31 October 2010

Sorry Brian.......

The Western Gazette, possibly surprisingly, did a reasonable piece (see below - double click for a larger view) about the two candidates in the upcoming Somerton election and it really comes down to a choice between the old (and discredited) and the new (and untried).

Brian Raybould is, I am quite sure, a decent person but his performance as a member of the Keenan/Canvin administration showed him to be a poodle, led by the nose into voting to buy the Tin Dunny (aka Edgar Hall). Being embedded in the local business community doesn't do very much for me these days because it implies all the cosy relationships that typefied the Keenan/Canvin years and Brian certainly reflects that sort of exclusive culture.

On the other hand, Sharon Coates is younger, with a professional legal background, and seems keen to get involved with the Council. Her perspective, as a young mother, places her close to the ground floor of the community and gives her direct access to the community's concerns.

For me, its a simple choice and my view is influenced by whether or not the candidates are likey to be part of Somerton's 'old guard' and buisness network. The old Town Council cared little for the wider community and spent too much time enabling the business community and, in particular, development interests. Had Brian Raybould done anything to explain his part in the activities of the old Town Council then I would have been faced with a harder choice. As it is, Sharon Coates is well qualified to act in the best interests of the whole of the community and, importantly, she isn't tainted by association with the Keenan/Canvin administration.

But it isn't up to me, its up to you and, whatever the outcome, I hope that the successful candidate will remember that they are there to serve the whole of the community, not just their friends and associates.

Till next time, I'm Niall Connolly

PS Success or failure, people can carry-on supporting their community by good works. In fact, maybe thats the way to go.

28 October 2010

How could I have forgotten.....

We've just celebrated the first anniversary of the 'great resignation' and I wonder just what the 'Somerset Suiciders' hoped to achieve or what they thought they would achieve by their gesture.

Today we are a year further down the road and the picture that has emerged of the old Town Council is of a council run, to the exclusion of the majority of the Council members, by the then Chair of the Council, Keenan, the Vice Chair of the Council, Canvin, and, finally, enabled in this exclusive activity by the Town Clerk, Calderwood. This view shouldn't be seen as offering absolution to those who so obviously looked the other way because nothing will absolve the old Council, as a whole, from their responsibilities but I do wonder if they actually knew what was going on. I'm pretty sure that they must have had some pretty strong suspicions but I doubt they had the wit to understand the implications of some of the decisions that they were scared into making.

I've long thought that Harold Shipman has a lot to teach us about the gullibility of people and, given what went on in Somerton Town Council for more than a decade, I'm no longer surprised that it took so long to catch up with Shipman. He was variously described as a 'good sort' and a 'pillar of the community' and a 'good rugby coach' and, for all of those reasons, people looked the other way whilst he despatched more than 270 souls. So, if the goode doctor could get away with that, then selling the Etsome/Tin Dunny swap to the majority of Somerton's old Town Council must have been a walk in the park for Keenan, Canvin and Calderwood.

So here we are, a year down the road and all we know is that the wheels of justice grind excessive slow but we hope that, eventually, they will grind excessive fine.

In the meantime, Somerton might find itself able to support the new Town Council because, excepting Messers Neale and Harrison, the new Council has no connection with the past other than through the need to address the consequences of the mistakes of the old Council. People complain that the new Council is a talking shop but at least the talking is done in public. And at least the new Council isn't buying a shabby old industrial unit subject to restrictive covenants (one held by a member of the old Council) and which has no legal right of access (unless over land owned by a member of the old Council). Compared to that degree of stupidity, I'm happy that the new Council is doing more talking than acting like idiots.

And when local people complain about their Council Tax, remember that the old Council jacked the Precept by 400+% across a decade and they did it without any accountability. No-one said Boo! So I'd challenge those complaining about the new Council doing too much talking, I'd challenge them to show me how the old Council didn't screw the taxpayer. I'd also challenge those complaining about the new Council to show me how they challenged the old Council.

Till next time, I'm Niall Connolly, sue me!

25 October 2010

Election fever.......

