Indies play hard-ball on Cabinet Support Members

Yesterday morning Cornwall Council leader Alec Robertson told his Cabinet colleagues that the Independent group would be meeting that afternoon to consider appointing someone to the "vital" education portfolio as a Cabinet Support Member. The Independent group did indeed meet - but again decided not to appoint anyone. So the education brief remains with Indy cabinet member Neil Burden, as part of his wide-ranging role looking after Children, Schools and Families. And the Indies, who want something with a bit more beef (economic regeneration?) remain at loggerheads with their Conservative coalition partners over the precise purpose of these unpaid Cabinet Support posts.

Devonwall and the NHS

My thanks to the Keep Cornwall Whole Campaign for drawing my attention to today's London Evening Standard. The interesting bit is that there has to be a vote in 2013.

"Large risk"........"extremely precarious position."

Any Cornwall Council Cabinet members, or indeed anyone else, could help me out here by asking some obvious questions at tomorrow's Cabinet meeting. Here's the bit that caught my eye:

"There is a large risk facing the Council that has arisen since April. Legal action has recently been served on the Council for failing to set a 'lawful' rate in setting care home fee levels for 2011-12. If the legal action is successful, very significant costs could ensue and place this budget in an extremely precarious position."

STOP PRESS: Seems as if this refers to a group of care home owners who had been seeking to Judicially Review the council's budget. The council had been expecting a response by May, but has heard nothing, and believes (hopes) the threat has now expired.

Council confirms fall in consultancy spend

Last month the council got in a bit of a muddle about the difference between consultants and contractors, so I asked for a like-with-like comparison with previous years. The FOI log now tells us that for the financial year 2010/11:

"The authority spent £13.7m on agency/temporary staff and £7.2m on consultants."

And from a council press release dated 28th July 2010:

"Over the past two years the Council has reduced spending on consultants by more than £4 million from the £15.4m spent by the former County Council in 2008 / 2009 to £11.2 m in 2009 / 2010."

Smoking Guns?

An interesting bunch of documents now available on Cornwall Council's Freedom of Information site, in which various high-up people involved in the St Dennis incinerator project talk about contractors and tender specifications. There are phrases such as "contractors are offering flue gas cleaning systems which do not have the same operating track record as the more traditional systems. I am trying to understand the constraints, if any," and elsewhere "fob off" - any engineers able to interpret this stuff for me?

Back to the Future

Those clever people at Democratic Audit have now published the full detail of their investigations into what the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act will mean for Cornwall. It looks like a return to some old constituency boundaries, and a first-time leap across the Tamar.

Democratic Audit thinks the new-look constituencies will be Falmouth & Camborne, Truro & St Austell, Bodmin & Newquay, St Ives and South East Cornwall. There would also be a cross-border constituency called Torridge & Tintagel. Democratic Audit says:

"From the point of view of Cornwall, the immediate interest (until the Act can be amended) is in finding a least-worst option. The worst option would be for the border to be crossed more than once, for instance a seat in the south adding some tightly defined areas (Saltash and possibly Torpoint) to Plymouth plus another border crossing in the north. The BCE is unlikely to follow such an option.
The basic question then becomes south or north. One commonly discussed option is to cross the Tamar in the Plymouth urban area. One needs to remember that we are talking about nearly half a constituency (32-37,000 electors). The four wards of Saltash amount to 13,315. Taking in Torpoint and the hinterland wards of St Germans and Rame brings us up to 27,000, and then one would need probably Gunnislake and Kelly Bray (and possibly Callington). On the Plymouth side, the wards would probably be St Budeaux, Devonport, Ham and Stoke. It would be a pretty incongruous seat, combining some very urban and very rural areas whose communities have rather little to do with each other (both may share links with central Plymouth).
In some ways, crossing in the north is the lesser of two evils. It would bring communities with something in common together (tourism, agriculture, moorlands) and one could at least cross from one bit of the constituency to another without paying a toll!
A northern crossing would also involve less of a radical redistribution of the constituencies in the rest of Cornwall (see below). It enables a reconstruction, more or less, of the pattern that existed before the 2010 boundary changes and the sixth seat. Abolishing South East Cornwall would lead to large shifts in the rest of the county and the combination of unfamiliar towns in the same constituency.
Note: Cornwall UA wards are occasionally split between current constituencies. Such split wards are listed below with the current constituency to which the majority of its electorate belongs, although the number of electors accurately reflects the allocation of partial wards. The new model does not split any wards."

Arise, Sir Graham

Congratulations to South West Lib Dem Euro MP Graham Watson, knighted in the Queen's birthday honours, and henceforth to be known as Sir Graham. Obviously no relation to South West Lib Dem Euro MP Graham Watson whose name is listed as a supporter of the anti-monarchy pressure group, Republic. (In case you were wondering, I am no relation to Graham Smith, Republic's campaign manager).