In Jersey

Arriving over Jersey in a gale

So after getting home on Friday with the joy of seeing Lin - in the flesh - since we'd been chatting on Skype all the time I was away, and also Richard and Amy and Oscar dog, I've flown south to Jersey for two days, descending through driven clouds across a south westerly gale joyously stirring white caps in the distinctive blue of the English Channel below;

that dreaded tide rip harrying the rocks beween Alderney and France, as our medium size prop plane descended for a brief stop in rain and wind swept Guernsey.

Last time I made that journey was in Two Pearls - and it was summer, but she was a sweet sea boat. One advantage of so-called jetlag is that there's a whiff of an antipodean afternoon in my time clock even though I'm sitting preparing for tomorrow's seminars for members and officers of the States of Jersey at 2.00am in my hotel room in the Pomme D'Or. Tomorrow - well - later this Monday morning, I'm leading two seminars on Chairing Scrutiny. I'm not to say 'Chair'. Members, including women, will remind me they aren't 'furniture'. Trickier is members' animus against the idea of scrutiny as a 'critical friend' to the executive.

CHAIRING SKILLS FOR SCRUTINY

Seminars for the States Assembly of Jersey

30 November 2009, 0900-1300 and 1330-1730

The effectiveness of scrutiny depends on refining the skills and knowledge needed to raise the profile of a process still relatively novel. Scrutiny chairmen, and those who work with them, are usually the first to recognise that steering scrutiny differs from more traditional chairmanship tasks in government. These workshops offer an opportunity to rehearse the competencies involved. There will be brief presentations with discussion to guide analysis and reflection with a refreshment break during each seminar.

AIMS:

• to identify and review the responsibilities of scrutiny chairmen in the government of Jersey,

• to explore and clarify the skills and knowledge required by those chairing the scrutiny function, including scoping, questioning and weighing evidence,

• to consider how chairmen, members and officers can plan to develop and maintain these skills.

PROGRAMME

Introductions and overview of the seminar

The roles of scrutiny chairmen

Challenges of chairing scrutiny

Skills and knowledge before, during and after meetings

Future learning

Summary and final observations

What is it about that term 'critical friend'? It's an issue on the horizon of nearly every chair/chairman of scrutiny I encounter. The political context in Jersey is of course unique to the history and personalities involved and despite studying their impressive website - 'Scrutiny: ensuring transparency and citizen involvement in our government' - I am strong in my ignorance of its traditions, but the matter of scrutiny's relationship to the executive has generic qualities existing in the relationship between the government and select committees at Westminster, where scrutiny has a 30 year start - at least - on its equivalent in sub-national government in the UK. In our Parliament there've been recurrent attempts to whip chairmen, resisted with increasing success after many more years of select committee existence than constitutionally established scrutiny in Jersey and similar functions across English local government. It's an inevitable constitution conundrum; one of the more recent of the stream of attempts to tweak that cumbersome system we call 'democracy' into better working order. It would be foolish of me not to anticipate opinions on this, if for no other reason that if I try to ignore it, the concerns I've been cautioned about will rear up anyway, because anyone seeking to make headway with scrutiny will have encountered this tension. If they do not give it thought, they'll be reminded of it by their colleagues. Understanding and handling relations with the executive is part of effective chairing of scrutiny, which doesn't mean there shouldn't be reciprocity, and readiness among executive members to agree quid pro quos, and indeed an understanding that ineffectual scrutiny can mean ineffectual executive. Is there a problem that being a 'critical friend' runs counter to the long tradition in law and government of adversarial debate, so that being 'a friend' - critical or otherwise - suggests collusion, collaboration and weakness. I was first introduced to the important principle that opposing the government of England was not treason when I was about 12 - when introduced to the term 'Her Majesty's Opposition', an idea that enshrined the notion that it was for certain subjects of the sovereign their duty to oppose.

* * *

In Birmingham before going to Jersey I had Saturday clear. From the bike kennel in our cluttered garage I chose - not my usual Brompton - but my full sized bicycle. The habit of using my folder has been interrupted by the cycling in Australia. Feeling slightly disloyal I took out the Eco Real to enjoy the extra speed of a full sized bicycle. The contrast is marked. The wind rushed, chilly, despite my warm clothes, into unguarded crannies around my neck as I swept over the Hockley flyover, enjoying the choice of 16 rather than 6 gears. But the bigger bike can't be taken inside places. I have to keep locking it. I can't take it on buses or trams. On the inter-city trains I have to buy a ticket to have it with me and put it a special compartment and worry whether there'll be space on trains back if I take it to other cities. For work I'll be sticking to my Brompton but I'm exhilarated by the novel sensations of the larger bicycle as I was on Geoff's Orbea in Melbourne and John's MTB in Bendigo. The additional pleasure here is being free from the Australian compulsion to wear a helmet.

