The City of Bristol is one of the few local authority bodies that webcasts its meetings. The Public-I web-casting service (first mentioned here), which I've discussed and used previously, is a great tool but it doesn't offer an easy solution for embeddeding bits of video in a blog post.

So I've now got a way to transfer segments of the webcasts into You Tube, and As a test, I used a section from last year's E-Democracy day featuring local blogger and councillor Charlie Bolton:

Bolton on Blogging #1

Bolton on Blogging #2

Slight moan about You Tube: They will only let me upload videos with a maximum length of ten minutes, which is why the clip above is split into two parts. Bit other You Tube users seem to be able to upload much longer clips.

On a non-partisan note, I've let the the other bloggers in the local area(l) know that if they've spotted something interesting in a council meeting that has been web-cast - or made a contribution - that they can send me the details and I will extract the relevant section and bung it on You Tube.

The same is true for all my loyal readers (Hi, Dad). If you find something interesting in a Public-I webcast of a Bristol City Council event, let me know.

To make things easy, I need the following details:

* The name and date of the web-cast (e.g. Cabinet on X/X/X)
* The description of what you want extracted (e.g. a speech by Councillor Smith; a motion moved by Councillor Jones; a public statement etc.)
* A rough idea of where in the recording it can be found (e.g about 5 minutes in; time codes 10:20-21:50)

I was planning to write about Recycling this weekend, in response to an excellent comment from reader Elisabeth, but circumstances require that I discuss a different subject.

Giles Chichester MEP has recently resigned as leader of the Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament, due to a breach of the parliamentary rules on handling his allowances. He used a company of which he was a director to provide services to himself in his role as an MEP. According to his press release:

"I have used my family company as a service provider to support my parliamentary work since I was elected to the European Parliament in 1994. The activities of the company have been openly logged with Companies House in the UK, and it has an official contract formally registered with the European Parliament. It has been my understanding that this arrangement has, at all times, been fully compatible with the parliamentary rules.

"Eighteen months ago, I received a letter from the Quaestors' office suggesting there might be a conflict of interest regarding the company.

"I replied to this letter setting out my belief that the arrangements were fully in compliance with the rules of Parliament. I received no response from the Parliament authorities."

I find this explanation unacceptable. Although I am absolutely certain that Mr Chichester acted in good faith and that there has been no misappropriation of funds, the mechanism he chose for receiving his - extremely generous - allowances was to say the least lacking in transparency. For me, the essence of Conservatism is to deal with public funds in a manner that is beyond reproach and open to public scrutiny. And for that reason, just as Mr Chichester's position as group leader was untenable, so his acceptability to represent the Conservative party for the office of MEP must be ruled out.

At the next meeting of the Bristol & South Gloucestershire Conservative Association, I will be proposing that we petition the membership on removing Giles Chichester from our party list for the South West Region seat in the European Parliament. Given that his position on the list was automatic, as the existing office holder, this works out well democratically as the remaining five people on the list were all selected by a ballot.

(More thoughts to follow on my dislike of closed list proportional representation and degressive proportionality. And I'll write something about the wretched EPP-ED group as well)

And just as I was putting my thoughts together on this topic, another misunderstanding over allowances by one of my fellow party members came to light.

A decade ago, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Caroline Spelman MP, used part of her Parliamentary allowance to pay her nanny's salary. Ms Spelman's contention is that her nanny did both secretarial and childcare work, and that this is all within the rules. Her statement to the press:

Speaking outside her home, Ms Spelman explained that when she became MP for Meriden she inherited a backlog of correspondence and work from the seat’s previous holder, Iain Mills, who had died unexpectedly.

To cope she hired Miss Haynes to work in the constituency office Ms Spelman had set up at her home in Solihull.

Ms Spelman said "(Tina) would deal with the secretarial side of things while the children where in school and after school provide child care for my kids.

As with Giles Chichester, I very much doubt that there has been any intentional wrong-doing, nor any misappropriation of funds. But nevertheless as Conservatives - in particular the national leadership of the party- we must be beyond reproach in handling tax payers money and representing the people. The moral high ground is at times rather barren and rocky, but that is the ground we seek to hold.

Therefore on this basis, I will also - at the next meeting of the Bristol & South Gloucestershire Conservative Association - be proposing that we write to the party leader, David Cameron, urging him to request Ms Spelman's resignation from the role of Chairman of the Conservative Party. Her reselection for the parliamentary seat of Meridien is of course a matter for their local association.

