Monday

Meeting of member development (see previous post on working together)

Stretford Neighbourhood Forum – A dreadful meeting. The Tories dictate the agenda for these forums and this meeting was so obviously a deceitful device to share some of the blame for their harsh budget proposals. Nothing original in that – what I found really brazen was that they’re only putting certain chosen items into the consultation.

Where was the budget for their lauded Transformation Team?
Nowhere to be seen – not up for discussion.

What happens if volunteers don’t come forward to replace paid staff in libraries, youth services and other areas?
Automated response – not programmed to answer. Please ask another question

As usual, councillors and officers outnumbered the public two to 1 but at the end of the process, we’ll be told how supportive of the budget proposals, the public have been. Deeply depressing.

Wednesday

Met with Trafford’s Corporate Director of Transformation and Resources along with Dave Acton and Barry Brotherton.

Thursday

Gorse Hill Action Group – Really good meeting. There seems a renewed energy to move things forward. Gorse Hill Funday was provisionally set for May 20.

Friday

Transport Committee in the morning. Not been a good week for the Trams with points failures and breakdowns. I thought it sensible to go by tram and fortunately the trams were fine or perhaps unfortunately as I didn’t really experience the problems they’d been in the week. Tram problems are nothing new though but I think the issues that have really infuriated is firstly the regularity, and secondly how the breakdowns were handled.

In the afternoon I had a sneak peak at the parliament channel as I’ve been following the Daylight Saving Bill which aims to give us an extra hour of daylight in the evenings and a later dawn. I’m a supporter. But there are arguments against and they should be listen too. However, what happened on Friday brought parliament into disrepute. I don’t recommend anyone watches all of the video below but it demonstrates the complete farce of the filibuster (talking a bill out – at one point they resorted to readings from the bible). Pathetic

Image

Excellent, albeit rushed, meeting of Member Development Committee on Monday night. The committee takes on a much wider remit than simply – training courses for councillors. At the moment we’re looking at the role of councillors in their community. With huge cuts to the spending power of councils, we’re looking to maximise the potential of the community in terms of what it can provide from within; and its ability to pull in funding from outside.

All the indicators suggest that over many years we haven’t done this well in Trafford. In the last Comprehensive Area Assessment (2010 – the analysis has since been scrapped by the Govt.), we were in the bottom quartile for most of the indicators relating to community involvement:

• Incidence of voluneering – worst 25%
• Involvement in civic participation – below average
• Percentage of residents who feel they can influence decisions affecting their local area – worst 20%
• Environment for a thriving third sector – worst 5%

These are appalling results for Trafford. If anything, the position has worsened since 2010, with the reduction in grants to groups and our third sector. This has led to VCAT (Voluntary and Community Action Trafford) being drained of funding in its role as the support for Trafford’s voluntary sector. So the training, advice, guidance it provides is by no means guaranteed in future. We know that firstly Trafford Housing Trust and latterly Blue Sci have been touted as partners to VCAT for a joint tender, but it’s impossible to ignore the mood music coming from those watching on.

But suddenly, despite this bleak backdrop, community groups and their volunteers are seen by the government as the shining saviours ready to spring into action to maintain services as staff are made redundant. We Labour councillors are opposed to volunteers being used to do the work of paid professional staff, but that’s an issue to be debated at Council later this week when we put forward our motion. The topic being discussed at member development was how councillors can support volunteering and community involvement; and that has to be a worthwhile aspiration. Simply put, it is something we’re not as good at as we should be. And to make matters worse, the council as a whole is abjectly woeful in its approach to this agenda. It’s an object lesson in how not to do it:

