Labour moves local meetings to the city centre and stop residents speaking at them

Labour moves local meetings to the city centre and stop residents speaking at them

The new Labour administration for Birmingham City Council has released details on how the Constituency, or to give them their new name, District Committees, will in future be run.

In future the District Committee will no longer be held within the Constituency they are responsible for, normally in a school hall or community centre, but instead they will in future be held  in the Council House in the city centre. They will no longer be held in the evenings – this was done to make it easier for residents to attend – but instead be held during the day. Members of the public will no longer be allowed to speak at these meetings, which at present, in most Constituency committees, they are encourage to do so.

Most importantly, the District Committees can not deviate from this new ruling, which previously they could do so.

The relevant document can be seen at http://www.scribd.com/doc/94827786/Meetings-Arrangements-for-District-Committees-25-05-2012

The key paragraph is on page 2, as follows:

District Committee Meetings

District Committees should agree a programme of bi-monthly meetings, alternating with ward committee meetings, in the first instance. As decision-making meetings, these should take place in the Council House, in day-time during the normal working week.

Business should be conducted in public, except for those few reports which require private consideration for stated, appropriate reasons. As decision-making meetings, members of the public may only speak at the invitation of the Chairman. Committee rooms should be arranged so as to promote discussions amongst members of the Committee, rather than between the Committee and the public.

No Black members in Birmingham’s Labour Cabinet is a retrograde step

No Black members in Birmingham’s Labour Cabinet is a retrograde step

Later today at 3pm there will be a demonstration in front of Birmingham’s Council House. The demonstration has been organised by members of Birmingham’s black community, who are incensed that there are no members of the black community represented either in the new Labour Cabinet or selected as a Chair of Scrutiny or Regulatory Committee.

I intend to be at this demonstration, since I agree with the protestors.

The Birmingham Labour Party was always very quick to complain that the 10-member Cabinet of the previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat Cabinet did not represent the ethnic mix of Birmingham. They were right, but in fairness this wasn’t for want of trying. The Conservative Councillor group had no Councillors from the Black and Multi Ethnic (BME) communities and within the Liberal Democrat group we were always urging our BME Councillors to take on positions of responsibility. With only two Liberal Democrat Councillors from the black Caribbean Community, they did nominate themselves for positions and were duly voted in by the Liberal Democrat group of Councillors: Councillor Karen Hamilton was a Chair of Scrutiny, whilst Councillor Ernie Hendricks was the Birmingham lead representative on the West Midlands Police Authority. In addition to this the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat group was from the BME community.

Move forward to May 2012 and the new incoming Labour administration - one third of whose members are from the BME communities. You would think that the Labour Party would act on their complaint about the ethnic mix of the previous Cabinet. NO THEY HAVEN’T. Their eight member Cabinet contains just one member from the BME community, from the Pakistani community to be precise. There is not a single member from Birmingham black Caribbean community in either the Cabinet, as a Chair of Scrutiny or a Regulatory Committee. The only position of responsibility for a black Councillor is for Councillor Yvonne Mosquito (a very able Councillor, may I add) as Chair of Ladywood Constituency and the Birmingham lead representative on the West Midlands Police Authority

Despite the under representation of BME Councillors in the previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat administration, I do believe that our previous record in supporting Birmingham’s black community was good. Obviously, the final arbiter of our record will be the black community, but amongst our record of achievements, we did the following:

• Brought the Handsworth Carnival – a black led community festival – back to it spiritual home in Handsworth Park
• When through a lengthy process to identify a black-led community organisation to take on the restoration and running of the Mohammad Ali Centre in Hockley. The selected organisation should be announced in the next two months, unless of course the new Labour administration withdraws the offer.
• Supported the creation of a new annual Reggae Festival - the Simmer Down Festival - in Handsworth Park to celebrate Birmingham’s contribution to this genre of music.
• Protected the funding of the annual Black History Month from any cuts during these austere times.
• Persuaded the Jamaican Olympic team to base their training camp here in Birmingham in the run up to the 2012 Olympics. There will also be cultural events linked in with their stay here, which will celebrate Birmingham’s links to Jamaica through its black community. For example there will be a Jamaican Village in Victoria Square during July.

There is much more that the Council can do to celebrate our Caribbean community’s contribution to the economy, culture and the future of our city. But this decision by the new Labour administration not to have any member of Birmingham’s black Caribbean community to be in the Cabinet or a Chair of a Scrutiny or Regulatory Committee sends out the wrong signal.

