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Doctor Fegg — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:48:25 +0000

Really interesting post.

I'm a bit concerned about this bit, though:

Oxford City Council is seen as a basket case and has been for some time. I heard it again this week from a county council officer."

It's the County Council that's the real basket case. Out in the sticks here, I'd love to have the factional-but-passionate City Council over the complacent, indolent Oxfordshire County Council. OxCounty has some seriously dysfunctional departments (Highways springs to mind immediately, could also be said of Education) where there appears to be absolutely no control exerted by the elected representatives. Roll on the unitary authorities."

"Double devolution" for Oxford now!

Jock — Sat, 29 Jul 2006 14:51:48 +0000

Okay, so it's not the snappiest of campaign slogans, and it will probably attract the interest of oh, maybe about four people on the entire planet, but Oxford City Council needs some direction, and I happen to be available, as they say, to put in my tuppence worth. The council was plunged yesterday into a quandary over its political complexion when Labour unsurprisingly held onto a byelection seat in Hinksey Park ward making them formally the largest party group on the council.

First, a declaration of interest - I am of course a Liberal Demcorat member and have friends in the council group and on the executive board. And whilst I have every confidence in them to make the best job of some difficult portfolios I simply don't believe that the arrangement that has obtained at the Town Hall since the May elections is the best thing either for the Liberal Democrats or for the city as a whole.

Oxford City Council is seen as a basket case and has been for some time. I heard it again this week from a county council officer. And there are even more intense financial pressures ahead regardless of political control such as funding "decent" homes, decent leisure services, bringing down the cost to the city of homelessness as well as massively improving what ought to be core functions such as council tax collection rates are overdue and extremely urgent.

This isn't the time or the place to go into apportioning blame. Like the county council before it, the city council has had nobody in overall control politically for six years now and in that period it has seen effectively four chief executives, three housing chief officers and three planning chief officers. At the beginning of this period of political uncertainty came the challenges of Labour's local government "modernisation agenda" which meant that not only were the old familiar days of majority government gone, but that whoever did govern had to do it on new and uncertain terms.

The new emphasis the government wanted to see on "partnership working" in local governance is a particularly difficult one, I suspect, to realise here in Oxford where the civil authority is really a minnow compared with the influence in the city and the world of its very raison d'etre, the university - the City Council is never going to be quite in charge with that elephant in the bed! But be honest, who has even heard of the Oxford Strategic Partnership* let alone found any way of engaging with this no doubt august and sincere body? Whilst we have a resident population not much greater than, say the Isle of Wight, our history as the foremost place of learning, invention and discovery on the planet (well - I love the place, I wouldn't want you to think I was doing Oxford down in any way just because I have a bee on about the political situation in the city!) puts immense pressures on us. Thinking again about the Isle of Wight it's probably the equivalent of having Cowes Week every day of the year (and still having a monarch and court in residence too come to think if it!).

The only thing that is clear is that the electorate of Oxford are not convinced by any of the parties' pitches enough to trust them to take on these challenges alone. It is no secret I don't think that had I been elected in May I would not have favoured the Liberal Democrat group trying to go it alone in a minority single party administration. In the first instance I would have been wary of a Labour group seemingly wanting to step back from their part in the responsibility for the city's current plight. In a situation where any time between now and the next set of elections a single other party could decide they've had enough and unilaterally make life very difficult for the Lib Dems I would be wanting to step back and force Labour to accept some of that responsibility.

When I lost in 2002 and began to get involved in single issue type voluntary activities where basically everyone was there with a common purpose, such as Oxfordshire Community Land Trusts, I at one stage thought of setting up a new and different political "party" - codenamed the Co-operative Commonwealth of Oxfordshire(!) - that people of all parties and none could sign up to that would effectively bind them to working for the interests of Oxford and Oxfordshire above any consideration of existing party affiliation. This is what needs to happen now. And the council (mostly through the councillors) needs to promote this model of consensus - putting Oxford first - and finding ways of tapping into the enormous potential and goodwill of the residents of Oxford to assist them.

As a Liberal Democrat I believe we have always had a high regard for localism and devolution, that decisions should be taken as closely to the people that are affected by those decisions as possible, and involving them as much as possible, and that as much sovereignty as possible belongs with individuals and families whose lives should be facilitated rather than circumscribed by any collective government necessary. And our second mantra is that where representative government structures are necessary, they should as fairly and proportionally as possible represent the opinions of the citizens expressed at the ballot box.

Whilst we're not going to get the latter any time soon, because they target hard and locally we do have two minority political parties that help keep other shades of opinion at the table and prevent a one or two party state (and of course leave us more likely to have no overall control), the former, more and deeper devolution, has more recently become the mantra of Labour's Department of Communities and Local Government. So with the Greens plainly pleased with their fiefdom of the St Clement's Soviet, the IWCA frequently focussing on local issues so much it seems that they eschew "whole Oxford" type council activities as irrelevant to their electorates' priorities, and now Labour being fed the double devolution line from the very top in spite of their more local (and probably more ideologically honest) reservations, there is a perfect opportunity for both devolution and consensus.

All parties at the Town Hall need to be sure that they have elected leaderships committed to working together, the inevitable compromise, and engaging in debate without party prejudices. Put as much out to Area Committees as possible. Let areas select the bulk of the executive and hold them accountable for taking collective responsibility - it seems a fair way of creating a multi-party executive that has to function together for the good of their constituent areas. With each area having an executive member, even those things that are normally reserved to the executive could be devolved by allowing the area executive member to make decisions on the spot based on the deliberations of the area committee and public participation (I would make the areas parishes too in the longer run so they can have tax varying powers).

And get rid of bits that the city council does not need to do or is not best suited to doing. Personally, I'd see the two biggest of these as leisure centres and housing ownership and management. Both are services to a small minority of Oxford residents. Those Oxford residents that do use them, either as swimmers or tenants, are hopelessly outvoted at the ballot box. Yet they pay enough to be able to demand a first class service. A Community Land Trust/Community Gateway approach to housing could see massive investment in public sector housing and at the same time make it more democratic by giving the real control to the neighbourhoods and communities of residents that make up the estates. An Open Capital Leisure Partnership could deliver first class facilities again with more control ceded to the users themselves. The best advert for good leisure centres is when the users/owners encourage their friends to join and participate.

Just these two would remove two of the biggest financial headaches from the council which is clearly struggling with far more mundane problems like collecting taxes, getting planning decisions processed and paying benefits on time. There are others - an enlarged and more democratic, membership based OX1 or similar could take over the running of the council's city centre property assets in another Open Capital Partnership to help ensure diversity and quality in the city centre, for example.

There are many ways out of this situation. The councillors have a duty to take the one that will be best for Oxford's residents and not for political advancement. To pretend that a council performing as badly as Oxford City is ready for any more responsibility before they sort out even how to operate together in a situation like they have at present is pure fantasy. What needs to emerge is a slimmed down council that brokers deals between devolved areas and partners delivering services. Who's going to take up this particular gauntlet?

* It might help give the impression that the Oxford Strategic Partnership actually did anything if the web page of their steering committee did not include a county council "deputy leader" who has not been deputy leader for 16 months, a city council "leader" who stepped down from the council in May and as chair a police commander that was promoted out of St Aldate's over a year ago now!

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Jock's Place - "Double devolution" for Oxford now! - Comments

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"Double devolution" for Oxford now!