With the resignation of Sam Mildon from Somerton Town Council, a vacancy has been created and there has been a call for an election from a number of local residents. Those calling for the election were as follows:
B, C, J, M, R & V Raybould, J & O Baxter, C & D Stuckey and S Hunt.

At the deadline for nominations, 15th October, two nominations had been received at SSDC and they are:
Brian Raybould & Sharon Anne Coates

M&B will make further enquiries and seek to find out more about the two candidates, why they are standing, what they stand for and what they hope to do for Somerton.

Till next time, I'm still Niall Connolly
PS Information provided by Democratic Services, SSDC

17 October 2010

A dirty little secret.......


Recently, in a casual conversation, one of M&B's readers commented that they continued to be surprised at the venom which my criticism of the old Somerton Town Council had attracted. We were discussing the revelation (old news now) that way back in August 2008, when I wrote my first detailed letter of enquiry to the Town Council, the internal response was to take a legal opinion (at Somerton's expense) as to how the Town Council could avoid replying to my enquiries. Even at that very early stage, there was absolutely no effort on the part of the old Somerton Town Council to engage in any form of dialogue and it was that very defensiveness that caused me to wonder what exactly drove their fear and paranoia.

As the saga unfolded, it became obvious to me that there was a lot more going on with the old Somerton Town Council than a simple refusal to respond to enquiries from a member of the public. The manner in which Keenan & Canvin ran the Town Council left much to be desired and the bullying which was commonplace at Council meetings indicated that many issues, supposedly discussed and decided at Council meetings were, in fact, decided well in advance and the rest of the Council were simply whipped into line. By the same token, the lack of any professional management of the Council's affairs, especially with regard to competitive tendering (which Keenan stated didn't work) raised concerns in my mind as to the regulation of the Council's expenditure. Whilst it may be too late to delve into previous year's accounts, it would be interesting to see who benefited from Council largesse over the last decade and whether or not the Town ever received value for money under the Keenan/Canvin 'no tendering' regime.

But what may yet become the real scandal of the old Somerton Town Council may be the manner in which the old Town Council plundered the Precept to fund their profligacy. I recall a comment made to me early last year when I was first making enquiries about the Precept. The Town Clerk observed that other Councils were watching with great interest what Somerton Town Council was doing with its Precept budget.

At the time the full significance of that comment escaped me but now, having read a little about the nature of the Precept, it is all too obvious that the Precept, because it is not subject to any capping regime, can, has, and is being used by stupid or greedy Councils to fund grandiose schemes which then become a burden on the rate payer ad infinitum. The old Somerton Town Council, or those who drove the Council, knew that they could simply present a budget to SSDC in the preceding December and get however much they wanted in the following April, no strings and, importantly, no accountability.

In the ten years up till fiscal 2008/9, Somerton Town Council had cranked the Precept up by an average of just less than 20% per annum and today, most of the Precept is spent before it arrives with the Council. Inflated staffing levels, unsettled debt, structural overheads and the like mean that there is little left for the new Town Council to spend on the community.

So maybe the sordid tale of the Etsome Terrace/Tin Dunny swap wasn't the only dirty little secret that the old Somerton Town Council wanted to keep out of sight. Maybe the bigger story is the way that the old Town Council mismanaged Public Funds and used the availability of further Public Funding to keep themselves afloat. The more I think about it, the greater are the parallels between the Old Somerton Town Council and Newcastle in the 1970s. Who benefited? Certainly not the taxpayer.

Till next time, and threats not withstanding, I'm still Niall Connolly.

12 October 2010

Thinking the unthinkable......

Having read the story of Letchworth Town Council (see sidebar) I have started to wonder what,exactly, does our Town Council do for the Town? Yes, it does offer a platform for discussion of planning matters but what do we, the taxpayers, get for our tax £? This question caused me to do something that I hadn't done before which was to have a careful look at my Council Tax Bill and I paid special attention to the cost elements that make up that bill.

