Leader

Amidst the Public Forum business for Thursday's cabinet meeting is the following set of questions from Councillor Jay Jethwa for new (again) leader Barbara Janke:

And in case you missed it first time around (2000 views and counting, not including the Sun which hosted the video on their own service):

Taking a quick break from blogging at the Festival of Ideas, I draw your attention to this story from the Bristol Evening Post:

Labour Shocked to stay in Power

Liberal Democrats on Bristol City Council have been accused of "bottling it" after passing up the opportunity of taking power, leaving a clearly stunned Labour Party still in charge.

Labour council leader Helen Holland had every reason to expect she would be replaced by the Lib Dems' Barbara Janke after the council's Conservative group announced it would no longer back Labour in crucial votes.

For those who are not familiar with the mechanics of local government, this whole process may seem a bit confusing. But it's really pretty straightforward. The Council is a club of which all councillors - elected by Bristolian voters - are members. The club has a constitution which defines how decisions are made, and how the officers of the club - the leader and the executive - are chosen. Other than the scale, the Council of the City of Bristol is no different in concept to any other mutual association such as a Limited Company or a Cricket Club.

Since no party in the council holds sufficient seats to have a controlling majority, the body is run by a minority administration. At the Club AGM on May 13th, the Conservative group decided not to support a Labour minority administration again - a good decision in my view - but surprisingly the Liberal Democrats chose not to have another crack at the job under their new leader (again) Barbara Janke.

The party political stuff is probably not terribly interesting to most people. Suffice to say there are significant differences in approach between all three major groups (and Charlie), and we all believe we're right and the others are wrong; politicians don't just divide into different parties because we like the aesthetic effect of all the different colours. See here for a Lib-Dem perspective.

One thing that leaps out at me from the Press Release is that - in line with the reshuffle of executive leadership - we have a new set of department names, and they are another step removed from reality.

It was bad enough last year - this is the list of Executive Members and their respective departments in 2007/08:

Helen Holland Leader of the Council
Peter Hammond Deputy Leader and Executive Member for Care and Communities
Judith Price Executive Member for Neighbourhoods
John Bees Executive Member for Support Services
Rosalie Walker Executive Member for Health and Well Being
Mark Bradshaw Executive Member for Access and Environment
Derek Pickup Executive Member for Children and Young People
Chris Jackson Assistant Executive Member for Health and Wellbeing
Jeff Lovell Assistant Executive Member for Care and Communities

Now here's the list for 2008/09:

Cllr Helen Holland as Council Leader.
Peter Hammond - Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Cohesion and Raising Achievement
Derek Pickup - Cabinet Member for Care, Tackling Deprivation and Crime
Terry Cook - Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Involvement
Mark Bradshaw - Cabinet Member for Sustainable Development
John Bees - Cabinet Member for Transformation and Resources
Judith Price - Cabinet Member for Homes and Streetscene
Rosalie Walker - Cabinet Member for Culture and Healthy Communities

Now would someone please tell me what these departments actually do? Sustainable Development is easy - that's the Town Planning department, right? What about Streetscene? Is that the road sweepers? Cohesion and Raising Achievement - is that schools? Culture and Healthy Communities must be Adult Community Care. Or is that in the Care, Tackling Deprivation and Crime department? And why do we need a "tackling crime" department - aren't we already paying the Avon & Somerset Constabulary to do that? What does Neighbourhoods and Involvement do? And which department collects the rubbish?

One of my proposals for next year's election campaign will be that we get the local council out of the business of Tackling, Transforming, Involving, Cohering and Raising Achievement and get the organisation concentrating on more mundane tasks. Things that spring to mind include Cleaning, Collecting Rubbish (weekly) and Repairing Roads. It's time to remind the council that it has to stop all this high-concept thinking, get on with the job and keep out of the way.