Sheffield City Council Cabinet Meeting 17th January 2018

Cabinet Meetings are an opportunity to see the real power brokers in the city, the Council Cabinet making decisions. It is also an opportunity for members of the public to ask questions of those same decision makers.

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This particular meeting was a bit of a sparse affair, with three Cabinet Members and the City's Chief Executive missing. Cllr Julie Dore (Leader), Cllr Jackie Drayton (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People & Families), Cllr Bryan Lodge (Cabinet Member for Environment and Streetscene). There was no explanation for their absences, there rarely is.

That did mean that my questions 4 & 5 would not get an answer as they would normally be referred to Cllr Lodge. I did have a vague hope that Cllr Olivia Blake (Cabinet Member for Finance) who was chairing the meeting in her role as Deputy Leader may have some comment on the financial enquiries in question 5 but it was not to be.

Below are the questions I asked at this meeting and the responses I received, with some editorial comment from me along the way.

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Question 1

Why did the city miss the opportunity to bid for money to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the women's suffrage movement?

We were one of 16 candidates invited to apply for a share of a £1.2M pot but chose not to apply, was any consideration given to this opportunity or any discussion had with heritage groups in the city to assist in a possible bid?

I supported this question with copies of correspondence between Louise Haigh MP (Sheffield Heeley) and the Government Equalities Office.

The question was answered by Cllr Mary Lea (Cabinet Member for Culture, Parks and Leisure). She commented that the Council had been unable to find any evidence of a letter inviting them to bid for the grant pot but they would continue to look. She agreed it was unfortunate that the opportunity was missed. Pointed out that there was a plaques to the Suffragette movement on Marlborough Road and a new one was to be placed this year on Chapel Walk. She also commented on all the things the city did to celebrate Sheffield women, including the recent 'Women of Steel' statue. There was also comment on the exhibition about protest in the Millennium Gallery organised by the Museums Trust. (anyone might think she had seen my Q7)

Finally she mentioned the smaller grants now available to community groups and encouraged any groups interested to bid for funds to celebrate the centenary

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Question 2

Living just off London Road I have completed the survey into the possibility of selective licensing for the area. Has Council given any thought to a city wide licensing scheme for private landlords?

It would seem this would have the benefit of ensuring all landlords are working to the same minimum standards and would not impinge on the businesses of decent landlords. It would also have the benefit that costs of licenses could be reduced, making more landlords able to afford any needed improvements whilst not unfairly impacting on those who already meet eh minimum standards?

This was answered by Cllr Jayne Dunn (Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community Safety) who responded that the limits on selective licensing were set by central government at 20% of geography or of the city's private rental stock. Council therefore concentrated on identifying the most at risk areas of the city to tackle with these powers. (this might be a matter for the local renters campaign Acorn to take up at a national level as well as locally, though I may follow up to see whether any work arounds are available)

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Question 3

When I first planned this question it was to ask whether the Council had made any contingencies for the potential collapse of Carrilion. Circumstances have overtaken that and now my question is what exposure does the city have in respect of this major outsourcing company collapsing?

What impact will this have on the Tram / Train project? The Lower Don Valley flood defence project? And the 250 jobs at the Carillion Call Centre in the City?

In addition is the Council aware of how many local companies may be impacted as part of the 30,000 small businesses owed money by the company?

This was answered first by Cllr Olivia Blake. She was able to clarify that all Carrilion contracts with the city were complete, including the flood defence work. She had no knowledge how the Call Centre might be affected but that they were keeping an eye out for any local businesses that may be impacted by the collapse.

Cllr Jack Scott (Cabinet Member for Transport and Sustainability) answered the part about the Tram/Train project. He stated that the Council's part of this project was complete and the remaining Carillion contract was with Network Rail. Work appeared to be continuing and Network Rail and the Department for Transport were in negotiations over the impact of the collapse.

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Questions 4 & 5

As I stated before these would have been referred to Cllr Bryan Lodge who was absent. I will therefore update on these if I ever get the promised written response.

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Before moving on to the final two questions I would like to proffer an observation. It was at this point in the meeting that the Councillors present moved into professional politician mode. They appeared to shrug off their humanity in favour of party unity. No doubt they justify this as supporting the greater good but to me it appears cynical and dehumanising to the Councillors involved. The fact is they supported a rapacious multinational conglomerate over the people of the city who, particularly as Cabinet Members, they are charged with representing.