Labour destroys 30 years of work in the arts, sports and culture in Birmingham

Labour destroys 30 years of work in Birmingham's arts, sports and culture

The new Labour administration has today announced the new way that Birmingham City Council will run. The all powerful Cabinet Committee has been completely reconstructed, with previously centralised powers devolved down to District Committees. This was announced today at the Council Business Management Committee as part of the Annual Review of the City Council's Constitution

The new structure of the Cabinet is particularly problematic, since I believe is has laid the seeds of financial disaster for the Council within 12 months.......but that is worth another article.

What I want to focus on is the decision to get rid of the position of Cabinet for Leisure, Sport and Culture and leave 95% of the positions previous responsibility to absolutely no one. Yes, you read that right, Birmingham, for the first time in well over 30 years will no longer have a political champion for art, sport or culture in the Council.

The only responsibilities from the previous position that will be given to another Cabinet are described in the report as follows “Leisure, sports, arts and culture buildings and services - Effective management of these assets includingmanagement of grants.” This tiny part of the duties of previous Cabinet position will now be shared between two Cabinet members, namely the Deputy Leader and the new Cabinet Member for Commissioning, Contracting and Improvement. And you know what happens when responsibility is shared? No one takes responsibility.

So there you have it. Since the 1970s Birmingham has been building its reputation as both a sporting and cultural city, and all that have been wiped away within 5 days of the new Labour administration taking power.

As the last Cabinet member for Leisure, Sport and Culture I was regularly banging the drum on the importance of the arts and sport in Birmingham. While others saw art and sport and ‘fun activities’ I argued that these needed to be seen as part of a regeneration package for Birmingham. If we are going to attract the creative industry into Birmingham, then we need to reverse the brain drain from Birmingham - arts, culture and sport have a major part to play to keep skilled workers and graduates in this city. If we are going to attract company’s regional and national headquarters to Birmingham, then those companies need to be confident that they’ll be able to attract the best employees to their headquarters – again the city’s arts, culture and sports community have a major part to play here in attracting those employees.

The previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that ran Birmingham from 2004 to 2012, has a record on the arts and sports to be proud of:

• £5.8million investment in the rebuilding of the Midland Art Centre
• £12million investment in the rebuilding of Harborne pool
• £12million investment in a new stand at Alexander Stadium, which has in turn allowed Alexander Stadium to become the headquarters of UK Athletics and to host the UK heat of the global Diamond League athletics event.
• £100k investment to keep the Aegon Classic at the Priory, which in turn unlocked a £5million investment in the Priory.....in the years to come this will enable the Priory to host higher standard tennis competitions.
• £20million loan to Warwickshire Cricket club, to enable a £32million investment in the ground. This will ensure top class international cricket to be hosted here in years to come.
• The creation of the Birmingham Half Marathon in 2008, which has grown to 15,000 competitors in 4 years – it is now part of the Great British Run series.
• Successful hosting of a number of major championships such as the European Indoor Athletics Championships in 2007, World Half Marathon Championships in 2009, the World Trampoline and Tumbling, and Double Mini Trampoline Championships in 2011 and the World BMX Championships in 2012.  The city will also host the USA and Jamaican Olympic track and field teams at training camps in July 2012.
• The creation of the Film Birmingham office which is increasingly attracting TV and film productions to Birmingham, including BBC1’s Hustle, BBC1’s Survivors and the film Toast.
• In the coming year we were about to create the Music Birmingham office to help nurture and promote Birmingham’s music scene.
• Protection of funding for the Arts Champion programme, which brings arts into the hard-to-reach communities of Birmingham
• Freezing for 2 years any further reductions in funding for the numerous art organisations in Birmingham that receive funding from the Council. The 2 year freeze will enable the art organisations to adjust to the new funding regime, plus give the Council time to identify new sources of funding.
• Initial concept of the Museum Quarter next to Millennium Point – this will include a Museum of Photography in the former Curzon Street station building; Ikon 2 – a national importance museum of contemporary arts, plus a home for a international importance modern art collection, which is presently looking for a new home.
• Initial concepts of the converting of the former Birmingham Municipal Bank building on Broad Street/Centenary Square into a major cultural building

All the above achieved by having a Cabinet member who could champion the importance of arts, sports and culture in the Cabinet. We were moving forward with the creation of the Music Birmingham office, the creation of the Museum of Photography; the conversion of the former Municipal Bank on Broad Street into a major cultural centre. All of this now ripped up and chucked in the bin by a Labour administration only 5 days old. Well done!