I view the entire system of Parliamentary allowances - European and UK - as irretrievably broken, and I'd like to get shot of the whole lot. Their purpose is supposed to be to assist Parliamentarians in representing their constituents, not to support the lifestyle aspirations of a political elite. I recently itemised the potential take of a UK Member of Parliament:

[MPs receive] a basic salary of £61,820. Ten percent of that salary can be invested in the world's best pension scheme, the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund. Parliamentarians also receive a staffing allowance of up to £90,854, Incidental Expenses Allowance of up to £22,193, up to £5,000 pounds of IT equipment, £2,916 of London weighting if they're in the Big Smoke, up to £24,006 of Additional Costs Allowance [a second home and the infamous "John Lewis" List], up to £10,400 for "communications" plus practically unlimited reimbursement for personal transport expenses and mileage, and up to 30 trips for WAGS and children. Have a look at The Green Book for the full story.

Ignoring the value of the pension (which is considerable) and the travel allowances (which are very nice indeed) - this is a total of £217,000.00 per annum. I have also not included the large chunk of cash MPs receive as "Winding Up" money if they lose their office at a general election

It's time to simplify this whole mess. Doing it for the European Parliament may be a tough proposition, but for the UK parliament we should boil all these allowances down to a single payment. I'd suggest £61,820 plus travel expenses as a good number. It's certainly much more than the average British wage of £28,589.60.

I've proposed as much at the blog of local MP Kerry McCarthy (Lab Bristol East). I think a desire to constrain unnecessary expenditure by MPs at a time of economic hardship for British voters is a good area for cross-party collaboration. My suggestion to Kerry was that we collaborate on an Early Day Motion to effect this change, to be called "The McCarthy Bill". Or perhaps it could be the "Williams Bill" or the "Primarolo Bill" or the "Naysmith Bill". I believe I shall ask around the local area to see if I can find a sponsor.

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.

This is an ongoing bit of analysis into the various bodies wielding "influence" in Bristol. (Click image for larger version)

All suggestions for additions and amendments gratefully received.

Note: To the correspondent who suggested this diagram should also include the Bildeberg Group, the Illuminati, The Knights Templar, and "The Jews", may I suggest you speak to your GP about increasing your lithium dose a smidgen.

Future iterations of this diagram will be available at: http://www.jamesbarlow.co.uk/influence

One of my goals, as with most Conservatives, is to work toward a smaller state, since we'd be better off managing our own lives rather than giving 40% of our money to the tax man on the promise that the government can manage things for us.

But estimating the size of the state is no easy task. There are figures for the total tax revenue taken - from you - by central government. And there are also figures for the local government revenue collection.

That money gets filtered through a lot of organisations, and there is a lot of opportunity along the way for waste, gold-plating and duplication of effort. And of course, corruption. Here's a first run at analysing those interactions from the perspective of Bristol (Click for a larger version):

I hope to develop this diagram over the next few weeks. If you can recommend any extra organisations to go on the chart, or if you spot any omissions or errors, please let me know.

Updates can be found at http://www.jamesbarlow.co.uk/Influence

The BBC today reports on new developments in Bristol's fight against crime. We, the citizenry, are to receive upgrades to five city centre Closed Circuit Television cameras to enable council staff to shout stern warnings at anti-social NEETS.

Peter Hammond says:

"When I was a lot younger sometimes a friendly word from a police officer stopped something more serious happening.

"Most people support the use of CCTV cameras in preventing anti-social behaviour. This just takes it on one small step forward.

"I think people will find it quite a reassuring move."

An interesting comparison - is being spoken to firmly by a large gentlemen with a truncheon and power of arrest equivalent to being shouted at by an anonymous camera jockey through a loudspeaker? I humbly suggest it is not.

I don't get worked up about the nominal breaches of civil liberty many commentators ascribe to CCTV. Maybe I should. But having worked on the business end of signals intelligence* for a number of governments, I'm confident that surveillance - an implicitly passive activity - is neither necessary nor sufficient to herald the emergence of an Orwellian Big Brother.

On the other hand, I get very annoyed about the contention that CCTV is a useful tool for the police and criminal justice services. One only needs to watch one of the less popular cable channels to see that the quality of CCTV images is pretty atrocious. So if the technology can't help with identification and prosecution then the only reason to buy it is to replace human patrols (which is the primary use in the military field).

