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County Local Committees

October 12th, 2005 · Posted by Skuds in Politics · No Comments · Politics

Tuesday night saw the first meeting in Crawley of one of the county council’s local committees, otherwise known as CLCs, and it was held in Broadfield. The county council often seems distant to us both literally and metaphorically. With their meetings being held during the day and about as far away from Crawley as you can get without straying over the border into Hampshire, members of the public are unlikely to feel like going to a county council meeting just out of idle curiosity. In fact even if they were meeting to specifically discuss me I would probably not be bothered to make the journey down to Chichester.

The CLCs, however, do not meet in Chichester, but in the area they cover. As this one was being held within walking distance of my home I went along to see what it was all about. Here is a summary of what happened, along with a few of my thoughts.

The West of Crawley CLC covers the areas of Broadfield, Bewbush, Gossops Green, Ifield, Southgate, West Green and Langley Green, which between them have five county councillors, all from the Labour party. Their meetings take place somewhere in one of those neighbourhoods, changing venue each time to rotate around the county divisions.

The county councillors present were Jim McGough (Broadfield), Chris Mullins (Bewbush, Gossops Green & Southgate) and Jim Smith (Ifield, Langley Green & West Green) and they were backed up by about half a dozen county officers.

In the audience were, I think, 18 people. 9 of them were borough councillors from the neighbourhoods covered – Brian Quinn & Thakordas Patel (Broadfield North), Chris Redmayne & Christine Cheshire (Bewbush), Alan Quirk (Broadfield South), Stephen Joyce (Southgate), Beryl Mecrow (Gossops Green), David Shreeves (Langley Green) and Bert Crane (West Green). There was also an officer from crawley borough council. Of those not paid by the council one way or another, there were 8 people, including me, and 7 of them I recognised as living in Broadfield. Since 3 of us are members of the Labour party, you could say there were only 5 ‘real’ members of the public there.

This was actually not a bad turnout, as the meeting was not really publicised much, a lesson which has been learned I am sure. Nobody from the press was there at all.

It was an interesting meeting because the whole thing was so new and nobody knew exactly how it was supposed to go, and what level of involvement the public should have.

The meeting kicked off with some general discussion. It was revealed that the committee does have some funds at its disposal, but only to the tune of £20,000 – not a lot to share between 8 wards. The discussion was quite open and inclusive with the public contributing fully and covered what the role of this committee is or should be. I asked whether its purpose was primarily policy making or to promote interaction with the public and the answer was that its more or less half and half.

Next we were treated to some slide shows and presentations, firstly about key issues in West Crawley and then about the youth services, followed by some Q&A around those topics.

The first presentation really covered the Crawley Together partnership so was mostly familiar to all of us. One little statistic stood out for me. The number of people in West Crawley employed in management compares unfavourably to the average for West Sussex. I can’t remember the exact number, but I do remember the figure for the county as a whole – 48%. That left me a bit stunned, as it seems extraordinarily high. I suppose it depends on how you define management, but surely something like 10% would seem like a sensible level? 48% means a manager:staff ratio of nearly 1:1.

The presentation on youth services was mostly new to me, and seemd very encouraging. With three kids, we are heavy users of various youth services and are generally happy with them, apart from the way they withdrew their youth club from Broadfield. What was surprising was how the youth officer appeared to be very supportive of the introduction of KPIs and targets to her service and in favour of the government’s Youth Matters green paper. Usually the (Tory) county councillors’ hostility towards all (Labour) government initiatives gets reflected to some extent in officers’ attitudes.

The next items were specific ones. An application to put double yellow lines on Overdene Drive, a proposal to put a puffin crossing in Bewbush and the proposal by the county to increase the frequency of urban grass-cutting. Anyone with the slightest experience of local politics will guess that the last item resulted in a vigorous debate.

To wind up the meeting there were presentations on a consultation the county is doing about levels of council ax and allocation of resources, and about the newly-launched area transport plan, all of which was useful. Personally I was disappointed to see that abuse of disabled parking spaces was not even listed as a concern, but thats just a personal bugbear of mine. I was amused to see the usual hard-luck story about government grants trotted out. West Sussex had the second lowest settlement of any county, which Henry Smith is keen to remind us at every opportunity. I could not help but think back to that figure of 48% of the population being in management and come to the concluson that maybe that implies that we should be able to afford to stand on our own two feet more than the counties where all the workers live.

Overall I think the meeting went quite well for an inaugural meeting. I have provided some feedback privately to the chair and the supporting officer, which I hope they find of some use.

The choice of chair was serendipitous. Jim McGough was chair of the borough’s development control committee at the time public participation was introduced, so he has some experience and a good track record of encouraging public participation, yet making sure it does not derail a council meeting.

The lack of members of the general public was disappointing, but not surprising as there was no publicity – a point which was raised and noted during the meeting. In fact all but one of the members of the public were present at the last Broadfield Forum where I told them about this meeting. Had I kept my mouth shut its possible that only one person would have turned up! On the other hand it was refreshing to see that most of the public were from Broadfield, given our reputation for civic apathy, especially on election days.

It was amusing to see all the borough councillors trying to adjust to being in a council meeting but not part of it. Indeed, when it came to the one part which was a purely internal matter for the committee to make a decision, the borough councillors found it very hard to not contribute, even after being told that they should not. Quite understandable in a way: I have been to council meetings since my demise and found it quite frustrating to not be able to chip in.

Although we are in the habit of rubbishing the county council as a matter of principle, I have to say I am in favour of these committees. Their powers and budget are limited, but its a start and I would have to give them (WSCC) full marks for trying. Any authority finds it hard to delegate powers, and I hope this is the thin end of the wedge.

Of course, all the county concillors and 7 of the 9 borough councillors present were Labour members so it will be interesting to see how next weeks East Crawley CLC goes, because although the East is more Tory, it is not exclusively so.

Lets make sure that the next meeting (January 18th) attracts more of us from Broadfield, even if it is held elsewhere.

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