Date set for work to start installing the new roof on Kings Heath Library

The date has now been set for contractors to start work on installing a new roof on Kings Heath Library. The date is Monday 14^th May.

This is part of a £300,000 investment in Kings Heath Library and the work will involve the following:

• Replacement of all the rotten skylights – photos of these can be seen at http://martinmullaney.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/update-on-kings-heath-library-temporary.html
• Re-felting of the roof
• Careful removal of the Westmorland slate tiles on various pitched roof, repair of the wooden battens underneath and reinstallation of the tiles
• Repair of coping stones along the roof line
• Repair of plaster work inside the building

The contractors intend to initially focus on the replacing the skylight in the presently closed ‘learning centre’. This will enable them to understand the structure of the Edwardian skylight, which can then be replicated across the other skylights.

The work will take 16 weeks to complete and the intention is to keep the closure of the library to a minimum by partially closing sections of the library wherever a skylight is being replaced.

Once the new skylights are installed, the permanent scaffolding will be removed.

Update on the restoration of the South Africa War memorial in Cannon Hill Park

I visited the South African War memorial in Cannon Hill Park this week to see progress on its restoration. I produced a previous blog entry detailing the history of the memorial at http://martinmullaney.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/work-begins-on-restoration-of-south.html

I attach photos of the cleaning of the bronze statue. As you will see from the photos, we have started this restoration just in the nick of time – the statue is covered in corrosive pits or holes, which through time would completely destroy the statue.

The team doing the restoration will be filling in any pits or holes to prevent any further decay and will cover the statue with a protective wax to protect the statue from any water ingress.

The restored statue, complete with previously missing items, such as the guns, olive branch and corner wreaths, will be finished towards the end of May.

Instead of the previous green colour, the restored statue will have a dark brown finish as was the case when it was first unveiled in 1906.

Moseley Road baths on target to re-open 12noon Monday 16^th April

I visited Moseley Road baths this morning and can confirm that the staff are working towards re-opening the baths at 12noon on Monday 16^th April.

I attach two photos that I took this morning. As you will see the pool is now fully re-filled and this morning the staff started the process of heating up the pool.

Having dipped my hand in the pool, I can assure you the water is cold. Re-heating should take a few days. We should have a definite confirmation of the 12noon opening tomorrow afternoon. The staff want to see how much they can manage to raise the temperature of the pool in 24 hours and then they will be confident of the exact time of opening.

Hypocrisy of Labour over my Council Tax survey

If you’re reading this, then the chances are you’ve already seen the tweets about me being asked by the Standards Board to amend one of my leaflets, following a complaint by Councillor Sir Albert Bore. The Standards Board found that “the questions [of my Council tax survey] do not properly reflect the views expressed by the Leader of the Birmingham Labour Party (Councillor Sir Albert Bore)”. Indeed, you may have seen the comments by Labour party activists taking the high moral ground on this issue. This is sheer hypocrisy on their part, which I explain later

First of all, I regret that my leaflet has been found by the Standards Board not to have reflected accurately what Councillor Sir Albert Bore said in the Council chamber. I have always prided myself on publishing leaflets that are both as accurate as possible and written in plain English.

If I am guilty of anything then I believe I am only guilty of putting Councillor Sir Albert Bore’s words into plain English and giving them the interpretation that everyone in the Council chamber understood them to mean. One of Labour’s own Councillors even tweeted from the Council chamber during Cllr Sir Bore’s speech “our beloved leader appeared to say that we would raise Council Tax! Bad move!”

You can see what Councillor Sir Albert Bore said at http://martinmullaney.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/cllr-sir-albert-bore-believes-bham.html

So what did I put in my leaflet that is incorrect? Well, the wording of one of my questions was slightly wrong:

Question 2: How strongly do you agree with the leader of the Birmingham Labour Party that the present Council tax is too low?

What I should have said, which would have been acceptable to the Standards Board, is:

Question 2: How strongly do you agree with the leader of the Birmingham Labour Party that the present Council tax is “artificially low”?

From my perspective, any reasonable person would consider these two questions to mean exactly the same but from a legal viewpoint they are not.