• 100 Days in Trafford – we’ll advertise a few things (in a thrown together web calendar) that were mainly going to happen anyway and the community will rush to take part?
• The implied threat that if you don’t volunteer to do this we’ll be forced to make savings elsewhere
• The general disregard for existing community groups and what they’ve been doing
• A lack of appreciation that communities and volunteer groups are not people that can be told ‘stop what you’re doing, we want you to do this (e.g librarians)
• A lack of interest in the motivations for getting involved
• A failure to provide adequate ways to influence the decisions affecting their area
• Neighbourhood forums provided by the council intermittently and tied rigidly to an agenda controlled by the council

As you can tell, I am really disappointed in the way that the Tories have implemented this. I see genuine risks that it will actually deter people from coming forward. But I’m going to acknowledge that Labour has a record that is mixed when it comes to community empowerment. We have been too managerial, too dismissive and too ready to believe we had all the answers. In recognising that fact, and in common with a growing body of people in Labour, (and Conservatives too, it has to be said) I’ve become really interested in the achievements of the London Citizens Movement. I don’t agree with everything they’ve done, but they’ve got an energy. They’ve got a can-do attitude that makes any regular at Trafford’s neighbourhood forums, want to weep in the realisation that engagement in Trafford has never amounted to anything approaching this.

So I think there’s real opportunities for energizing our communities. Councillors can’t do it all, but we can do a little bit to help. And I think we can learn to do things better.

Links

You can read more on London Citizens on their website

 

“break” by Annie Swingen, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

It’s not the best picture to underline the citizen’s empowerment message. I wanted to show something more than a neighbourhood clean up. If you can find a public domain photo that shows citizens taking the reins rather the the shovel, that’s the one I want.

Monday

Transport for Greater Manchester budget consultation at Manchester Town Hall. A fairly well attended meeting although considerably down on last years. Support for ring and ride and real time passenger info. Less support for interchanges.

Labour Group meeting in the evening. Campaign for 2012 is progressing really well. Great to see so much enthusiasm and desire to work together across all factions, without a hint of posturing or personal agenda.

Tuesday

Met with James Hampson, new development worker for Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) in Lostock. I was very impressed at the project. I think there’s every potential for the development of sustainable community activity here and look forward to working alongside James.

Met with Trafford’s other TfGMC councillors, June Reilly (Cons) and Brian Rigby (Cons) together with officers ahead of Friday’s TfGMC meeting on Friday to discuss the agenda and any implications for Trafford. We’re awaiting finalisation of the budget from the Combined Authority (essentially the leaders of the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs). This won’t be determined until their meeting of the 27th January. There is cross-party support the Local Sustainability Transport Fund bid; the Bridgewater Way cycling improvements along the canal have proved the potential and we want to build upon that.

Met with community groups in Old Trafford to discuss the Council’s plan to replace paid staff with volunteers. The manner in which the council has gone about is bungling in the extreme; it has the potential to undermine volunteering for years to come. The groups are absolutely outraged and I don’t blame them.

Wednesday

Budget Scrutiny of Transformation and Resources, the directorate responsible for the libraries. Clearly the issue of volunteers taking over Old Trafford and Hale libraries dominated. We’re told there’s no Plan B for the possibility of volunteers not coming forward in sufficient numbers. There’s no plan to shut the libraries and there’s no budget for supporting the volunteers via commissioning or other route, although they might be able to find some money to help the group start. There will be training and funding for CRB checks.

Thursday

Cycled over to Hale Library to get a better understanding of the dynamics there.

Friday

Transport for Greater Manchester Committee. (see Tuesday) I suffered a puncture to bike almost upon arrival in Albert Square and returned using the train to Trafford Park Station. I was one of five passengers to alight from a sparsely crowded train – leaving it fairly empty. If I’m to believe the figures no one uses this station, but my experiences seem to suggest otherwise; it doesn’t help that no member of staff at Deansgate seems to want to check ticket or take the fare. Still think Trafford Park Station has huge potential – I was lucky, the next train would have meant a 2 hr wait.

Met with the Scrutiny Team to discuss the report to the executive.

Saturday

Campaigned in Davyhulme. Great response on the doorstep.

Image by Károly Váltó from Pixabay