At the city centre I worked my way into the cheerful crowd enjoying the German Market, sipped a mug of mulled wine and savoured a plate of fresh fried mushrooms and diced potatoes mingling with a generous covering of creamy garlic sauce. Then out again to Handsworth for an excellent haircut at a little barber in Nineveh Road. I'll go there again, especially as I can see the large bicycle through the window, where it's locked to a lamp-post. I was reading something I wrote about 9 years ago about the trend towards urban utility cycling - wondering how things would be in ten years time. There are more people relying on bicycles but the car continues to proliferate - still the preferred way to get from A to B. Is there any acceleration of change?

I doubt it, though in London increases in cycle commuting are evident. Lin drives. Richard drives. Amy drives, though she's been experimenting with cycle commuting "but not now it's turned cold and dark" she admitted to me slightly ruefully on Friday. So while I have fun, my hopes that many more would share it, seem confounded. I console myself by enjoying the benefits of escaping the inconveniences of autodependency, while little by little people of vision lower the profile of the car in plans for the city.

* * * * *

The Agiot Newsletter for December '09 has used an old piece of mine on the Parthenon Marbles - pages 8-10. Written in November 2007 when New Democracy are still in power it looks odd, but the argument survives - more or less. And to show my hopelessness as a predictor of political fortunes, Dora Bakoyannis lost a fight with Antonis Samaras for the Leadership of New Democracy, in opposition since PASOK won a General Election in October '09. Op-Ed from Kathimerini

Handsworth

Whenever someone goes on about the notorious inner city area of Handsworth with its history of riots and crime I ponder this view from our balcony looking over towards the tower of St.Mary's Church and the trees of Handsworth Park, a quarter of a mile from the Villa Road. Urban pathology is an important area of academic study and no-one should down-play the injustice of unequal wealth but given the choice I've no wish to live anywhere else in the city than here - for the place and for the people who are our neighbours, known and unknown. So it looks as if we could be selecting plots on the VJA by January or March. Betty, at Walsall Road Allotments, tells me this means missing planting things that ought to be going into the ground now to be ready for Spring. I replied to Martin Mullaney, the city Cabinet member with the allotments brief, who's trying to 'get to the bottom' of why the delay in delivering on the S106A continues - having been given an anodyne reply telling him nothing he and we didn't know.

To: martin mullaney Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 2:28 PM Subject: Re: Section 106 Agreements...

Dear Councillor. Please find ... details of the ... S106 agreement (in) Lozells and East Handsworth ward.

Hamstead Road N/01514/03/FUL - Developer to construct a pavilion. Provision of affordable housing. £22,120 allotment money for the maintenance of 80 new allotment plots being constructed by the developer at the moment, with a view to commence letting in January 2010 - due on transfer of allotment land. £27,350 for the maintenance of public open space due on the transfer of the land.

No land has been transferred yet to BCC. £150,800 Handsworth Park sum. £25,000 Handsworth Park play area sum. These two sums plus indexation totalling £191,482 have been received. Of this, £183,828 has been drawn down re. spend incurred at Handsworth Park. Please contact me if you have any further queries. If you require any detailed information regarding the open space projects please conatct Andy Hogben. Regards, Robert Thatcher. S106 Projects Team 0121 303 3654

Dear Martin. Many thanks for this information. I’ve put it on my blog and circulated it to as many as I can. I rather doubt that Robert Thatcher will tell us more than we knew when the VJA application received permission back in 2004. I do not expect him to tell us why there’s been such a long delay in delivering the allotments and the playing fields and indeed the city acquiring the land. The questions that remains unanswered are – among others - what penalty clauses for non-fulfilment are there in the S106 Agreement and who has the power to enforce those penalty clauses if they exist? The problem of the continuing delay exists somewhere at a higher level in arrangements between Persimmon Homes, the City Council Planning Department and legal services in the Council. We're constantly being placated by assurances which we have little alternative but to accept. We had assurances in May 2008 that the new allotments on the VJA would be ready by that Summer (see image and accompanying text):

The developer had, at that time, assured the constituency planning officer, Alan Orr, that a ‘trigger point’ in terms of sale of properties, had been reached and the S106A should have been implemented shortly after. It was not. We could get nothing out of Alan Orr for several more months. That has been the pattern since. This year there were assurances of plots being available by late July/August 09. The City Allotments Department thought this was the case and, in good faith, circulated a newsletter to that effect.

