Council Group Report to Members

An update on the work of the Council Group since the last members meeting.

Obviously our main piece of work since the last meeting has been around the local elections on 6 May 2016. We were very pleased to welcome an additional Lib Dem colleague in Holyrood Ward, but gutten to just miss out this year in next door St Mary’s Ward by just 19 votes.

The Council Group has had its Annual General Meeting and the following appointments have been made for 2016-17:

Election of Group Officers 2016-17
Group Leader – Tim Pickstone
Group Deputy Leader – Mary D’Albert

Appointment to Council Committees 2016-17

Cabinet (without portfolio) – Pickstone
Overview and Scrutiny – Wright
Health Scrutiny – D’Albert
Planning – D’Albert
Licensing – Wright
Audit – Wright
Standards – D’Albert

Other Committees
JCC – Pickstone
JCC Teachers – Pickstone
Member Development – Pickstone
Democratic Arrangements – Pickstone
Youth Cabinet – Wright
Corporate Parenting – D’Albert
LGA General Assembly Delegation – Pickstone

Tim is also a School Governor at St Margaret’s CoE Primary, Steve is also a School Governor at Prestwich Arts College.

An additional verbal update will be given at the meeting.

European Union Referendum – Make Sure You Can Vote

Voting takes places across the country on Thursday 23 June 2016 in the important referendum to determine whether the country will remain in, or leave the European Union.

Many people may be on holiday or other commitments on this additional polling day.

Anyone can sign up for a postal vote. The votes arrive in the post for you just under two weeks before the election and you just need to return them in postage paid envelope.

The deadline for applying for a postal vote for the EU Referendum is Wednesday 8 June 2016, so you don’t have that long.

You can do this online, by filling in and printing out this form and sending it to the Town Hall. If you would like a form but cannot print one out please just let us know and we will drop one round.

Please note that if you have already signed up for a postal vote, you don’t need to re-register again. 

 

Local elections – We’re getting there…

We are the third party of British politics and last week’s result shows that clearly.

Our percentage vote has almost doubled since last year. Contrast that with 2010 when we lost 411 seats.

We are the only party to gain a council (Watford, where we wiped out the Conservatives) and in places such as Eastleigh and Cheltenham we made gains.
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We have won in areas which commentators would see as not favourable areas for the Lib Dems, taking seats in Sunderland, Manchester and Knowsley.

In Scotland, we gained NE Fife and Edinburgh Western. And despite the full onslaught of the SNP machine we increased our vote share in both Orkney and Shetland. For all the SNP spin, they actually lost control.

The Liberal Democrats are fighters and our members up and down the country have fought an incredible campaign.

The job of rebuilding was monumental, and there is still masses to do. But the job is now underway and we move to the EU referendum and ultimately 2020 with a new spring in our step.

Local Elections – Thank you for your Support

Just to thank residents across Bury for their support in the local elections last week.

Our two best results were in Holyrood Ward, where we took a seat from Labour:

Steve Wright (LIB DEM)1,733
Labour 1,463
Conservative 280
UKIP 229
Green 139

and in St Mary’s Ward where we lost by 19, but cut Labour’s majority down from 892 last year:

Labour 1,349
Michael Powell (LIB DEM)1,330
Conservative 463
Green 126

Lib Dem Group Leader, Cllr Tim Pickstone said:
“A huge thank you to voters in Prestwich, who have sent a very clear message that we are fed up with the way we are treated by the Labour-run Council. We’re gutted we didn’t quite make it in St Mary’s Ward, but coming so close is a great foundation for the future. We will continue to be working hard for local residents, all-year-round.”

Results for the whole of Bury are here.

Petition to Save the HomeStart Charity

Local campaigners have launched a petition to save the local charity ‘Home-Start Bury’. This is a charity which supports local families by offering support, friendship and practical help to parents with young children.

Bury Council funded Home-Start thorugh it’s ‘Commissioning Fund’ for a period of three years starting in 2013/14. That came to an end on 31 March 2016. During this period Homestart received a total of £69,000 from the Commissioning Fund.

