Keeping up with my Proper Job

Spent all of today in the (differently unreal) world of refined academia, reminding myself that when local politics starts seeming like a career, it's time to take a short break.

"Come in, TEAPOT 1"

When I spotted the downed website yesterday, I had sat down to add a note about the Community Payback launch I'd just visited. This is a project to get offenders who're sentenced to nn hours of community service to do work (cleaning up graffiti, clearing overgrown or littered paths, etc) that makes places feel safer for residents. One of the reasons I went was an early opportunity to meet some of the ward policing team for Perry Vale (a sergeant, 3 PCs and 3 PCSOs, when they're up to full strength). I missed the lunch (because I had to get back and do some work), but I did get a cup of tea from the "Police Catering Support Unit" that was in attendance. You know how police cars all have big ID letters on top, so the helicopter can identify them? Well, this is "TEAPOT 1".

Marion Nisbet from Sydenham was there, and Crada as cabinet member for community safety. Notably, although it was in Forest Hill ward, none of the keen young LibDem councillors turned up.

It seems (from this morning's email) that the off-air website certainly wasn't an authorised decision in line with council policy. One of those S/F interfaces might be in the offing...

Excellence in e-Government

There I am, thinking, "I'm going to be away and miss the first meeting of the Sustainable Development Committee, that I've just been put on as Labour 'lead member' (the Greens and LibDems have the chair and vice-chair). So I'll send a friendly apology to the other members of it, so they don't think I'm not interested."

I have a piece of paper with the list of members (5 Labour, 3 LibDems, 1 Green, 1 Blue), fresh from last night's Council AGM. So I go to the trusty council website to get their email addresses, and...

A phone call to the Members Office reveals that it's been taken down deliberately (they don't know why), and Fujitsu (the IT contractor) is entirely responsible. Another phone call to Richard (the most senior person I can find via the Fujitsu Helpdesk) reveals that they are "just obeying orders" from the e-government unit, and he doesn't know why they couldn't do this out-of-hours, and that they were told to take the whole council website offline at about 12:05 today, and that it would be off for "about an hour for something to be updated". (I just checked again at 13:30, and it was still off).

Oh dear, Standards Board here I come...

A New World Order (well, just in Lewisham maybe?)

Well! The Council AGM was almost as scripted as ever when Labour was really in control (and everyone knew it!). Only the Labour Whip forgot his lines (for just a moment) - and was helped out (a bit too condescendingly) by Darren Johnson, leading Green but clearly destined to organise the Labour Party instead one day.

We all voted-for and applauded lovable-Tory Barrie to be Chair of the Council, and only one post actually went to a proper vote (Council representative on the Ladywell Day Centre Management Committee, I believe - a most strategic position). Even though this hadn't been previously agreed in Labour Group (shock! horror!) some of us (well, more than 11 of us) voted for the Green candidate for this key job, just to stop the LibDems bullying her (by having 11 more councillors than the Greens).

Mayor Steve gave a most statesman-like speech, and I'm actually naive enough to believe that we will have some sensible cooperation across party lines, and that even the strict party divisions between tables in The Ram might start to blur, after a few months of working together on committees.

Before the Council AGM I went in time for the 'confirmation hearings' for the Mayor's Cabinet appointees. A bit pointless, as He can appoint them whatever councillors vote. Rather predictably Labour members voted for all of them, opposition party members voted for nobody, except Peggy Fitzsimmons ('Champion of The Elderly'), whose speech about us all getting old obviously had cross-party appeal. As I'd been lobbied by the Y6 Action Group at Perrymount School, I got in a question that elicited a promise from Robert Massey ('Cabinet Member for Young People') that he would arrange to visit them to discuss better and safer play provision (instead of some rather derelict and misused park space) in Perry Vale.

(And thanks, Andrew Brown, for your supportive advice on who to tackle in the Lewisham IT hegemony. You say it's a little better than when I was previously a councillor... I'll let you know how little.)

Grumpy Old Hacker

A background discussion I've been having with some other 'new' (but not necessarily 'New') Labour councillors, about the IT facilities that the council is providing us, have already convinced me that I'm probably set to be Official Grumpy Old Man - as far as the Lewisham Council IT staff (and those of their erstwhile contractor, Fujitsu) who have to deal with members. I think I may have already mentioned to the Strategic Head of IT (whom I've known for a while now, since he came to us from Lambeth) that I'm adopting a personal policy of Zero Tolerance to Uselessness as far as council IT goes (having put up with enough of it for the previous 8 years I was a member).

Not, definitely not, that I'm suggesting, in any way whatsoever, that there is anything currently less than 100% akin to heavenly perfection, well-oiled efficiency, and state-of-the-art e-Government-ness - about anything to do with the IT infrastructure of Lewisham Council. If, for even a moment, I were to suggest otherwise, I fear I might go the way of poor Tory councillor Taff Davies of Chichester, who's been hauled up before the Standards Board for England, for just such criticism. Silly boy! (The story made 'Rotten Boroughs' in Private Eye too, but I can't find it online).

