So you want to be a Councillor? ....... Obviously NOT

I was a little bit disappointed, but not really surprised, at the low turn out last Saturday at the event we organised at the Grand Hotel to try and encourage more people to stand as Councilors.

The fairly obvious allegation being made now is that it was all just a stunt. That of course is the easy charge to make. Especially if you are one of those people who prefer to sneer at anything different.

As an individual and as a member of UKIP I am committed to local democracy. UKIP’s commitment to local referenda was actually the first policy that attracted me to them; the European dimension wasn’t top of my agenda by any means. As I learned more about the EU and how it works I also learned that democracy isn’t something that the EU is very keen on and the European Parliament is just a front to provide a smokescreen of democratic accountability while the real power lies with behind the scenes.

I first entered Hartlepool Council as an Independent Member and was soon made aware of how the system penalised independents. The entire structure of local government works round political “groups” and the machinery is set up that way. If you are not in a group then you are left out of many things. I personally would prefer to see all councilors as independents, no political groups at all in Town Halls. However it is made very difficult to operate an independent because of the way the rules are written.

Personally I don’t ever read UKIP’s local Manifesto these days because the only manifesto I recognise at local level is based on what are the best decision for St.Hilda Ward and then the best decision for the town as a whole. National policies do not control my actions at local level. At national level I do believe that this country does need to get out of the European Union before we are totally bankrupted by it but at the level of Hartlepool Council Chamber that isn’t an issue we will ever decide.

I have considered standing as an Independent at local level but have thought people may accuse me of trying to hide my national political views. So I suppose the best thing is to retain my UKIP Colours ever though I think they are almost irrelevant at local level since there is no party whip and no manifesto imposed on me. Should UKIP ever attempt to impose such a whip then UKIP would lose a Hartlepool Councillor the first time the whip tried to make me take a position I didn’t feel was best for St.Hilda Ward or best for the town of Hartlepool.

United Kingdom INDEPENDENCE Party! Exactly what is says on the tin! INDEPENDENCE of the UK from the EU and INDEPENDENCE of Hartlepool from Westminster.

That doesn’t mean UKIP don’t want to cooperation! UKIP think cooperation is vital BUT cooperation needs to be a voluntary act where the individuals, parties, countries work together for mutually beneficial aims and mutually beneficial outcomes. The whip system does not produce cooperation. Whipping is a coercive system that I do not support in local council chambers and never will.

The next e-mail!

My next attempt to find out what is going on!!!!

____________________________________________________________

E-Mail From: Steve Allison
Sent: 26 March 2010 18:14
To: XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
Cc: XXXXXX XXXXXXX; Alison Lilley External
Subject: FW: Copy of Information

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Dear XXXXXXXX,

Thank you for your e-mail.

It seems to me that you have this totally wrong? I would be grateful if you could let me have the statutory instrument by which you place upon me the obligation to provide a need to know?

As I am an elected member of Hartlepool Council surely the onus is actually on you as an Officer of the Council to justify why the information needs to be withheld from me?

Best Regards

Steve Allison

Not Open, Not Transparent and definitely Not Accountable (Well not to me anyway!)

How about the e-mail below from Hartlepool Council!

Open?

Transparent?

Accountable?

Do you think they know what these words even mean?

______________________________________________________

From: xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx
Sent: 26 March 2010 14:42
To: Steve Allison External
Cc: XXXXXX XXXXXXX; Alison Lilley External
Subject: Copy of Information

Councillor Allison,

I refer to your request for information of exempt information. In order that the information be released, a 'need to know' basis will need to be established. I should be grateful, therefore, if you could please clarify the background to your request.

Thank you

Regards

XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX
Democratic Services Team Manager
Corporate Strategy Division

UKIP Publishes Full Manifesto

In June 2009, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) beat the ruling Labour Government as well as the Liberal Democrats in the European elections, the most recent major national vote.

UKIP achieved 2.4 million votes and 16.5% of the national vote. The message was clear: UKIP is here to stay. Now we are asking the British people to vote in
our first directly elected Westminster MPs.

For the 2010 elections UKIP has published a full manifesto which illustrates how withdrawal from the EU can benefit the UK right across the spectrum, from immigration to crime, tax, jobs and the economy, pensions, public services, and even through to animal welfare and Post Offices. Few realise just how much the EU now controls and interferes with our day-to-day lives, despite never having obtained permission to do so from the British people.

UKIP is the only party determined to bring power and control back to Westminster and
the British people. Only UKIP will enable us to govern in the best interests of the UK.

It is time for straight talking.

The annual list of words that shouldn’t be used by the public sector to talk to people has today been published by the Local Government Association.

The latest list of 250 words has been taken from the European Union, central government, quangos, regional government, business management speak and public relations phrases. Council leaders are concerned that in the midst of such a tough financial climate a failure by the public sector to explain to people the benefits from what they pay in taxes could make the difference between an individual staying afloat or going bankrupt.

