Nigel Martin

Readers will have seen my previous posting about the defeat of my motion to the County Council calling for a widespread public consultation on the future of school admission in the County [following the overturning of the County proposals for Durham Johnston].

So what is happening now?

A report is going to the Council Cabinet next Thursday pointing out the problems (that I set out in my motion) and proposing - yes you have it - a widespread public consultation on the issue!

I guess I should be grateful that County has come round to my point of view, but the hypocrisy of it all is breathtaking.

I am a member of the City Council working group on the creation of a Town Council for the City.

The group met earlier this week (it meets quite regularly) and agreed to a publicity and awareness raising exercise in to begin the unparished city area later this month aimed at gauging local support for the idea.

I and the City Lib Dems are fully behind forming a Town Council as we believe it will be essential to maintain local links with elected members whose main concern is our historic city.

I moved a motion at yesterday’s meeting of the full County Council asking for a full and wide-ranging consultation with parents and local communities on the future of school admissions in County Durham.

I did this because of the decision of the Schools Adjudicator to overturn the Durham Johnson admissions criteria for 2009 entry in which he determined that the policy of giving priority to associated transport was intrinsically unfair. He was also critical of the council’s consultation procedures.

My motion was defeated by the Labour majority which leaves a very unsatisfactory situation.

This autumn the so-called “consultation” for 2010 entry will begin. School governing bodies will be asked their opinions, which will be fed into a mysterious body called the Education Forum. This comes up with proposals for Cabinet who take the final decision.

At no point do families and local communities get any real input. All they can do is to appeal to the Schools Adjudicator after the decisions have been taken.

What is this Education Forum? It consists of 14 people made up of two (Labour) councillors, 11 educationalists and just one parent governor representative. It meets in private (no-one else is allowed to listen in to the debate, not even other councillors) and the minutes are not made public. Indeed, I can find no mention of this body on the County Council web site.

In other words the policy is being made by something more akin to a medieval Star Chamber than an open democratic process. Moreover, there appears to be no way for elected councillors in general to scrutinise what is going on.

Frankly this is a scandal. In the debate yesterday, all that Councillor Vasey (Labour Cabinet member for young People’s Services - she sits on the Forum) could say was that the council was following government rules.

I rest my case!

Residents may be aware that County Councillors have been issued with (very up-to-date) mobile phones.

These now have an 0191 number assocatied with them so that if you ring in it will be at local call rates and not mobile rates.

My new number for this is 0191 372 5880.

Anyone using the A167 past through Durham City will have got caught up in congestion caused by road works by the new Durham Johnston school. This is due to new sewer connections being installed. The sceduled time period for the work is 28 July - 13 August, but I hope it will not take as long as that. To be avoided if you can!

Readers may remembers that the promised barriers along the A167 between Merryoaks and the Cock of the North roundabout didn’t get completed because of a shortage of the right kind of steel! I have just been notified that the work is now scheduled for 4 August - 5 September.

Finally, there will be road resurfacing works on short stretches of Potters Bank and Lowes Barn Bank close to the Duke of Wellington traffic lights over the two weekends 9-10 and 16-17 August. This will close each road while the work is being done, so watch out for detours.

The first consultation event on the form of what will probably be kn own as Area Action Partnerships (AAP) took place in Durham Town Hall last night.

The meeting had around 90-100 attendees who were separated into 10 discussion groups which were asked to look at issues like what should be the geographical area covered by an AAP in Durham City, who should be involved, what activities should an AAP look at and what spending powers should it have.

My personal view thus far, although I am prepared to be influenced by a sensible debate on this, is that an AAP covering around 5 or 6 of the existing County Divisions would be about the right size.

This would put together Belmont, Elvet, Gilesgate, Neville’s Cross and Newton Hall, say, for the City - splitting the City area into two pieces grouped with other divisions to the east or west would appear illogical.

There is a reasonable question about whether Framwellgate Moor parish should be included, but if things have to be put together as amalgamations of county divisions, this would also have to bring in Witton Gilbert and bear Park too.

Add into the mix the fact that there a ward boundary review has just started, and it looks to me that any geographical boundaries would have to be temporary until after the result of that review is implemented.

The second issue I feel strongly about is how decisions for an AAP to spend money are taken.

Quite clearly the AAP has to involve lots of other representatives apart form the local councillors (police, health, parish and town councils, voluntary groups etc.)  but I am very clear that if an AAP has spending powers, then the final decision on wther or not to allocate money to some scheme must be with the councillors as we and we alone are accountable to the public through the ballot box for what we do.

The third issue that was discussed was how the new council should operate at ‘Neighbourhood’ level.

Clearly AAPs may turn out to be geographically quite large, and there need to be mechanisms to relate the work of the council and the councillors to smaller areas which might be a street, an estate or a village.

My table had quite a good discussion on this and agreed that it was necessary to have a good network of neighbourhood support officers to make this operate (Durham City currently runs a very effective structure with a team of 6 people covering the district).

So altogether an interesting couple of hours. One final point - the labour Leader of the Council stated explicitly that this was a genuine consultation and that nothing was yet decided. We shall be watchful to make sure he keeps to his word.

Many residents will have been concerned about the initial confusion and disorganisation with the new recycling scheme that started in April.

But there is good news, as I discovered yesterday, that the quantity of recycled goods has leapt by around 60% since the new green bags were introduced.

The City Council has also required the operator, Greencycle, to put in stronger management and it looks like most of the problems have now been ironed out, although I am aware that there are a few issues still to be resolved.

So keep on recycling - every extra ton saves the Council a considerable amount in landfill tax.

If there are any problems, do let me know and I will try to deal with them.

The County Council is organising a series of “Stakeholder Events” around the County in late July and August to gauage local feelings on the sizes and structures of the new Area Action Partnerships (EAP) that are to be set up from next April.

The EAPs are supposed to be the way for the new council to make decisions and consult with people in their local areas and there could be 12-14 in all across the County.

The sorts of questions that the meetings will try to address are

• What would be the most important activities for Area Action Partnerships to be involved with?
• How many partnerships do we need? Is 12 to 14 the right number?
• Which areas should the partnerships serve?
• How should the partnerships keep in touch with local people?
• How can the partnerships best involve local people and groups?

The meeting for DurhamCity is in two weeks time on Tuesday 29 July at 6 pm in Durham Town Hall. If you wish to attend then you need to book a place by 24 July.  Contact Lee Kirby, City of Durham Council, 0191 301 8898, lkirby@durhamcity.gov.uk

More details and the full list of Stakeholder Events can be viewed at

http://county.durham.gov.uk/sites/lgraks/Pages/ConsultationEvents.aspx#Events 

on the County Council web site.

This morning there was a meeting of the full County Council to appoint a new Chief Executive. He is George Garlick, currently Chief Executive of Stockton Borough Council.

The reason I am writing about this is reassure those who worry about these things that the appointment process was very rigorous and robust. A large number of very good candidates applied for what will be one of the top jobs in local government.

The final short list was top class and was put through a tough two and a half day selection process involving the leading members of all the political groups at all stages.

I am confident that we now have a top notch Chief Executive who can lead the Council through what will undoubtedly be a tough period while the new unitary gets going.

The Schools Adjudicator, Sir Philip Hunter, issues his decision yesterday on the admissions criteria for Durham Johnston.

In brief, Sir Philip decided that the criteria giving priority to associated transport from specific areas ahead of families close to the school was unfair.

 He specified that the criteria for 2009 entry should be the same as those for 2008 with distance being measured from the closer of the Crossgate and Whinney Hill sites.

He also directed the Council to review it criteria for future years in the light of this decision, pointing out that in mixed urban/rural areas arrangements involving catchment areas or feeder schools were much more common and were more acceptable.

Sir Philip also criticised the public consultation process and the confusion caused in the mind of local people by the way in which the Council has said things in the past.

I believe this is the best outcome for now. It gives the Council time to get its act together and come up with a workable solution.

One point to emerge from all the debate was the fact that the current criteria actually make no difference to the admissions of all but very few schools in the County, as in most areas there is either no alternative school or no real cometition for places.

My conclusion is that in coming up with new criteria, the Council should look very hard at the areas where there is competition and devise rules that deal fairly with these situations. My regret is that the County Council clearly has not taken this approach in the past.

You can see the full judgement at: DJ Adjudicator decision