Cllr Davies has my fullest sympathy, and I must email him my good wishes that he gets exhonorated of the heinous crimes of which he's been accused. Perhaps I'll meet him at the London Connects conference next month!

Rather a long Perrymount School meeting (at the top of the hill), so I got to the Perry Vale Labour Party branch meeting (at the bottom of the hill) just as they were all adjourning to The Telegraph. Gavin was just leaving, and I'm sorry I missed being able to talk with him at the meeting. Apparently he's now got much more time to do things locally, so I expect we'll soon see him volunteering to be Branch Secretary or something.

PJ found us in the pub, and had just come from the inaugural meeting (you may need to join the SE23.com Forum to read that) of the prototype Forest Hill Society. (I understand from previous online discussion that councillors and similar pro-bigmouths weren't welcome at this meeting - I don't blame them!). I'll join as soon as they decide they're open for business, as long as some lawyer doesn't start telling me it's "a predjudicial interest" and would compromise me being able to make planning decisions about anywhere in Forest Hill.

(Some of this 'probity in public office' stuff is really designed for the Poulson era, or some place in Britain that must be a lot more rife with corruption than Lewisham! It seems to confuse taking an interest in things locally (=good) with having an interest in them (=bad), and then assume that nobody is capable of making an unbiased decision about anything that they know anything about!)

Peace breaks out

The Labour Group meeting last night was stunningly short! ...and relatively free of the 'traditional' tight votes. It seems that satisfactory deals, err, 'negotiations' have been concluded with the other parties over chairing scrutiny committees, and that everyone will get a fair share.

I guess I shouldn't reveal what I think will be the outcome of the Council AGM tomorrow, until it magically happens. I'm also planning to go to the 'confirmation hearings' for people appointed to cabinet posts by the Mayor, and check who has responsibility for services for disabled people - just in case no-one is sure when they're needed.

(There was a small, futile objection raised by one Labour Group member about why some of them are called "Cabinet Member for...", and others are 'only' called "Champion for...". Faint strains of the theme song from 'Champion The Wonder Horse" broke out in the cheap seats, and all was harmony again!)

Tonight I have a governors' meeting at Perrymount School to chair; and I think there's a meeting of Perry Vale Labour Party branch, if I get there before it's over. I'd better try and get there to thank our small band of brave leafleters in person!

Part 2 of the Labour Group AGM tonight, where we all jockey for positions on a bunch of council committees that may be abolished by this Wednesday, and (just in case) on a bunch of different council committees that may be created this Wednesday. This all depends on whether we (the Labour Group) decide to support or oppose some rather radical constitutional changes (whose idea of bad-timing was that???); and of course (for almost the first time in living memory) how the opposition parties vote!

I'm not intending to stand as chair of any of the scrutiny committees. But I have received the Labour Group nomination to chair one of the Planning committees. In the past it's all been about persuading (or otherwise nobbling) other Labour Group members who to vote for. (And how many of the 'old' Labour councillors have been scarred by the trauma of getting cornered in that tiny Civic Suite lift, and subjected to the unique canvassing style of a certain ex-councillor "I***"???). Now we'll have to get used to chatting-up the opposition!!! More of a problem for some ideologists than for me, I suspect ;->

Casework

I've been discussing how people can contact us about casework, with Alan and Susan, the other two Labour councillors in Perry Vale. (Unlike some of our comrades, at least we haven't had opposition councillors elected in the ward to complicate things.)

My own view is that surgeries (where one of us sits, usually on our own, in some office on a Saturday morning, waiting for a constituent with a housing problem to come along; or not)
are a poor way of being accessible to people, and that being reachable by phone/email/letter would free our time to do street surgeries and other, more useful activities.

But it's sometimes useful, to some people, to actually be able to come and talk to us and let us take copies of correspondence and so on. Perry Vale councillors used to use the Old Fire Station (on the corner of Perry Vale and Woolstone Road, which still houses some Lewisham Housing staff; but it's not used by the public any more to visit housing officers).

Susan has been to visit St George's Church Centre, at the other (nearer to Catford) end of Woolstone Road, which seems to have several community (not particularly religious) activities on Saturdays and a small cafe. If they'll give us the use of a suitable interview room and space for people to wait, on one Saturday morning a month, I think it would be a much better place to meet people. And we can buy them a cup of tea while they tell us their troubles!

[I'm letting myself be parochial about Lewisham, not just Perry Vale] ...and the issue at present is mainly how the balances of power are really going to work out.

This strange situation that Lewisham Councillors find themselves in, for the first time in at least 20 years, is having a balance of power between parties (rather than just between factions within the Labour Group - which of course have never existed!).

I still hear vague rumours of 'deals' to be struck with the minority parties. I feel very sorry for poor Barrie Anderson (a genuine example of a 'Caring Conservative' whom I've known for a long time), and the way his party has treated him over his discussions with Mayor Steve Bullock over a seat on the cabinet. See the News Shopper story.

I think things will be clearer after the Council AGM this Wednesday (24-May)...