The list includes new words such as:

* Trialogue
* Wellderly
* Goldfish bowl facilitated conversation
* Tonality
* Webinar
* Under-capacitated
* Clienting
* Disbenefits

The previous list of non words included:

* Taxonomy
* Rebaselining
* Mainstreaming
* Holistic governance
* Contestability
* Predictors of beaconicity
* Synergies

Just as it would be impossible for two IT professionals to speak to each other without using technical talk, it would be impossible for public sector experts to avoid using a degree of jargon. However, the LGA Group believes that while there is a place for technical language to be used between experts, jargon must be removed from documents and publications that are aimed at the public.

See the full list here

Sale of mephedrone has rocketed

http://www.ukip.org/content/latest-news/1510-eu-hurdle-prevents-meow-meow-ban

Talk of an immediate ban on mephedrone by the Government is highly premature thanks to EU rules which would stall such a move.

"People haven't been informed that our government cannot ban mephedrone without asking the EU for a three-month notification period," said UKIP spokesman Nigel Farage today.


"UKIP will never accept the EU telling us what we can and cannot do. We must be free to act as we choose when we choose.

"We need a proper debate in Britain now about what we need to do. At the moment, the Government is kidding the people but it simply can't act without an EU enforced delay.


"This useless government needs to tell the EU to back-off from controlling or delaying British legislation," said the UKIP MEP for South East England.


Under the EU Technical Standards and Regulations Directive 98/34/EC the government has to give the EU at least three months notification before it can change British legislation.


"Two British teens died from taking legal drug meow meow last week, other young life has already been wiped out," Farage said.


The sale of drug mephedrone has rocketed as head shops have spread over the country.

Class B Controlled Substance

I have been wondering about the current screams to ban the perfectly legal "plant food" after it was linked to 2 deaths!

If this is a case for a change in the law (and criminalising 1,000s of gardeners who will need to get their plant food of choice from an illegal dealer) then surely the 1,000s of deaths associated with smoking must make tobacco a candidate for Class B Controlled Substance Status?

The Caravan Channel

I fell asleep on the sofa yesterday afternoon, after a large Sunday Lunch at The Windmill (which I heartily recommend) and awoke to find myself watching a programme on SKY TV about how caravans are made.

Was it the Discovery Channel?

NO!

It was the Caravan Channel. Not just an isolated programme about caravans but a whole channel about them. It just shows you really can watch almost anything on Satellite TV.
It was edition 5/2010 I was catching yesterday and edition 6/2010 premiers on 24/03/10 on Sky 166/Freesat 402. It's already bookmarked in my viewing planner!

Just in case you can't wait until then there is a dedicated Youtube Caravan site (no pun intended) that recently boasted of it's 300,000th visitor. There review of the teardrop trailer is below.



I've not joined their Facebook Site but they are also on Twitter and I've added them as a "follow"

I must congratulate whoever is behind this site! They really seem to be a lot more plugged in to modern communication methods than many other groups!

Gordon Brown Commemorative Stamp

The Royal Mail created a new stamp with a picture of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Gordon Brown. However, the stamp was not sticking to envelopes.

This enraged the Prime Minister, who demanded a full investigation and after a month of testing and spending of £1.1million, a special commission presented the following findings:

1. The stamp is in perfect order.

2. There is nothing wrong with the adhesive.

3. People are spitting on the wrong side of the stamp.

(With Thanks to Mick Greenhough)

Secrecy Rules!

FW: Freedom of Information Request
Thursday, 18 March, 2010 8:55:37
From: Hayley Martin
To: Steve Allison External
Cc:Freedomofinformation ; Peter Devlin ; Alison Lilley External

Dear Sirs

Further to your repeated request I write to advise that my decision set out in the refusal notice sent to you on the 1 March applies. A copy is set out below:

Further to your request I can advise as follows:

Under the terms of the Constitution ALL 'pink paper' reports submitted to Executive decision making meetings (Cabinet, Executive Portfolios, Executive Committees, such as Grants Committee, and any joint Portfolio meetings) are sent to the Chair of Overview and Scrutiny. Therefore, any exempt item listed on an Executive Agenda was sent to the Chair of Scrutiny Coordinating Committee at the same time it was sent to the Executive Member(s).

All the agendas for Executive meetings can be found on the Council's website by following the 'Meetings and Minutes' link on the homepage. If we were to continue to produce a list of Exempt Executive Reports we would use the same process - albeit by looking at the internal system and the original Agenda Word documents.

Although your initial request was complied with I am unable to continue to provide the information. As well as the costs implications set out previously, a public authority is not required to 'create' documents under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 where you are able to access the information elsewhere (section 21).

I can only reiterate that the information you request is already available via the HBC website for you to access and compile a list yourself.