Crime is the subject of a great deal of analysis at all levels of government, the pinnacle of which is the British Crime Survey. But, much as I love statistics, bar graphs and pie charts cannot make a person feel safer.

Consider the Home Office's "Crime in England and Wales 2006/7", which is a strange mix of the BCS and the Police Recorded Crime figures. Apparently crime since 1995 is down 42%. Do you feel 42% safer? Robbery increased 3% over the measured period, but the new level is 16% below the 2001/02 peak. Do you feel an aggregate 13% less fearful than you did in 2001?

I'm in the midst of a longer post on Government Finance, Part II of an increasingly delayed series, so I'm not going to go into more detail on national crime statistics. Have a look at this blog for more.

I would, however, like to pose a thought experiment for you:

Chief Superintendent Squirrel and Chief Superintendent Grasshopper are both high flyers in a UK police service, each responsible for an equivalent Basic Command Unit covering a long terrace of fifty houses.

Squirrel tasks some Police Constables to walk up and down the terrace, with shifts staggered over 24 hours, 7 days a week. In the course of their duties they deal with a variety of domestic disputes, neighbourhood arguments, provide a bit of first aid, investigate distraction burglaries and console pensioners, drag troublemaking children back to their parents. On one occasion the night shift surprises a burglar in the act of breaking into a garden shed but the perpetrator runs off before he can be arrested. Frequently the officers get radio calls to answer emergency calls in neighbouring areas, but are usually unable to respond in a timely fashion. Lots of tea is drunk.

Grasshopper assigns a Beat Manager and a PCSO to patrol the street between 08:00 and 16:00, and the area is covered by a large, centrally-funded Response Team based at the station with fast cars. The response team responds quickly to the numerous 999 calls and make many arrests, some of which end up with the Domestic Violence Unit. Quite a few cars are stolen from the area, but the Response Teams are able to catch them in their fast cars, and members of the public and officers are rarely injured. A pattern of burglaries in the area - believed to be drug-related - is passed to plainclothes for further investigation. The Street Burglaries team consults as required, as does the Absence Management team from the Local Education Authority and the Street Scene coordinator from the local District Council. The Beat Manager frequently engages with local Youth Workers and Community leaders, although he does spend a lot of time at the local courts waiting to give evidence. Lots of tea is drunk.

After a year, both chief superintendents are up before the same promotion board. They will be judged on the number of recorded crimes in their area, their budgetary management, their clearance rate and arrest rate.

• In which BCU do residents report that they feel safer?
• In which BCU are burglary rates dramatically lower?
• In which BCU are children given more leeway by parents to play outside?
• In which BCU do more children walk to school?
• In which BCU are drivers more likely to adhere to the speed limit?
• In which BCU is there dramatically less graffiti and anti-social behaviour?
• Which Chief gets a promotion?

Yes, it's a trite example and I've exaggerated somewhat, but the underlying thesis is that safety is a subjective feeling that cannot always be measured, and that a crime prevented is better than a criminal arrested. Intelligence led policing, Criminal Investigation and particularly Forensic Science are all important to the delivery of policing, but they are all essentially support measures, unable to deliver public safety in themselves.

(Final thoughts)

Back to the CCTV, amusingly, while the BBC says:

"The equipment, which will be operated by staff at Bristol City Council's control room, cannot hear anything said by a member of the public in the area."

and the Council's own press release also says,

"The equipment, which will be operated by staff at Bristol City Council’s Emergency Control room, cannot ‘hear’ anything said by a member of the public."

the press release also says:

Specialist microphone equipment that will allow CCTV operators to address individuals whose behaviour has attracted the attention of a CCTV operator will be attached to a number of existing cameras in the centre of Bristol.

which does rather suggest the microphones are attached to the cameras. But I'm sure this is just a bit of a misunderstanding in the press office.

*British service personnel will be familiar with the Paradigm Welfare** system which provides deployed personnel with telephone calls to home. Each call starts with a very plummy lady saying "You are Making a Non Secure Call". She says that for a reason. Remember - Compromising OPSEC is negligent. But HOIS SIGINT officers wanking-off while listening to your end-of-tour phone sex session with the missus is unseemly.

**To clarify, my military experience consisted of a highly dangerous peace keeping tour near Chippenham, for which I was awarded the NATO medal, and a couple of months in Bosnia where I got lots of practice playing Counterstrike. Career summation: one tour, one medal, one negligent discharge of my weapon. I'm told that's about average for a modern soldier. I opted to forego Iraq and Afghanistan for numerous good reasons.