There are five elements to the total charge and they are elements for: Somerset County Council; Avon & Somerset Police Authority; Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Authority; South Somerset District Council and, at the bottom of the list, Somerton Town Council. Lets imagine that your contribution to Somerton Town Council's chunk was £100. The illustration below shows you, very roughly where it would go. (As usual, click or double click on the image fora larger view.)
Now, I accept that these are rough figures but I suspect that they are a little on the conservative side so, out of your £100, there will be little more than £35 to be spent on the town because the rest is already consumed in FIXED OVERHEADS. Moreover, what good is the Town Clerk (a big part of the salary and admin overhead)? What good is the Tin Dunny? What is the Town getting for the interest repayments? The answer to all three questions is 'not very much' and it begs the question, 'Why have a Town Council at all?'.

Now, for absolute clarity, these FIXED OVERHEADS were constructed entirely by the Keenan/Canvin administration. Tony Canvin was undertaking his hedge trimming programme which resulted in the community of Somerton paying twice for a service already provided by County so that overhead has gone, along with the air-conditioned tractor. The question to ask today is 'Can the new Council reduce the FIXED OVERHEADS?'. Can the new Council reduce the fixed overheads created by the Keenan/Canvin administration? Its a good question. What I do know is that the Town Council couldn't abolish itself (if the electorate wanted it) until such time as the FIXED OVERHEADS are reduced to nothing ie debt paid off, no Tin Dunny and no staff. A tough ask, I think, but not one that shouldn't be considered.

Till next time, I'm Niall Connolly

3 October 2010

Who ya gonna call?


Probably like many other people in Somerton, I am awaiting the publication of the External Auditor's 'Report in the Public Interest' with growing impatience. It's now been over a year since I bundled up the documents that were available to me at that time and sent them to the External Auditor, where their receipt was greeted with a measured expression of concern.

At the same time I sent a duplicate copy of the documents to the Monitoring Officer at South Somerset District Council, Mr Ian Clarke, whose response was to say that the documents "contain some disturbing comments" then ................ silence. I never heard from Mr Clarke again and I did wonder if Somerton's problems might not be commonplace at SSDC.

In order to spread the information as widely as possible (in case some unfortunate accident should befall me) I also sent a copy of the External Auditor's documents to Mr David Heath, who is my Member of Parliament. I hoped that Mr Heath might take an interest in the issues that I raised as I understood that the Parliamentary Ombudsman might have some jurisdiction in the matter. Mr Heath's reply informed me that the Parliamentary Ombudsman had no jurisdiction as ".......... the relevant investigating authority is the Local Government Ombudsman."

Events rather overtook me last year and I only recently got around to considering Mr Heath's letter, influenced in large measure by the ConDems continuing efforts to dismantle all of the regulatory bodies that I had contacted or thought of contacting. So last week I gave the Local Government Ombudsman's Office a call to find out how I could present the documentation on the old Somerton Town Council to them. And I was in for a bit of a shock.

It seems that my MP, Mr David Heath, doesn't know who regulates Parish and Town Councils because, as the Local Government Ombudsman's Office explained to me, it isn't them. So I'm left with a bit of a problem, as is anyone else who might want to bring their parish or town council to heel. Where do you go with your concerns?

I was discussing this issue with a friend who went on to make a rather interesting and very worrying observation. They wondered if Eric Pickles, the self-styled 'scourge of quangos' shared the same misapprehension about the Local Government Ombudsman as does my MP. Is Mr Pickles busily dismantling the regulatory framework because he believes, as Mr Heath does, that the Local Government Ombudsman is, to quote Mr Heath "the relevant investigating authority"? Because, if this is the case then clearly Mr Pickles is as uninformed as is Mr Heath and we are getting into seriously deep water.

Soon there will be no Standards Board for England and no Audit Commission. At the same time, Mr Heath's Lib-Dem colleague, Mr Norman Lamb, is campaigning to stop electors taking complaints to the External Auditor. This makes me wonder if, God forbid, I were to face the same situation again, who would I call? Ghostbusters?

Till next time, may your MP know what they are talking about.

Niall