If you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request, you have the right to ask for an internal review. Internal review requests should be submitted within two months of the date of receipt of the response to your original request and should be sent to Alyson Carman, Chief Executives Department, Legal Services Division, Level 3, Civic Centre, Hartlepool , TS24 8AY , alyson.carman@hartlepool.gov.uk.

If you are not content with the outcome of the internal review, you have the right to apply directly to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane , Wilmslow, Cheshire , SK9 5AF , www.ico.gov.uk.

Kind Regards

Hayley Martin


Constitutional & Administrative Solicitor
Legal Division

More people die from cold in the UK during winter than in Siberia!

At the start of the new millennium more people were dying in the winter from the cold weather in Britain than in any other European country, including Siberia, where temperatures regularly drop as low as -40C.

The actual UK death toll might be even higher than official figures suggest as very few death certificates give the cold as the cause of death. Research by Professor William Keatinge, of London's Queen Mary and Westfield College, found more deaths in people over 55 years of age caused by the cold are attributed to strokes and coronary thrombosis rather than flu. According to Professor Keatinge; "Many people here simply do not take the cold seriously and appreciate the danger it poses.”

The situation is unlikely to improve in the future. The UK’s reliance on imported gas is projected to rise from around 25% in 2008 to over 60% by 2020. Couple this with ever rising global fuel prices and this is leading to more and more UK households spending an increasing proportion of their income just to keep warm.

Official statistics identify households as being in fuel poverty when the ratio of fuel costs (usage x price) to household income rises above 0.1. The cost of energy is unlikely to fall in the long term and household incomes are static or falling in the current recession. The only element of the calculation that can be easily changed is the level of usage of energy.

When households reduce usage too far then people start to die. The warmth of the home still needs to be maintained while usage is reduced. Fitting double glazing and programs to improve wall and roof insulation have been running for several years but what is needed now is a more radical re-think of how the UK keeps warm in winter and technologies such as ground source heating may provide some of the answers.

A ground source heat pump uses the same principle as a domestic refrigerator. A fridge uses a closed loop system to pull heat out of the inside of the fridge and radiate it into the atmosphere from fins on the back. Anyone who has ever put their hand behind a fridge can tell you that these fins can get very hot. A ground source heat pump uses buried pipes filled with a water/antifreeze mix to pull heat from the earth and then to warm a building through radiators or under floor heating.

Theoretically there is no limit to the amount of heat that can be extracted from the ground, the longer and deeper the underground pipes the more heat that will be pumped. Unfortunately scaling up too far reduces the coefficiency of performance (CoP) of the system. This is a measure of the amount of heat produced compared to the amount of energy needed to drive the circulating pumps that push the water/antifreeze mix round the pipes. The best systems will deliver a CoP of around 3.2 but it does mean the homes being heated need to be fairly close to the ground source pipes

Many of Britain’s European Neighbors are well ahead of the UK in adopting this type of technology. The Dutch city of Heerlen uses a heat pump from abandoned coal mines going down to 800 meters below the city to run the radiators of hundreds of homes, shops and offices. According to Riet de Wit, a City Councillor in Heerlen. “We have proven that a local initiative can provide a local solution for sustainable energy. Moreover, our concept can be adapted by former mining regions all over the world.”

The Dutch system was developed by Karl-Heinz Wolf, Professor of Coal and Geothermal Energy at the Technical University of Delft. “You have it all year round and if you don’t need it, you close the tap until you need it again.” The system can even work in reverse during the summer. In the hot months the water can be taken from near the top of the shaft where it is cold enough to cool the city’s buildings. Professor Wolf is now working on a project to extract heat from a depth of 2.5km where the temperature of the water is 80-85C. “It is not difficult to do” according to the Professor, “the only thing you need is a mine which is in the vicinity of the industry or houses you want to heat.”

Unfortunately while these systems may be cheaper to operate and offer an effective, sustainable long term solution, they also cost much more to install than conventional gas or electricity powered systems. This makes them attractive to households that can afford to invest for the longer term but these are households that are very unlikely to currently be experiencing fuel poverty.

This problem was acknowledged by the government in February 2010. During a visit to a low income homes project in Dagenham the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband announced that; “We are launching a scheme, the Renewable Heat Incentive, to encourage renewable heat generation at all scales.”

Joan Ruddock, a Minister in the same department, told the Ecobuild Conference at Earls Court in March 2010 that; “The Renewable Heat Incentive will deliver a step change in the way that the country generates its heat for heating hot water and our homes”

Any house or building which currently uses fuels such as gas, heating oil or coal, will be eligible to claim the RHI if they switch to a renewable technology. The RHI will be available to householders, local authorities and social landlords as well as the public, industrial and commercial sectors.

Fuel poverty is only one issue that can be addressed by ground source heat. Currently 60% of average total domestic energy bills are consumed by heating costs but domestic heating also accounts for 47% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions. In order for the UK to meet its carbon reduction obligations 12% of UK heat is required to come from renewable sources. The RHI could save up to 60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2020.

