I thought I'd revisit the blog to see what they could possibly be finding so interesting. Now in a rather Stalinist move, the organisation I was blogging about - The Conservative Political Officers Network removed the page which I linked to in the blog. Anyway, here's the next best page that still exists which explains what this mob do :-
http://cpon.info/about/
Now here's the disturbing bit. From their aims and objectives page :-
The Barnet Eye passionately believes that if a Councillor needs "political assistance" from a member of CPON (or anyone else), they are not up to the job. We also believe that the last thing local authorities should be wasting taxpayers money on is Political Officers. The mere term Political Officer stinks of Stalinism. The idea that elected representatives need these sort of people to "Help" them is abhorrant to me and the fact that Local Authorities pay the wages of an openly political officer merely to ensure that Councillors tow the party line rather than follow their consciences is disgusting.
Since then, CPON has grown with local authority demand for political assistance supporting elected members. We continue to maintain the original aims of providing a support network for Conservative political officers, but have expanded in recent years to provide a consultancy service to local authorities considering creating political officer positions.
Needless to say, Barnet Council employ one of these. They would rather pay a political officer's wages than a few Sheltered Housing Wardens. I asked a Conservative Councillor whether he thought that this was a good use of public money. He told me that "He'd read my comments about CPON and thought I was ignorant, naive and stupid" He told me I knew nothing about how a modern Council is run and what the job of a Councillor is.
Let me just say one thing for the record. In the event of the electors of Mill Hill giving me the privilege of representing them, I will represent them to the best of my ability. If anyone starts giving me political advice as to why I should ignore my conscience they will get told two words, one starts in F and the other is "off". As I said, if you need a Political Officer to tell you how to think, you aren't up to the job.
As ever, you dear reader can make up your mind as to whether I'm "ignorant, naive and stupid" or whether I'm right.
Rog
ReplyDeleteAll three political parties in Barnet have political assistants funded by the taxpayer and it should be stopped. If councillors feel they need political assistance then they should pay for it themselves out of their generous allowances.
When Mike Freer became leader he went one step further and appointed a Cabinet Advisor, even though the Chief Executive is already paid rather well to do the same job. The first person appointed to this new position was - quite coincidentally of course - the former Conservative councillor Vanessa Gearson, who was looking for work having failed to get elected as MP for Cheltenham in 2005 or re-elected to the council in 2006.
Eventually Dr Gearson got promoted to an even higher paid non-job in the council’s communications department, and her replacement was none other than Richard Robeson - another Tory activist.
There are two problems here. First is that the Conservatives are abusing taxpayers money to help their mates and second, that the officers are turning a blind eye to this abuse. The Cabinet Advisor is supposed to be a politically restricted post, so how is it possible that only Tories seem to get appointed?
David,
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that Councils should employ political assistants. It is a waste of money. I would not campaign to unilaterally stop the Lib Dems from having one as that would place us at a disadvantage, no matter how much I dislike the practice, but i would seek to end the employment of such posts in Barnet. I believe that the money would be better spent on wardens etc.
I guess I'll be rather unpopular for saying this
The Lib Dem group does not have a political assistant, and hasn't had one for four years.
ReplyDelete@Duncan - are you going to explain why you no longer have one or am I! Wouldn't want readers to think that this was a matter of principle to your Group...
ReplyDeleteThe political balance rules mean we were not entitled to one. I think there is a role for some admin support. It would be better provided by an admin assistant for all councillors that could help with the routing of requests for information / data etc. This really does not need to be a political post at all.
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose that, as one of Barnets leading Conservatives, you'd care to enlighten us on you view as to whether you think the posts are good value for the Council taxpayer or not?
I know there is an election coming up, but I think the readers would be interested to know.
@Rog, wanted to give Duncan the opportunity to explain that rather than rub your nose in the proverbial sh*t for not having a big enough Group.
ReplyDeleteI think it is inappropriate for the Council to fund such posts and have argued against them.
I actually think it is also unfair on the Conservative Group as they get one full time advisor, the same as your Group used to get for the short time they had 7 Councillors.
I agree with Duncan that there should be some admin support. I think that each Councillor should have a notional budget (ie not given cash) for admin support and that Councillors should be free to pool it together. Eg you may find they join together in a group of 6 / 2 wards and hire a part time administrator. Providing assistance with Ward work is fine, in my mind. Pushing political parties and spinning press releases isn't.
If they want a spin doctor they can raise the funds in the normal way or pay from their allowances.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteI guess we both agree on this then. I see a big difference between "admin support" for councillors (non party political) and a "political officer".
I think party political activity should be funded by the party not the state (whatever the guise).
I suppose I should have said that my objection to CPON is not because they are a Conservative organisation, just that I think the whole concept is worrying.
And you agree it should be 'per councillor' and not 'per group' as it is now. That's really unfair and undemocratic.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly are you committed to abolishing the Special Responsibility allowance for 'Group Whips' and 'Group Secretaries'? And if you are not do you not agree with me that they should be based on a formula (whilst sticking to existing totals) such as £500 + £x per member of that Group and not the ridiculous situation where the LibDem Group Secretary (dealing with 5 other Councillors) gets the same allowance as the Conservative Group Secretary who has to administer 36 other Councillors?
Dan,
ReplyDeleteI am for a drastic simplification of the system. I'd pay an hourly rate for Councillors on Council business. This would be signed off by the Leader of their group and the CEO. If they were "independents" or single members, I'd have an independent renumeration committee of vicars and rabbis etc who would sign them off. I would have a fixed formula, so if you attend a committee you can claim up to X hours for preparation. I would pay travel expenses and out of pocket expenses, where justifiable.
I would exempt campaign work from the allowance, but allow an amount of "group related expenses" so that groups can operate efficiently. This would be capped and dependent on hours worked or costs incurred.
I would pay the allowance for constituency and case work and surgeries.
Basically the simple rule would be that if you worked really hard and put the time in you'd probably be a bit better off than you are today and if you did sweet FA you'd get sweet FA. We all know that some Councillors give the voters more for their money than others. This isn't fair.
I would pay a higher hourly rate for chairmen of committees etc, which would be their responsibility allowance. They would need to do some work for it.
I would also give the councillors the option of not taking some/all of their allowance or paying some of it direct to a charity of their choice.
I don't understand how the chairman of a committee which meets for 1/2 hour a year can get several thousand pounds. It's wrong and it should stop. I would like to see Barnet Council become an example for other councils. At present it is a basket case. i don't believe in paying money for old rope.
So in answer to your question, yes I would abolish all of these random allowances. Hope this answers the question.
@Rog... I understand where you are coming from but we really don't need Councillors just 'clocking in' and sloooooooooowly reading papers or sloooooooooooowly solving problems. There would be a whole set of other problems than now.
ReplyDeleteI can just hear the words of the song, "I'm busily doing nothing, working the whole day long, trying to find lots of things not to do....."
The system as it stands is fine BUT FOR the figures make no sense. The 'independent' panel are fools, in that they make no effort to get their own evidence and rely entirely on being spoon fed by Jeff Lustig.
I want Councillors remunerated by results not running around being busybodies at £25 / hour.... And since when do you trust Lynne Hillan and Nick Walkley to manage this?
Dan,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't trust Lynne Hillan to run a whelk stall, thats why I'm standing for the Lib Dems.
I agree that some councillors may take the P... but at present they can get paid thousands and thousands of pounds and not even have to show up for anything apart from a couple of meetings a year. You've been a councillor so I will bow to your superior knowledge on how councillors will behave.
Seriously though, if you have a better proposal I would be more than happy to nick it and push for it to become policy.