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Question 6

It was disturbing to see a Cabinet member sharing a propaganda video from AMEY PLC entitled “The Protestors Have No Respect For Democracy”.

This from a company that denies public oversight of the contract they are being paid £2.2Bn to implement over 25 years, though apparently we'll now be paying the bill for 45 years, and who have consistently flouted industry good practice and H&S protocols in doing so. This professionally produced and extremely selective view of the trees issue, apparently made with the connivance of the Council, makes unsubstantiated allegations about the conduct of protestors, neither of which incidents resulted in arrests and appear to use SCC evidence footage. There is also a claim that masked people in headlamps are out on the streets causing concern. Are we sure these aren't AMEY subcontractors stalking the streets for unprotected trees at 4am?

Can Council confirm whether footage taken by Council under the Council's internal evidence protocol were used in this video?

If so, who authorised that use?

This was answered by Cllr Jack Scott, being the Cabinet Member that shared the video on Twitter. His response fell into three repetitions. It is not propaganda just another point of view, it is entirely truthful, it has been quite rightly been shared by lots of Councillors. (well the video, as it's original upload on YouTube shows, has been seen just over 700 times, liked once & disliked 31 times. I cannot find anyone else from Council having shared it, certainly not his Cabinet colleagues, his own tweet has been shared only 5 times and liked only twice. There are 50 comments on the tweet, mostly from STAG members taking Cllr Scott to task. Interestingly, the title of the video has now been changed to 'A Residents' View')

Cllr Olivia Blake answered the last point, stating that no SCC evidence material had been used in the video. (Interestingly Council's head of Highways, Paul Billington was in attendance for the Public Questions leaving immediately afterwards. Wonder if he was there to ensure Councillors stuck to the script?)

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Question 7

Recent events and the fact that this week included Martin Luther King Day, reminded me of a quote from that great advocate of peaceful protest; “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” MLK I Have a Dream, 1963 The silence from this Council over the violence and unlawful behaviour of security staff employed by it's Streets Ahead contractor is shameful and for women Councillors to remain silent in the face of violence to women is unbelievably so.

I have always tried to work for positive outcomes for this city and have been grateful for the Council's support on various issues, even though we may disagree how to achieve the best results. I have included photos to show the casual abuse of which I speak and ask that you speak out. Any comment?

This was answered by Cllr Olivia Blake who delivered what was clearly a pre-prepared legal statement about reporting incidents of violence to the Police and so on and so forth. (No comment or apparent understanding of why this sort of response is both distasteful or morally dubious. This despite having photographic evidence of the casual abuse being inflicted on peaceful protestors, including women, every day the contractor is on the streets.)

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So, a curate's egg of a Public Questions session. Good in parts with some clear answers. In other parts it was rotten to the core as Councillors ditched their humanity to present a united front. There is something broken about this approach and whilst the good needs support the bad needs challenge.

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'Devolution' – Decision Day.

Sheffield City Council have announced a special meeting of the Full Council on Friday 18th March at 5pm in the Town Hall, to consider and vote upon the latest version of the Chancellor's 'Devolution' offer to the City Region.

I have written about and asked questions of Council, Cabinet and City Region, endlessly it sometimes seems, on this subject. Now, although the two matters deemed 'red line' issues for the Council have been largely clarified, many of my concerns remain unanswered and may remain so for many months after the decision.

Initially, when I raised my concerns over the 'mayoral veto' in October 2015, I was told 'that paragraph' would be changed during redrafting of the proposal. Strange then that this issue should have to become one of the Council's 'red line' issues before HMG conceded that the veto could be superceded by the City Region's Constitution. Cllr Julie Dore, at the Cabinet meeting of 9th March 2016 confirmed that the Constitution of the SCRCA would have primacy in law over the devolution agreement between SCRCA and HMG. Let's hope this never has to be tested in court.

So the first 'red line' issue is sort of dealt with, The second is somewhat trickier and illustrates the divisions in the City Region.

Regional Geography was always going to be an awkward issue. I raised the problem of a City Region Mayor that would only represent the 4 Metro Councils back in October 2015 and it was clearly an uncomfortable issue for the City Region as a whole. The decisions about who could vote on which issues and decisions in City Region meetings were constantly part of the background uncertainty of this geography. In effect, there was to be a two tier Region, Tier 1, the 4 Metro Councils with votes on all matters. Tier 2, the district Councils, attached both to the City Region and to their County Councils, able to vote on a restricted number of matters.