In addition to the environmental damage done by Carbon Dioxide production there is also the risk to heath posed by Carbon Monoxide which is produced by incomplete combustion in gas heating systems. On average over 30 people annually die from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. Heat pumps not only completely remove this risk as they produce no carbon monoxide but also remove a significant legal liability for safety from the housing provider and of course tenants are spared the possible fatal consequences of poisoning or even a gas explosion from incorrectly maintained systems.

Ground Source Heat pumps are also very suitable when water temperature safety is a concern. Typically Ground Source heat pumps produce water at around 60°C, considerably lower than the 90°C output by gas or electric heating systems. These temperatures are more than adequate for water for baths or showers but make it impossible for children or vulnerable adults to inadvertently scald themselves.

Details of the Renewable Heating Incentive can be obtained from the Department of Energy and Climate change (decc) Website. Details of Installers of Ground Source Heat pumps can be obtained from the Heat Pump Association, Waltham Court, Hare Hatch, Berks RG10 9YH or from their website, http://www.heatpumps.org.uk

Have a go and Stand for election!

People in Hartlepool who think they could do a better job than their existing Councillors are being challenged to have a go and stand for election.

Stephen Allison and Martyn Aiken, two of the 47 Hartlepool Borough Councillors are holding an open session at the Grand Hotel on Saturday the 27th of March between 10.00am and 1.00pm explaining exactly what people need to do in order to stand for election.

Stephen Allison, a UKIP Member of Hartlepool Borough Council, said; "Many people in Hartlepool tell me they think their local Councillors are rubbish. In some cases they may be right but just complaining never changed anything!" Stephen, who represents the St.Hilda Ward, continued; "The procedures for standing for election can be quite daunting if you have never done it before. Martyn and I will be at the Grand Hotel to answer questions and try to de-mystify the process."

You do not need to be a UKIP member to attend the open session, nor do you need to stand as a UKIP Candidate should you decide you want to give it a go in May. UKIP are committed to local democracy and want to encourage more participation even if that means independent candidates who may possibly end up standing in the same wards as UKIP’s own party candidates.

The open session will cover who can stand as a councilor, what the procedures are and how much it costs to put your name on a local election ballot paper. According to Martyn Aiken it is the cost that usually surprises people. "To stand in a General Election a Candidate needs to put up a £500 deposit. However for local elections there is no deposit required" explained Councillor Aiken of Foggy Furze Ward "Nothing, zero, not a penny. You fill in a couple of forms and hand them in to the Civic Centre and that's it, your name goes into the hat."

Candidates do have to pay for any leaflets they distribute during the election but with the cost of photocopying these days a simple black on white leaflet can be produced very cheaply. "The cost shouldn’t scare off anyone" said Eric Wilson, Chairman of the UKIP Hartlepool Branch, "UKIP normally allocate about £60 to a ward campaign in the local elections. Of course the bigger parties can afford a bit more at the moment but UKIP are still growing, unlike the Lib/Lab/Con who are losing members ever day."

You can stand for election to Hartlepool Council if you are 18 or over, A British, Commonwealth, Irish or European Union citizen, and you are registered to vote in Hartlepool or if you have lived, worked or owned property in Hartlepool for at least 12 months. You cannot stand for election if you are bankrupt, have been sentenced to 3 or more months in prison in the last 5 years, have been disqualified for corrupt and illegal practices or you are an employee of Hartlepool Council or hold a politically-restricted post in any other council.

Anyone who would like more information about the event can contact Dave Pascoe, UKIP Hartlepool Press Officer on 01429 223754, e-mail d.j.pascoe@virginmedia.com or just turn up on the day.

To see what the Hartlepool Mail did with this story, click here

Another Stonewall

I managed to use the Freedom of Information Act to discover that there were 22 Pink Papers produced by Hartlepool Council in the first few weeks of 2010. The Borough Solicitor had made noises that I was being "vexatious" making these requests but I think he realised that he had to let me have something. However the Council have moved swiftly to prevent such information being made available again!

Here is the response to my request for the Pink Paper List on a regular basis......

-----Original Message-----

From: Freedomofinformation
Sent: 12/02/2010 12:50
To: Steve Allison External
Cc: Alison Lilley External;Peter Devlin
Subject: Re: FOI Request No:1/2010 & FOI Request No: 2/2010


Dear Sirs

Unfortunately I would not be able to continue supplying you with the information in the format already sent because any further requests would be dealt with under the rules relating to consolidation of requests under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The rules provide that requests of the same or similar information can be consolidated for costs purposes. The costs limit is currently £450 which constitutes 18 hours of officer time in compiling the information.

Furthermore all of the information provided is in the public domain and can be found on the Council's website.