This is the statement from the Trustees of Home-Start from their Facebook Page”
 “It is with much sadness that the Board of Trustees has taken the difficult decision to close Home-Start Bury. This is due to a 100% cut to zero in our funding by Bury MBC.
The Impact is 70 families lose vital support, 3 staff loses their jobs, and 50 highly trained volunteers lost to the community.
When Home-Start Bury closes, there will be no other early intervention services to support families in the same way that Home-Start does: offering personalised parent-to-parent support in the confidential environment of the family home during weekly visits for as long as the family needs support for. This early intervention approach stops many families from reaching crisis point and needing costly statutory support.
The Staff and Board have exhausted every possible avenue for funding, but to no avail. External grant makers like BBC Children in Need, Big Lottery and Lloyds TSB prefer to have some reassurance that there is at least some commitment from Statutory services…so in effect, the cut in our funding is preventing us from bringing £££££ in to the Borough.
Our hearts goes out to those families as well as our brilliant staff and volunteers.
All families and volunteers are aware of the situation and support is being offered to signpost families to other local facilities like the children’s centers.
We have written to the relevant officers within the Local Authority and elected members of the council. As yet, we have not had any responses.
If you are a council tax payer in Bury, please write to your local councillor if you think this is wrong.
You can also follow us on twitter @homestartbury
Thank you for all the messages of support we have had so far, we are overwhelmed with peoples kindness x”

Online Petition
An online petition has been set up to support the charity. If enough people sign the petition it will trigger a formal debate on the issue at the Town Hall.

You can read the petition and add your support here.

Tim Farron: Mp’s “closed their eyes to those in need”

The Lib Dems backed A new amendment to the Immigration Bill from Lord Dubs which passed by 279 votes to 172. On whether the UK should provide sanctuary for 3000 unaccompanied child refugees

There will be another opportunity to vote on the issue and Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said, following the vote, that the government has “closed their eyes to those in need”. He added: “Britain has consistently stood up for the best in human nature – it has opened its doors with the Kindertransport to those escaping Nazi brutality and again to Ugandans fleeing Idi Amin’s brutal regime. Tonight the government have dishonoured that legacy.”

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Ignoring this will not make it go away. These children will remain stuck in limbo as the situation deteriorates. As time goes on more of these orphans will lose hope of finding a home, securing an education and living a stable and peaceful life.

Reporting Back – Full Council, Answers to Questions

Earlier in the month was the regular meeting of Bury’s ‘Full Council’. The Lib Dem Group asked our full allocation of four questions: (summaries below – full answers here)

– Children in Residential Care
Mary D’ALbert asked about the recent report that “Thousands of police visits ‘criminalise’ children in care homes”, and could we be assured that children from Bury that are placed in residential care homes outside of the Borough are monitored, and are not the subject of such action.
Answer: We currently have 23 young people in residential care out of approximately 300 children and young people in our care, so they are a very small, but important, part of our group of young people in care. The children are closely monitored through placement’ visits and social workers consultations with other professionals. The children have all been informed regarding Bury’s advocacy service and majority are accessing this service.

– Staff Bullying
Tim Pickstone asked about the recent report that 10% of Council staff reported bullying in the last year:
Answer: The Council takes any allegation of bullying and harassment very seriously and we place the utmost importance on dignity and respect for all our employees which is why we already have a number of key policies and practices in place to prevent and deal with incidences.
In response to this question26 Dignity at Work complaints have been investigated in the past three years (6 since April 2015) and there have been 18 cases which have been handled via the mediation route (4 since April 2015).
There have been 7 whistleblowing cases in this timescale.

– Review of Bus Lanes
Tim asked when the promised review of Bus Lanes would happen in the south of Bury (Prestwich, Whitefield and Radcliffe)
Answer: We have been unable to commence work on a wider review due to pressure of work and significantly reduced resources. However it is our intention to commence a wider review later this year and we will be happy to provide Councillor Pickstone with a more detailed time table once it is available.

Missing School Crossing Patrols
– Mary asked about the number of school crossing patrols that are currently without ‘lollypop men or women’:
Answer:There are currently 18 vacant school crossing patrol sites that do not have a permanent member of staff allocated to them. The number of sites that are not operational can change on a daily basis as priority is given to allocating relief/supply staff to cover unassisted crossings.
For the past few weeks there have been 9 crossings left without cover, these have all been assisted crossings (pelican or puffin), all unassisted crossings have been covered using relief staff. The school crossing patrol coordinator assesses the risk when making the decision about which crossings will be left empty and which will be covered with supply staff taking into account road speed and the road layout near/around the school.