The changes that Sheffield negotiated into the 'Cities Bill' have enabled the 2nd tier councils to choose whether to be a full member of the City Region or remain connected to their County Councils. This was a red line with the city as they wanted to ensure a City Region that would fully involve both types of councils not just the 4 Metros. As it stands, only Chesterfield has chosen to become a full member so far and Bassetlaw is likely to be the second to agree on the day before the Sheffield Council meeting. This is, apparently, enough for Sheffield to consider the geography issue resolved, even though 3 of the 5 North Midlands Councils will remain 2nd tier and unable to vote for the Region Mayor or on many other matters before the City Region.

So two 'red lines' bodged and now Council are full steam ahead to ratify the agreement and commit the City to a future as a regional powerhouse. Though recent government decisions seem to suggest that it may be in name only.

Personally, I think it is essential that the city is part of a larger power bloc in order to combat the centralising mindset of the Civil Service and of many MPs as well, I continue to doubt if this is the right solution. The very fact that the Chancellor and the Treasury are so adamant that this will happen rings alarms for me. I've had private discussions with Department for Communities & Local Government officers that suggest they are equally unhappy with the current steamroller of devolution deals and that should concern us all. They comment on the lack of public knowledge of the deals, the lack of consultation and the secrecy of the negotiation process as their concerns, all of which I share.

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Other concrete issues are also left up in the air for some future negotiation and agreement. So that, even after the Council make their decision, the details and context of the agreement may shift subtly and probably against local interests. If you read the article I wrote in October 2015, and compare that to the relentlessly positive comments within the Council documents and particularly looking at Appendix 4 and the comments that try and spin any negative to a positive in the public consultation you will understand they mean to have their way on this, despite the public's doubts and even the doubts within Cabinet and Party at city level.

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You now have a few days to let your Councillor know how you feel about this issue before the vote on the 18th, I hope you will, I shall be firing off emails, just in case my local Councillors don't read this article.

'The Public Interest' – Future Campaigns, by Nigel Slack.

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This is just a quick post to ask for some feedback. The issue that got me started on this stony path two years or so ago was transparency. I was shocked by the level of money that the Council spent with private companies to deliver public services and disturbed that more information about these contracts was not known. To me it simply would not do that with over £700M (as it was then) being paid to private companies there was next to no information about what they did for that money, whether they were any good at whatever it was they did and most importantly, how much of that huge sum was profit for these companies?

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That was the root of the campaigns and issues I now work on. That transparency drive will also remain the main focus of what I do. Don't get me wrong however, Sheffield City Council is considered very good at transparency, compared to other local authorities. They welcome the public, mostly, into decision making meetings, to ask questions or deliver petitions, many councils do not. They publish far more on their website than many others I have seen, possibly why it is so difficult to navigate.

I still maintain they could be better and in one area in particular we are way behind the majority of councils in England. Sheffield City Council do not webcast meetings, either live streaming or as archive material. This, for me, is important for two reasons, (amongst many positive aspects of webcasting) it allows people to see how their councillors contribute to the decision making in the city and enables them to work out whether they are doing a good job, It also vastly increases the amount of information available about the meetings that take place. The formal minutes of a meeting are essentially just a record of decisions made. Democratic Services in Sheffield try their best to add more information, particularly around questions asked and comments made by Councillors. However a large part of the goings on in council meetings is simply lost.

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So those are the two main planks of my efforts in Sheffield. I am working with others, mainly Sheffield for Democracy, on other issues such as the council's Community Engagement policy, local devolution and the voting system, TTIP and such. What I'm looking for from my readers, however, is a set of ideas that may form a future agenda. I have ideas of my own and some of those are mentioned on my current 'Campaign and Issues' page. As one man I clearly cannot do everything and I need to be aware that there will be some things that I cannot tackle directly (austerity is an issue for everyone, national policies can only be influenced, until ballot time) but I will always do my best to address peoples concerns, if not by my own actions, at least with advice.

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So to summarise;

The Root Issues.
Transparency – of 'Outsourcing Arrangements.'
Webcasting – of Decision Making meetings and Public Engagement events.

So let me know your ideas, on my blog comments, through my 'Public Interest' facebook page or through my 'Twitter' feed using @SheffCityNigel.