Kind Regards

Constitutional & Administrative Solicitor
Legal Division
Civic Centre - Level 3
www.hartlepool.gov.uk

You never know where things end up when you throw them out into cyberpace

They do say you never know where things end up when you throw them out into cyberpace. However imagine my surprise when I came across a piece entitled "Scrapheap Challenge" on a website relating to Hartlepool. I did in the past contribute to this website under the screen name "Steve Allison" but stopped doing in 2006 when the administrators of the site allowed it to be turned into a vehicle for personal attacks on me as a local councillor and an individual.

My "surprise" at the Scrapheap Challenge piece was mainly because it had a striking familiarity to a piece I wrote in November last year on this blog.

I have no objection to them pinching my work but if you are going to steal other people's efforts it is just courteous to acknowledge the source.

The same website are also running a piece entitled "In the Pink" which references a Freedom of Information Request on which the entire article is based! Once again it neglects to mention that it is a Freedom Of Information Request that was made by me!

Stealing stories from each other is common practise in journalism but usually they are re-written enough to at least make an attempt to make them appear to be their own work!

Elected Mayors in the UK

More people should have the right to elect their local leader, argues Prof Michael Kenny, of the IPPR think-tank. (Page 14 LGA First Magazine Issue 328 May 2008)

The idea of having more elected mayors in England seems to have pushed its way back up the political agenda. Even before the ‘Boris and Ken show’, there were signs that momentum was emerging in all the main parties behind the idea of introducing more mayors into England’s cities. The government’s forthcoming white paper will be watched with interest by supporters and detractors of elected mayors alike. Will they seize the initiative and give more people the right to elect their local leader?
This is certainly what I and colleagues at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have urged government to do in a report published just before the London election. Drawing on the performance of the 13 mayors who have been in post in England, we found that the introduction of this office has nearly always coincided with an improvement in councils’ performance.
High profile
Hackney is perhaps the most dramatic example of a turnaround in fortunes under their elected mayor Jules Pipe (pictured). Every mayoral authority has either consolidated or improved its score in the comprehensive performance assessment. Elected mayors are better known to their electorates than council leaders, have produced a series of innovative and eyecatching policies (from congestion charging in London to crime reduction in the North East), and have proved highly responsive to the priorities of local people. Elected leaders tend to become beacons for the places they represent, and are more focused upon facilitating partnerships and balancing different interests than pursuing narrow party interests.
The worry that elected mayors will turn out to be celebrities or mavericks is not born out by the experience of those who have been in post. Even Stuart Drummond in Hartlepool – elected as H’Angus the monkey – threw away his costume after his election, learned the ways of local government and has helped his authority climb the CPA tables. In London, Boris won in part because of real policy differences between him and Ken Livingstone, but also because he realised he needed to downplay his celebrity image in order to compete.
The real democratic question that needs to be asked about elected mayors is why so few? When will we have a government that has the courage to steer away from the local referendum device that has played into the hands of sceptical councillors and proved a major obstacle to the introduction of more directly elected local government leaders?
LGA chairman Sir Simon Milton is right to argue that people are more likely to vote in local elections if greater powers are given to town halls. What he and others need to grasp is that capable and responsive elected mayors are an important means of enabling central government to feel able to delegate meaningful responsibilities in this way.
Michael Kenny is a professor of politics at Sheffield university and a visiting research fellow at the IPPR

How dare I agree with Councillor Brash!

As a backbench Councillor I have to take my small victories where I can. Usually this involves being the one of few dissenting voices questioning the decisions of the Labour/Tory/Lib-Dem Alliance that controls most of what goes on. At the last Council Meeting I was prepared to vote against yet another increase in Council Tax, which I did, and also to question the wisdom of signing up to a Local Area Agreement “Refresh”.

The Refresh set out Hartlepool Council’s commitment to various performance targets, including; maintaining the overall employment rate in Hartlepool at 5.6% points BELOW the North East average, maintaining the current level of 29% of children in Hartlepool living in poverty, so keeping Hartlepool 4.8% ABOVE the North East average and committing to maintain the Hartlepool baseline figure of 20.9% for working age people out of work and claiming benefits, which is 4.5% points ABOVE than the rest of the North East.

Basically Hartlepool Council will be concentrating their efforts for the next few years to maintain Hartlepool's position as having fewer people in work, more people on benefits and more children in poverty than the rest of the North East!

How can anyone say Hartlepool Council lacks ambition when it signs up to targets like that!

However, before I could raise my concerns Councillor Brash jumped to his feet to also decry the child poverty target. I think he must have been treading my blog again and wanted to get in first! He didn’t mention unemployment or numbers on benefits but he was worried about the children. He proposed a more ambitious target be set that would at least commit the council to narrowing the gap between Hartlepool and the rest of the North East. After he sat down I stood up and seconded his proposal! I agreed with him and said it was a good idea.

At this point the Council Meeting went into the Twilight Zone.

I am quite used to Councillor Brash going a funny purple colour with rage and being reduce to almost incoherence (I wish!) with anger at things I say in Hartlepool Council Chamber but this was the first time I’d ever had this effect on him by AGREEING with him. He was very upset that I’d dared to do so!