Let us know if you have any queries or thoughts on these, or ideas for questions at future meetings.

Lib Dems secure Victory for Vulnerable Tenants

The Government has agreed a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill, which protects vulnerable tenants from being wrongly evicted.Under the Housing & Planning Bill, landlords get faster access to a property if they believe the tenant has abandoned it.

The successful amendment requires a landlord to get in touch with a third party such as a charity, local authority or individual who has helped to pay the tenant’s deposit. If the landlord gets a response that the tenant has not abandoned the property they can’t change the locks and reclaim it.

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Lib Dem peer Baroness Grender, who is a former Director of Communications for Shelter, commented:

“I am pleased that the Government has agreed to this change which I have been raising throughout the committee stages of this Bill. Vulnerable tenants often have huge challenges, such mental health issues, and are often teetering on the brink when it comes to homelessness. This change will ensure the most vulnerable, who are supported by a charity or a local authority, are not evicted but kept housed.

“The section in this Bill on rogue landlords is important, but would have been ruined by the original plans to give landlords greater rights on abandonment.

“This does not mean that the Bill is fixed, far from it, and the damaging measures to sell off affordable homes overshadows it all. But in this area, the Government has agreed a change which is a good compromise on their original plans.

The Liberal Democrats are continuing to focus many aspects of the Housing and Planning Bill, as outlined here.”

Tax reform and the Panama Papers

Tim Farron has written about the Panama Papers and the opportunity to change our system to restore trust in tax and politics on Facebook, you can read and share it here.

These revelations and this issue is about more than just David Cameron. We must not miss this opportunity to change the system.

It is absolutely essential that British people have full confidence in our leaders, and that when decisions are made and Budgets are written there is not even a slightest hint of a conflict of interest or personal gain.

We need a politics that works for people and communities, where it is their interests which are at the heart of how things are done.

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Politicians must rebuild faith in politics by doing what matters, by reaching out and helping people, and doing what we were elected to do in the first place.

In March Tim Farron asked Vince Cable to lead a major review for our party on tax to ensure people can have faith in the system and that it works in a truly globalised world.

Liberal Democrats want to see:

  1. Moves to bring in a real anti-avoidance rule. The anti-abuse rules were a good first step we took in government but we need to go further.

  2. Strengthen penalties for participating in repeated aggresive avoidance schemes – the changes this Government is bringing in won’t even allow someone to be named unless they have been involved in three separate avoidance schemes that have been defeated by HMRC in the courts. We need tougher penalties for those persistently aggressively avoiding tax.

  3. Use the anti-corruption summit this May to push overseas territories to hold a central list of beneficial ownership in each fund created, and for that list to be made available to HMRC. The Panama Papers show there is a huge problem in this area and this anti-corruption summit is an opportunity for us to globally take real, concerted action to change things.

Saying ‘No’ to the Snoopers Charter

Liberal Democrats on Bury Council were last week successful in getting Bury Council to take a stand against the Investagatory Powers Bill (sometimes referred to as the ‘Snoopers Charter’).

There are three issues that particularly concern us:

– the Bill would require all communications companies (e.g. Internet Service Providers and telephone companies) too keep a complete record of our electronic communciation for a whole year (email,s instant messages, web browsing history, gaming, etc etc). With something like a mobile phone this effectively means a record of where we are, as this data is being sent continuously to our phone company. It means asking companies like Talk Talk (who lost a large amount of its own customer data not long ago) to keep this information and us trust them that it is secure.

– the Bill gives public bodies the right to have bulk surveillance warrants, which would grant public bodies the right to see the information on everyone with a ‘common interest’ – e.g. everyone who went to a meeting or rally, with just one warrant.

– a lack of properly resourced judicial oversight over the Home Secretary, to make sure that any surveillance that is done is approved in a very and proper legal process.

Lib Dem councillors proposed a motion, which raised serious concerns about the Bill. This was then supported by all Labour and some Conservative councillors and has now been successful in becoming the policy of Bury Council.

You can watch Lib Dem Group Leader Cllr Tim Pickstone speak on the debate here: