Where's the pork?

This is what Cornwall Council's press release said about Cabinet Support Members on Friday:

"The Leader of the Council's Independent Group John Wood said that the Independents had been consulted on these changes and were pleased with the progress made by the Leader of the Council."

The Indie group deputy leader, Mike Clayton, has just read a short statement to today's full council meeting saying his group has yet to be convinced of the need for CSMs and had therefore not (yet) appointed anyone to fill the vacant education portfolio.

Perhaps I'm not the only one who thinks the Indies had been bought rather cheaply. And councillor Fiona Ferguson, narrowly defeated in the Conservative group election for leader, has just said she does not support council leader Alec Robertson on this issue. And by a secret vote of 55-35, the council votes against paying CSMs.

The plot thickens...

FoI news

Trawling through Cornwall Council's log of answers published in response to Freedom of Information requests, I noted this one about out-of-court settlements.

The answer shows that over the past five years the council (and the former county council) paid more than £473,000 in out-of-court settlements. There were a total of 40 claims, or potential claims, and nearly all of them involved allegations of unfair dismissal and sex discrimination.

That's an average of eight claims per year, which in an organisation which employs more than 19,000 is perhaps only to be expected. In 2009, the first year of Cornwall Council, 18 claims were settled at a cost of £203,215. Last year the figure was £124,583 for five out-of-court settlements.

Oor Wullie's progress

Congratulations to the Liberal Democrats' former Cornwall Campaigns Officer, Willie Rennie, who has become his party's leader in Scotland. The Lib Dems lost 11 seats in recent elections to the Scottish Parliament and now have only five MSPs.

The councillors we deserve?

I don't suppose the Annual Report of Cornwall's Standards Board will command acres of newsprint when it's reported to the Cornwall Council annual meeting tomorrow, so here's a digest of the interesting bits:

107 allegations against a total of 77 councillors
66 allegations resulted in no action being taken
Average cost of dealing with each complaint - £150
Total cost of processing complaints - £11,500
18 allegations concerned Cornwall Councillors (out of 123, so 15%)
89 allegations concerned town, parish and city councillors (out of about 1,800, so 5%). These were confined to only 27 town, parish or city councils

The Annual Report states:

"The majority of allegations made have concerned the behaviour of Councillors with failure to treat others with respect and bringing their office or authority into disrepute being the most common. Failure to declare personal and rejudicial interests was the next most reported allegation."

Alec reshuffles the pack

I think it was one of the Godfather movies where I first heard the line: "Keep your friends close - and your enemies closer."

Last night's Cornwall Council cabinet reshuffle, announced on Twitter (surely a first?), breaks this golden rule of politics and demonstrates that when I forecast a job for Fiona Ferguson I was completely wrong.

The creation of four new Cabinet Support Members - three Conservatives and one Independent - suggest to me that the Indies have been bought rather cheaply. The 3-1 ratio does not reflect political balance either in the council or the 3-2 balance in the former cabinet.

We don't yet know how much these new posts are going to cost in terms of extra responsibility allowances. Council leader Alec Robertson has suggested there might be no cost at all, as a result of savings elsewhere. But ultimately it looks as if the total spend on members will have to go up, while that on professional staff is going down.

Tuesday's full council meeting will be fascinating.

The changing of the guard

Pressure of work has delayed me blogging my tribute to Doris Ansari, who steps down formally on Monday as leader of the Lib Dem group on Cornwall Council. I'm immensely grateful to Doris for taking the time last week to go on BBC Radio Cornwall with Martin Bailie to announce her intentions.

I've known Doris for nearly 30 years and she has always been unfailingly courteous and straightforward, a rare combination in a politician (yeah, OK, I know many journos are not much better.) During the 1980s she was one of a handful of councillors who dragged Cornish politics out of its Independent-dominated rural squirearchy and transformed it into a reasonably recognisable version of the 20th century.

It's entirely appropriate that Doris's OBE should have been awarded "for services to the people of Cornwall." She represents a significant chapter in Cornwall's local government history and it's good to know that she'll still be there at County Hall to offer words of wisdom from the back benches.

Monday's Lib Dem group meeting will confirm Jeremy Rowe as its new leader, and it's hard to envisage a more 21st century local government politician. Jeremy blogs and Tweets and has the sort of sense of humour which - if not actually terrifying his opponents - often leaves them completely lost for words.

Jeremy will be elected unopposed, which sounds a bit like the way they used to do things in Albania, but at least there won't be the need for any of that Alternative Voting. It will be very interesting to see if Jeremy can keep his role as a front-bench jester once he has to combine it with the gravitas of detail that comes with leadership. But if anybody can cheer up the Lib Dems right now, it's Jeremy - I wish him luck.

Devonwall - the final word?

For many of Cornwall's Liberal Democrats, the loss of the historic political boundary with Devon was the price that had to be paid for the referendum on changing the voting system. It was different for the Conservatives, who didn't want the referendum but simply seized an opportunity to reduce the number of MPs. By this evening we'll know the result of that referendum. I do hope that once the referendum result is known, the Lib Dems will comment on whether they think Devonwall was a price worth paying.