the city sitting on the Board set up to administer the MAA. Instead, the Employment and Skills Strategic Management Board (ESSMB) is made up of chairs of the regional Employment and Skills Boards, directors of Job Centre Plus and the Learning and Skills Council, and the chief executive of Solihull Council. The only councillors on the board are the leaders of Solihull and Dudley Council. There are no elected members representing the interests of Birmingham residents, despite our particularly acute problem with unemployment.

We desperately need a fresh approach, particularly given the lack of progress made in the past. The reason this issue is in the news today is because the Council’s Regeneration Scrutiny Committee ‘called in’ the original Cabinet decision, made in June. The Birmingham Post’s call for a City Region version of this body, to scrutinise the Employment Management Board which, afterall, meets behind closed doors, is an excellent idea. And proper accountability at the regional level should also reduce the risk of further ‘call-ins’ when the money is eventually spent on the ground.

An interesting report   from the Audit Commission out today, has found that councillors are basing important decisions on unreliable information.

Apparently:

• Councillors say they receive lengthy reports but still do not have the relevant information they need. Powerful data are unexploited.
• Less than 5% of councils have excellent data quality and quality problems are fundamental in nature.
• Almost 80% of councils say a lack of in-depth analysis is a problem.

And perhaps most worryingly:

• Two thirds of councils say councillors struggle to understand information and half say that senior officers do. Training to address this is inadequate or non-existent.There is a widespread concern that inaccurate or out-of-date information drives key decisions.

In typical Audit Commission style, it recommends the use of a ‘toolkit’  to drive better quality data. Ultimately, however, if the information that councillors and officers base decisions on is incomplete, lacking in evidence or badly presented, then they’ve got a responsibility to return it and demand something better. This may temporarily drive local government to a shuddering halt but at least we’ll have confidence in the decisions that’ve been made.

The Local Government Association has called for the government to think again on funding councils for their new ‘flood role’:

The Chairman of the LGA’s Environment Board, Paul Bettison, said: “Town halls are ready to take the lead on improving flood risk management but it should be clear that they will need funding to properly protect people’s homes.” Calling on the Government to look again at its calculations he added: “When councils spend money clearing up after floods it comes from budgets for other services, so it is wrong to say that councils can pay for this new role by cutting spending on flood clear up.”

 It can sometimes be a good thing for councils to be told to ‘do more with less’ – especially if it improves efficiency and stops unnecessary spending – but I don’t buy it in this case. The Floods and Water Bill would give councils such a clear set of new responsibilities – coordinating water companies and the Environment Agency, ensuring that drainage systems work etc – that it’s got to involve the spending of some extra money somewhere.

I don’t know whether climate change will lead to more flooding in the future. But if it does – and if the effects of climate change are going to be as serious as some people predict - then I’m sure we won’t be able to deal with it on the cheap.

Decisions made in local government often come across as being complicated because they are complicated, and the use of technical language is the only way to adequately explain what on earth they’re about. And no amount of re-wording or attempts to simplify is ever going to change that. Often, though, what’s discussed seems complicated because bureaucrats and politicians have temporarily lost the ability to communicate effectively and have submitted to pressure to use jargon. And I’m often guilty of this, too. However, given the importance of some of the stuff that gets discussed in local government – and, also, bearing in mind that the overuse of jargon has been identified as one of the reasons why people are turned off politics – this ’overcomplication’ is not only frustrating, it also isn’t good for democracy.

Today’s Birmingham Cabinet Meeting, for example, had over 20 items on the agenda, most of their titles and reports written in the usual impenetrable council style. So the meeting began with an item titled the ‘Reconsideration of Decision Called-In – Multi Area Agreement for Employment and Skills’. And the agenda included the snappily titled item: ’Winning Resources: Local Area Agreement Working Neighbourhoods Fund Strategic Interventions’. Yet both these items – if you can get past the titles - were, and are, extremely important – dealing with the spending of huge amounts of money on trying to tackle perhaps the biggest problem this city faces at the moment – long term, mass unemployment. We should all, as far as we can, be trying to get away from this sort of convoluted language.

Today’s Cabinet Meeting was actually one of the most important for a long time, with decisions being made on the:

‘Highways Maintenance and Management Private Finance Initiative’ – the awarding of a £2.2bn, 25 year, highways’ maintenance contract (one of the biggest PFI contracts in the country).

‘Approval of Academies Process’ – significant progress on the setting up of 3 (controversial) new Academy schools.

‘BMG Birmingham History Galleries Project – Full Business Case’ – the awarding of a £2.9m contract to repair the roof works at the Council House Extension and the submission of a £4.8m bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the setting up of a History of Birmingham Gallery at the Museum and Art Gallery. It was also agreed to spend £874,000  to cover development work on the project.

Be Active – £9.3m to be spent on an 18 month project to increase participation in sport. All residents may now swim/use the gym at council run leisure centres completely free of charge.

There was much more discussed at Cabinet today, all of it important to residents in Birmingham and not much of it decipherable by those outside of local government. And that’s why we need to ensure our established local media survives this deep recession. After all, somebody needs to help explain what all this stuff means.