This is the advantage of not having a party whip telling me who I can and cannot agree with. If I think it’s a good idea then I’ll support it, if I think it’s a bad idea then I’ll say so and vote against it. Scary stuff for any Party Politician who usually can be whipped into putting party first, personal ambition second and ideology (if they have any) a distant third.

Councillor Brash was saved by the Mayor! Stuart leapt to his feet and announced it didn’t matter because we were only playing the game and submitting meaningless numbers to Whitehall that were just necessary for a box ticking exercise! This allowed Councillor Brash to withdraw his proposal, removing any requirement too agree with me, and accepting the understanding that the decision was irrelevant anyway and didn’t count for anything in the real world outside the fantasy land of politicians and the ivory towers they inhabit.

So there you have it. I can get the Labour group upset if I oppose what they say and even more upset if I agree with them. Of course the Mayor has now confirmed that any decision made by the Council doesn’t really affect what goes on in real life. It’s all just a box ticking exercise. It was nice to hear the Mayor finally admit that!

Unfortunately the increase in Council Tax does affect people in real life and the relentless rises are causing severe hardship to many people. I did also wonder if the "meaningless box ticking" also referred to the 4 Star Status the Council keeps getting awarded and which Drummond tells everyone “proves” what a great job Hartlepool Council are doing!

Hartlepol Council Sucesses!

Tomorrow night Hartlepool Councillors will be asked to approve yet another rise in council tax. This will be used to protect front line services in these turbulent economic times. Well that's the official line!

I for one will be voting NO to the increase. At the same meeting we will be looking at the LAA Refresh! A wonderful document that sets out ambitious plans for Hartlepool Council to maintain the overall employment rate in Hartlepool at 5.6 percentage points below the North East Base line average!

Yes, you read that right MAINTAIN the overall employment rate in the town at BELOW the north east regional average. Now there's an ambitious target for the town!

The Council are also going to try and MAINTAIN the Hartlepool baseline figure of 20.9% for working age people out of work and claiming benefits, again that is 4.5% points worse than the rest of the North East Region.

The document also admits that the current level of 29% of children in Hartlepool living in poverty is unlikely to fall and so the Council's target has been revised to "Maintain the gap between Hartlepool and the North East Region at 4.8% points".

Basically Hartlepool Council will be concentrating their efforts for the next few years to maintain Hartlepool's position as having fewer people in work and more children in poverty than the rest of the North East!

How can anyone say Hartlepool Council lacks ambition!

Hartlepool Property Prices

The Royal Armouries in Leeds this afternoon is holding a property auction which included a property I was interested in buying. It's a five bedroom Victorian property in need of some modernisation and a bit of TLC. It's on the Headland and had a guide Price of £70,000. Of course when you sell at auction the seller doesn't get that and the buyer pays a bit more. I thought it must go for less than that since it's not as big nor as well located as say a property on Victoria Road that the Council recently offloaded for £60,000! Unfortunately some other bidders obviously didn't know about the depressed state of the Hartelpool property market and it went for over the guide price! I wonder who does their comparable? Obviously Hartlepool Council don't use anyone who might make realistic commercial estimates of value in the real world!

PS Freudian slip in the typing of this post that the spell checker picked up. In my last sentence I'd typed "Obviously not the same people as make comical estimates of value in the real world!

Update on Big Brother!

The School District Website referred to in the post below can be accessed here if you want to read more about this story!

US school district spied on students through webcams

Originally in the Guardian on-line on Friday 19th February! read it and weep for the death of democracy and the arrival of big brother! Scary. All I can say is there is a piece of tape over my laptop camera and the built in microphone as well. Of course that doesn't stop the built in modem downloading to a remote surveillance website a copy of everything I type. They can already track you through your mobile phone of course and we are on CCTV Camera dozens of times every day! It's only a matter of time before we are all chipped like dogs!

So, could it happen here? Or is it ALREADY HAPPENING!

_____________________________________________________________________________

A school district in Pennsylvania spied on students through web cameras installed on laptops provided by the district, according to a class action lawsuit filed this week.

Lower Merion school district, in a well-heeled suburb of Philadelphia, provided 2,300 high-school students with Mac laptops last autumn in what its superintendent, Christopher McGinley, described as an effort to establish a "mobile, 21st-century learning environment".

The scheme was funded with $720,000 (£468,000) in state grants and other sources. The students were not allowed to install video games and other software, and were barred from "commercial, illegal, unethical and inappropriate" use.

The district retained remote control of the built-in webcams installed on the computers – and used them to capture images of the students, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court this week.

The ruse was revealed when Blake Robbins, a student at Harriton high school, was hauled into the assistant principal Lindy Matsko's office, shown a photograph taken on the laptop in his home and disciplined for "improper behaviour".

