Labour's broken links with the unions

This week's two-day strike by PCS civil service workers was notable for the solidarity on the picket lines. In Wrecsam, nearly 1,000 workers in the Jobcentre, courts and tax office went on strike and there were lively pickets attended by other trade unionists.
Plaid's Janet Ryder AM, myself and Arfon Jones got a warm welcome (it may have been something to do with the bacon butties) but it was noticeable that no Labour politician bothered to attend one of the biggest strikes locally for years. Of course the PCS is not affiliated to the Labour Party and has been openly critical of the UK Labour government's programme of job cuts in recent years. Other unions such as the Fire Brigades Union, the RMT railworkers' union and my own union, the NUJ, are also not affiliated to Labour. More recently the posties' union - the CWU - has distanced itself from Labour because of its threat to privatise the Royal Mail.
This coalition of unions are becoming more willing to criticise Labour because they see them for what they are, indistinguishable from the Tories. Politicians are openly talking about "savage job cuts" regardless of which one wins the General Election. Little wonder that the most active and campaigning unions are breaking their links with Labour.

Police accused of failures over anti-social behaviour

The Chief Inspector of Constabulary Dennis O'Connor has published inspection "report cards" on the 43 Police Forces where he strongly criticises Police Forces for their responses to complaints of anti social behaviour. The report measures the forces across three headings, local policing, protection from harm and confidence. Forces are then graded Excellent, Good, Fair and Poor. The results are not promising with only 4 forces getting Good across the board and one force (Nottinghamshire) getting Poor across the board. Out of a total of 129 grades awarded only 4 were Excellent. The vast majority of grades were Fair and North Wales Police was graded Fair across the Board. In comparison the other 3 forces in Wales got one area graded as Good.

Personally I don't think this is good enough and this is the second inspection in 12 months where North Wales Police hasn't come up to the mark, the first occasion was the Policing Pledge inspection. The President of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Sir Hugh Orde in explaining away this report said,

The problem could only be fully solved with better links between organisations.
"The more we engage with partners, the more we have long-term solutions which actually work,"

What Sir Hugh says makes sense, but what he doesn't say is that it has been a statutory requirement under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, for partners to work together to reduce crime and disorder through the establishment of Community Safety Partnerships. The Community Safety Partnership in Wrecsam has anti social behaviour as an improvement priority with a target of reducing anti social behaviour by 6% and the latest report shows that the partnership is on track to achieve that target. I follow the work of the partnership in Wrecsam closely and they paint a very rosy picture of their achievements in meeting their targets and of the work they do but this report by Denis O'Connor would tend to cast some doubt on the partnership's success.

Its about time Community Safety Partnership's were inspected by the Inspectorate of Constabulary. We might then get a truer picture of the value and effectiveness of the Community Safety Partnership.

Spending freeze for Communities First projects?

It seems that Carl Sergeant, the Assembly Minister with responsibility for Communities First, is about to deliver a hammer blow to the projects across Wales.
Judging by this "leak", all new spending in Communities First areas will be frozen as a result of financial mismanagement and worse at Plas Madoc. A report by the minister is imminent and is expected to be damning regarding the specific affairs of Plas Madoc.
A total spending freeze on all new schemes will have serious implications in Caia Park, Gwenfro and Hightown Community First projects. These are all deprived areas where there is much work to be done.

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.