Why are Wrecsam tenants subsidising London councils?

London councils are being subsidised through the Treasury clawing money from Welsh council tenants.

The Housing Revenue subsidy system was originally designed to prevent council housing accounts making a loss but has now spiralled into a money-making machine for the UK Treasury, which then pays out surpluses to 50 councils, all but one of which is situated in England.

Hackney got over £48 million in 2009, Islington received £58 million and Manchester got £34 million while only one out of 18 councils in Wales were paid - Merthyr got £293,000.

Wrecsam Council, by contrast, lost £11.2m from its housing revenue account. That £11.2m is a third of all the money Wrecsam Council has to spend on housing in the borough. This amount could easily pay for repairs and renovations to get our housing up to a decent standard for tenants.

The system is currently being reviewed by deputy housing minister Jocelyn Davies but, let's be clear, this is a UK fiddle and we have no say in the Treasury's decision.

Scottish local authorities are not part of this subsidy regime but Welsh councils pay nearly £100m to the Treasury, which in turn is paid to various boroughs in London and other metropolitan areas in England.

At a time when some Wrecsam councillors want to push for another vote on stock transfer, we must push for an urgent reform of this disgraceful situation.

More trouble for Tories in Clwyd West

So another of the Aberconwy Tories has defected, this time it's Cllr Dave Holland from Abergele which is in the Clwyd West constituency. The details surrounding Councillor Holland's move is outlined on Councillor Jason Weyman's blog.
I wonder what will be next?

Not a Good Week for Scottish Labour!

The Herald Scotland has today put together the drip, drip, of information on the fall of Stephen Purcell, Labour Leader of one of the largest local authorities in the country, Glasgow City Council. There is no doubt the fall has been a pretty spectacular fall from grace for someone who has been touted as a future First Minister. His fall from grace is surrounded by rumours of substance misuse and mixing with some rather tasty villains who seemed to have come to the notice of the Scottish Crime Squad. We can only guess at the political fallout and eagerly await the next Scottish opinion polls. Can't see many Councillors in Glasgow wanting to take on the 'poisoned chalice' that seems to be the City's leadership now.

Times are changing at North Wales Police Authority.

I have long been critical of the North Wales Police Authority of being weak and ineffective in their challenge of Chief Police Officers particularly in holding Richard Brunstrom accountable for the things he said and did.

It does now appear that some members of the Authority are taking it upon themselves to force through changes and become far more robust and challenging of Chief Officers as this Daily Post report testifies. Congratulations to Cllr Charles Wyn Jones for his scrutiny of performance data and his ability to get the Deputy Chief Constable to admit that some of the statistics they presented were in fact 'misleading.' What a statement to make!

I have responded to the Daily Post article with the following letter:

Dear Editor,

It was pleasing to read today's Daily Post (Talking Rubbish, March 6), and Councillor Charles Wyn Jones is to be congratulated on what was a robust challenge to statistics produced by North Wales Police. I very much hope that with the imminent and welcoming change at the top of the Police Authority,that other members will follow Councillor Jones's lead in representing the public interest by scrutinising Police activities in far greater depth than has been the case in the past.

Yours sincerely

There are also other major changes going on at the Authority with the Chairman Ian Roberts standing down in May following the decision of the Authority that chairing will be for a period of 4 years. It's not clear whether Ian Roberts will remain as a member of the Police Authority or whether he will be required to stand down as a condition of him being nominated as the Deputy Mayor of Wrecsam.

Also retiring is the Clerk or Chief Executive, Kelvin Dent and it is rumoured that the son of a prominent Welsh Labour MP has been appointed to this role.

Private Eye on the IPC boss

Private Eye has succeeded in exposing the financial interests of the man who will head the Infrastructure Planning Commission, a body that will decide on key planning decisions in Wales:

The man in charge of deciding how £400 bn will be spent in infrastructure investment over the next decade holds shares in many of the energy companies that will benefit from his decisions, the Eye can reveal.

The Governments new Infrastructure Planning Commission is meant to be an objective arbiter over spending on energy security and low carbon power generation, and will take over from local authorities planning decisions on projects of 'national significance', many of them highly controversial.

Its chief executive is John Saunders, an obscure banker who has no experience in planning but comes direct from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), following a stint licensing bouncers at the Security Industry Association.

Those likely to be affected by the turbines and power stations to come will at least hope Saunders' commission makes its decisions impartially and transparently. So it is not reassuring that it recently refused to release details of its commissioners' financial interests, a spokesman telling the Eye that it was "personal information protected by the data protection act".

This was always nonsense , and the Eye has now forced a detailed response from the commission using freedom of information laws. The details perhaps make the reason for the initial secrecy clearer. Saunders has declared shareholdings in the following companies:

National Grid, National Power, Powergen (now owned by E.on), Innogy and Northern Ireland Electric.

Strangely, most of these have big projects for which they are seeking approval from the IPC. Innogy already has two wind farm proposals before the commission;National Grid has three transmission projects and National Power (now RWE nPower) has three proposals including a gas-fired power station - all this before the commission was due to start accepting applications from 1 March.

Saunders' declaration of his interests suggest he's not too bothered about the financial incentive he has to wave the companies' applications. " A decision whether or not to sell or to pass ownership to a blind trust is currently being taken," he declares. So that's all right then.

Albert Owen and the IPC

As was reported in the Daily Post, the first of many large infrastructure projects to be decided upon by the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) will be on Ynys Mon; Wylfa B and the Offshore Windfarm. There is a general agreement that this unelected quango will take decision making away from local authorities and limit consultation with local people.

Perhaps the people of Ynys Mon would like to know that their esteemed MP, Albert Owen voted AYE on the third reading of the Planning Act 2008, which created the IPC. The vote took place on the 25th June 2008 with the Government winning the vote 280 to 198. There was total opposition to the bill by the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, but 6 rebel Labour MP's voted against their government, this included one Welsh Labour MP, Paul Flynn.

I very much hope that the people of Ynys Mon remember where Albert Owen's loyalty really lies when he's on the campaign trail preaching on local issues.

Needless to say that our ultra loyal Brownite/Blairite MP, Ian Lucas also voted with his government and against the public interest on this issue.

Infrastructure Planning Commission (Part 3)

Please sign the following e-petition to the Prime Minister:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to change the jurisdiction of the Infrastructure Planning Commission so as not to include Wales because planning issues in Wales are a devolved issue and the imposition of the IPC on the Welsh Assembly Government subverts the normal planning process in Wales.

Details:
A new unelected public body has been slammed for the undemocratic way it dictates key areas of Welsh life such as new nuclear power stations, windfarms and reservoirs. The new Infrastructure Planning Commission set up by the UK Government is "a body blow for democracy in Wales"

The new commission will be able to completely bypass the local planning process and locate developments where it sees fit. Despite the fact that half the projects currently under consideration are located in Wales, there is no Welsh representation on the commission and the Assembly has no say in its decisions.