By August it was obvious the allotments were delayed again – and so we were informally told by an officer from allotments section who shared our frustration. Alan Orr was ‘summoned’ by ward councillors to report to the Ward Committee. On 23 Sept ‘09 we got the latest news – kindly passed on by John Tyrrell from you – that plots were delayed but should be available in early 2010. Only our optimism gives credence to this assurance – given the history of promises broken by continued delays. Plotholders on existing allotments are planting for 2010. Those who applied for and were assured of plots on the new VJA will miss this opportunity even if the latest promises are honoured. We thank you for your persistence in this matter. Finding out the reasons for these delays is important but not as important of getting the new allotments and playing fields up and working for the community. Kindest regards, Simon

On 11/10/09 22:40, Basil Hylton wrote:

Dear Martin. Is there any similar movement on the cricket facilities? Previous query on the quality of advice being given regarding laying of the square and the building of the pavilion had largely gone unanswered. Updated information would be very much appreciated. Basil Hylton, Chair of Handsworth Cricket Club

Dear Martin. I’ve been pushing the allotments, but as background to Basil’s enquiry, the S106A of May 2004 included the following:

D. Planning Application No. N/01514/03/FUL – Victoria Jubilee Allotments ... approved under a Section 106 agreement to provide the following:

• Eighty new municipal allotments plus an index linked payment of £21,000 towards their maintenance.

• An index linked sum of £27,000 towards the maintenance of a play area and £25,000 in lieu of a second play area.

• An index linked sum of £15,000 towards the regeneration of neighbouring Handsworth Park.

• Two playing pitches and a cricket square plus a pavilion and car parking to the Council design.

• The inclusion of twenty four affordable homes.

Yours sincerely. Simon

Simon Baddeley

Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG)

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE VICTORIA JUBILEE ALLOTMENTS AND TO GET ON THE SHORT LIST FOR A PLOT WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE PHONE ADRIAN STAGG ON 0121 303 3038 allotments@birmingham.gov.uk

or complete the on-line form.

*I assume the difference between the sums I've quoted from 2004 and those just quoted by Robert Thatcher are to do with them being index-linked. I haven't done the calculations.

** ** ** It's been almost exactly two years since I divorced my car. Of course I'd been cycling for work and play for much longer than that, mainly reliant on my folding bicycles, but on an impulse, I got out the old bike I haven't ridden for a good while. Been sitting in the garage. Having been riding one or another of my four 16" wheel Brompton folders with 6 gears for over a decade, I got a yen to try cycling with 21 gears and 24" wheels. This Eco Real (I can't even find it on the web) was my first proper bicycle. I'd always had bicycles - usually second-hand, costing anything between £10 and £50. Staying in the Highlands, I dropped into Halfords in Inverness. For fun they let me try out this bike, on sale in 1995 for over £400. I went mad. I cycled out of the shop and up the long hill of the A9 south from Inverness without a break - nothing to an experienced road cyclist, but for me, at 53, being able to do that seven mile journey back to my mother's house in Strathnairn with such ease and pace was a revelation about the difference between the bikes I'd ridden until then and one in a different class. People have asked me about the cost of a Brompton. When I tell them they often go "phew!" (to avoid that exclamation and give a bit of encouragement I do mention that they start at around £350). Ignorance about the cost difference between a high and low quality bicycle is widespread. I switched to a folder because I needed to go to lots of places by train and bus - what the transport planners call multi-mode travel, and I call versatile. Taking full sized bikes by public transport is difficult; often impossible in Britain. So I've put up with the lower hill climbing capacity of the Brompton to be able to combine cycling with long distance travel for work and play. I cycled in and out of town this afternoon on the Eco Real and got no small pleasure out of the extra turn of speed I got, but - oops - it's a lot harder getting my leg over the saddle when dismounting. On the other hand cycling with toeclips is a renewed pleasure. But I need to do a bit of tuning yet and of course, because I can't take it into places with me like the folder, I'll have to go back to using a lock. I doubt it'll replace the Brompton, but it was fun. I caught Amy in town directing traffic and she sent me to the grocers to get her some toffees. * * *

I'm really pleased with the way the Oz clips are coming along plus extracts from fictional films that feature political-management relations. This is not just a matter of having film but of compressing all the films needed so they can be displayed on screen ready for swift use in discussion. In addition we hope to get permission to webstream extracts from films Annie and John and Barb have made in the last few month via Democracy Street - as with the UK films of political-management conversations. This looks to be our coming itinerary.