Now that I have agreed the new wording of the question, I am starting to distribute the amended version of this survey. You can see an internet version of the survey, which is acceptable to the Standards Board, at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8VY7R92

So why are all these Labour Party activists who are taking the high moral ground on this issue, being hypocrites? Well here’s a there facts there won’t tell you:

1) Labour Councillors have been found guilty by the Standards Board of far worse deeds in the last 12 months and none of these have been reported. Throughout the year complaints are made against Councillors and, rightly or wrongly, there is an agreement that these complaints are not made public even when the Councillors are found guilty. For example within the past twelve months, I know of two Birmingham Labour Councillors were found guilty by the Standards Board of far worse behaviour than anything I done – indeed I am sure their residents would be horrified if they knew what they did. Has this appeared in the press? No. Am I allowed to tell you who these Councillors are? No. But in my case the Labour Party have breached the agreement and leaked the Standards Board decision on my case. Is any action going to be taken against the Labour Party? No! I hope you can understand why I feel there’s double standards at play here.

2) When is Councillor Sir Albert Bore going to come clean on what exactly he meant in the Council Chamber? It’s all very well the Leader of Birmingham Labour Party using the Standards Board to stop leaflets that are not exactly precise with their wording. BUT wouldn’t it be easier all round if Councillor Bore explained how he believes Council Tax is “artificially low” without it also being “too low”? Why did he say it “could” be raising £70million more per year if he doesn’t think it should be? Remember a Labour Councillor tweeted “our beloved leader appeared to say that we would raise Council Tax! Bad move!” He has so far refused to explain his views on Council tax – would a Labour administration raise Council tax above the rate of inflation? All the Labour Party have said is that they will abide with the present administration’s decision to have a 0% increase in Council in 2012/13. But what about 2013/14? – will Labour then increase Council tax above inflation, as they did year after year from 1999 to 2004?

3) When are the Moseley and Kings Heath Labour going to apologise to local residents about all the fantasy facts they regularly put in their leaflets? Remember, in the past few months alone, they have claimed that the present administration has announced the closure of local libraries, when no such announcement had ever been made. They also claimed it had been announced that Kings Heath Police Station would close completely in the evenings and yet no such announcement has ever been made. The Moseley and Kings Heath Labour are carping at my misfortune, when their own performance on accuracy in leaflets is abysmal.

As I said above, I am not happy that my leaflet has been found not to be as precise in accuracy as I would like – I pride myself in accuracy in my leaflets. But equally I think the Labour Party need to be reminded of the words “pot”, “kettle” and “black” if they think they can make political capital out of this.

Croquet comes to Cannon Hill Park on Sunday 15th April

I know this is going to sound like a mad idea. I’ve invited Edgbaston Croquet Club to do a couple of taster sessions for Croquet in the Bowling Green in Cannon Hill Park on Sunday 15th April and Saturday 21st April. They agreed “like a shot”.

Its all free – free equipment hire, free sessions. All we ask is that you wear flat shoes –trainers or similar – to protect the grass. We are planning “Open House” from 14.00h to about 17.00h on each of these dates. You can watch, play and learn a thing or two from a current England International and other Croquet Club members.

The bowling green is between the MAC and the tennis courts.....or even more precise immediately next to the former ticket office for the rowing boats in the big lake.

Edgbaston Croquet Club has existed since 1900 and is the leading West Midlands Croquet Club. Their base in Richmond Hill Road is a tranquil haven, where possible new starters are welcome to drop by – especially on Wednesday & Saturday afternoons. Beginners get plenty of help and guidance, whether the interest is in convivial, gentle exercise or serious sporting ambition.

Croquet is enjoying a strong upsurge. Edgbaston was host to the qualifiers for the last World Championships. The age profile is altering dramatically, with half of the England Squad for the latest World Champs being aged between 16 & 25.

This is an experiment to see what the appetite is for Croquet sessions in Cannon Hill Park. I think Croquet is a great relaxing sport for all the family and groups of friends.....it is very sociable and notorious for wicked cheating. Ladies in long dresses have been known to conceal Croquet balls under their dresses and kick them along.

You may have read about Croquet in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ where the Queen of Hearts uses live flamingos as mallets. Well I can’t promise live flamingos or even an appearance by the Queen of Hearts, but hopefully this will prove popular and the start of another great activity in Cannon Hill Park.