According to Robbins, Matsko said the school had retained the ability to activate the laptop webcams remotely, at any time. Backed by his parents, Robbins filed a lawsuit on behalf of all students provided with laptops by the school.

The suit claims a violation of the privacy and civil rights of the students and their families and accuses officials of violating electronic communications laws by spying on them through "indiscriminate use of an ability to remotely activate the webcams incorporated into each laptop".

It claims that since the laptops were used by students and their friends and family at home, images of "compromising or embarrassing positions, including ... in various states of undress" have been captured. A school district spokesman, Douglas Young, did not return a call seeking comment, but told the Philadelphia Inquirer the district was investigating. "We're taking it very seriously," he said.

In a letter posted on the school district's website, McGinley said the district had installed on the laptops a security feature that allowed the webcam to photograph the computer operator in the event the laptop is lost or stolen. He said that following the suit's filing, the district disabled the feature amidst a review of technology and privacy policies. He said the feature was activated only to help locate a lost or stolen laptop.

"The district never activated the security feature for any other purpose or in any other manner whatsoever," he wrote. "We regret if this situation has caused any concern or inconvenience among our students and families."

and the response.....

Between the dates 9th December 2009 and 10th February 2010 there were 22 Exempt Reports on "pink" paper that were deemed by Hartlepool Council as too sensitive for the public to see.

The {para x} refers to the reason why the information is not allowed in the public domain. In summary Para 1 is information relating to an individual, Para 3 is commercial information, Para 4 is information relating to negotiations with employees, para 7 is information that may prejudice investigations into a crime or future legal action and Para 10 is information which it is not in the public interest to disclose.

Cabinet
Monday 22 December 2009

1. Youth Offending Service – Results of the Core Case Inspection of Youth Offending Work – Assistant Director (Community Safety and Protection) (Para 10)

2. OFSTED Unannounced Inspection of Safeguarding Services – Assistant Director, Safeguarding and Targeted Services (Para 10)

Monday, 25 January 2010

3. Equal Pay Risk Update (para 4 and para 7) – Corporate Management Team

Portfolios
Children’s Services - Tuesday, 2 February 2010

4. Procurement Of Specialist Outdoor Play Equipment For Exmoor Grove (Para 3) – Director of Child and Adult Services

Finance and Performance - Friday, 8 January 2010
5. Land At Sandgate Industrial Estate (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

6. 19 St Columba's Parish Centre, Dryden Road (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

7. Courts Building, Victoria Road (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

8. Rockhaven, 36 Victoria Road (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

9. Sale Of Garage Land At Victoria Place (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

10. Rating Revaluation – Appointment Of External Advisers (para 3) - Assistant Director (Resources)

11. Support for Businesses – Chief Financial Officer

12. Belle Vue Way/Ladysmith Street (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

13. Land Corner Of Tower Street And Surtees Street (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

14. Surestart North, Hindpool Close (para 3) - Assistant Director (Procurement and Asset Management)

15. Tender For A Printing & Mailing Service For Local Taxation Demands And Benefit Notifications – Chief Financial Officer (Para 3 – though not stated on the agenda)

Transport and Neighbourhoods
Wednesday, 10 February 2010

16. Dial a Ride Service Review (para 3) – Assistant Director (Transport and Engineering Services)

Other Committees

Contract Scrutiny Committee
Monday 18 January 2010

17. Contract For The Provision Of Assessment And Services For Carers In Hartlepool (Contract Reference Number 408) - Strategic Commissioner Working Age Adults(Para 3 – though not stated on the agenda)

Monday 1 February 2010

18. Provision of an activities and mentoring programme (Contract Ref. No. 397) (para 3) – Director of Child & Adult Services

19. Provision of resources required to support the Team Around the Primary School model. (Contract Ref. Nos. 426, 427, 428, 429 and 430) (para 3) – Director of Child & Adult Services

General Purposes (Appeals and Staffing) Sub Committee
Thursday, 14 January 2010

20. Request For Payment Of Deferred Pension Benefits (para 1) – Chief Personnel Office
21. Request For Payment Of Deferred Pension Benefits (para 1) – Chief Personnel Officer
22. Request For Payment Of Deferred Pension Benefits (para 1) – Chief Personnel Officer

The Secrecy Tussle Continues.....

FOI Request No:2/2010
Submitted by e-mail Tuesday 26th January 2010

Dear Ms Martin,

Please treat this as a formal request under the Freedom of Information Act

Could you please provide me with a list of all pink papers which have been given to the Chair of the Scrutiny Coordinating Committee in the interval between my Freedom of Information Request of 11th January 2010 (My Reference; FOI Request No:1/2010) and the date of this additional request. I would like to know the subject of the pink paper and the reason, as defined in the Constitution of Hartlepool Council, why it was declared to be confidential or exempt.

Could you please acknowledge this request, quoting my reference "FOI Request No:2/2010" on your reply and on any subsequent correspondence relating to this request.

Thank You

Councillor Stephen Allison
Hartlepool Unitary Authority

Party Politics and the Hospital

Interesting comment on my previous post about stepping aside for an Independent Save Our Hospital Candidate. The person making the comment is disappointed in my for making the offer when I know the Tories and Lib-Dems will not be allowed by their central party machines to take me up on it. Basically that sums up the problem with party politics for me in the UK at the moment. None of the Candidates for the main parties in the UK are allowed to put their constituents first. Labour, Lib-Dem and Tory all have Party First, Career Second and then possibly, just maybe their Constituents a distant third.

As a member of UKIP I am not whipped by my party. I could step aside if I thought it was in the best interests of Hartlepool. I can put Hartlepool first, none of the other party candidates can honestly say that. Unfortunately it would need the Tories and Lib-Dems to also step aside to give an Independent a chance to beat Labour. Quite frankly I don't care which out of the three win because they are all now so alike that it makes no real difference. Actually the Tories in Hartlepool are worse than the Lib-Dems. The Lib-Dems are just disorganised and badly led. The Tories are actively working to keep Labour in power in Hartlepool, well at local level anyway. In the last local Elections UKIP, the Lib-Dems and Tories did agree to allow an independent Save our Hospital Candidate a free run in Grange Ward against the Council Chairman. At the last minute the Tories stood a candidate who took just enough votes tio allow the Labour Councillor to retain his seat.

Labour and Lib-Dems have stood aside to allow an Independent a free run at a Tory, hence Martin Bell MP! Of course they don't want to establish any real precedent for this sort of thing. For no other reason that the MPs from all parties have more in common with each other these days than they do with the ordinary voter. Just imagine if politicians started putting their constituents first, where would it end? Maybe in a real democracy in this country for the first time in decades! Now wouldn't that frighten the political class.

PS To my friend who posts the anonymous comments daring me to allow them through onto the blog. It ain't going to happen! When you start making valid points to debate then maybe, but until then anonymous abuse will always end up in the trash can!

DO THE POLITICIANS REALLY WANT TO SAVE OUR HOSPITAL?

As the UKIP Hartlepool candidate in the General Election I have offered to stand down if a genuine Independent Save Our Hospital Candidate comes forward who would be supported by all the other Parties in the town.

I was disgusted at the way the Tory Candidate recently tried to use the Hospital for party political purposes.

As I said at a meeting last night of the UKIP Hartlepool Branch, the Labour Party is no better. Labour deceived the entire town over plans for Hartlepool Hospital and the last Lib-Dem who was going to save the hospital was Jodie Dunn! What happened to her great love of Hartlepool once the by-election was over? The fate of Hartlepool Hospital should be above Party Politics. I call upon all the other parties in the town to get behind a single, non-party political candidate, to send the message to Westminster that the people of Hartlepool are still fighting for their hospital.

If Labour wins the election then they have proved they cannot be trusted over Hartlepool Hospital. The Tories have already said they will cancel Wynyard but without any guarantee that they will invest in upgrades to existing hospital facilities in Hartlepool.

The Lib-Dems used the hospital as a campaign gimmick in 2004 but lost interest in it after they failed to win the by-election. The future of Hartlepool Hospital under any of the three main parties looks grim.

It's time the political parties stopped using Hartlepool Hospital as a political football. A 'Save our Hospital MP' in Hartlepool would be a huge message to all the three main parties. UKIP topped the poll in Hartlepool in June 2009, we have been making steady progress in the town in the last few years and have high hopes for a good campaign in 2010. However, UKIP Hartlepool is willing to put the town first and step aside in the coming General Election for a genuine Save our Hospital Candidate backed by all the main parties in the town.

It’s time to stop playing party politics.

UKIP would step aside to allow a straight head to head fight between Labour and a mutually acceptable Save our Hospital Candidate. Will the other parties do the same and prove they put Hartlepool first?

Home Again

Spent New Year with my Parents in Majorca and we were all due to come home on a New Year's Day flight departing at 8.00pm. Arrived at Palma Airport to discover that the Newcastle flight was cancelled and the earliest we could get another flight was January 4th. So we didn't get home till last night.

Speaking to a couple on the flight they had the opposite experience. They were due to fly home tomorrow (Wednesday) but Easy Jet had told them they had to fly two days early because there were no flights out of Palma after 4th January until 8th February.

Easy Jet have cancelled the Newcastle-Palma Route for six weeks!

I think we are still just seeing the beginning of the effects of the recession and there are some tough times ahead!

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2010

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2010.

I’m being “Vexatious”

Reviewing 2009 I realised I ended the year in dispute with Hartlepool Council over secrecy and behind closed doors decision making. Thos was actually exactly the same way I started 2009. Not much progress there you might think but I am a couple of steps close to achieving a more open council. (More details here). The Chief Solicitor is now of the opinion that my requests for information could be seen “vexatious”. I’m looking forward to seeing his justification that an elected Councillor trying to discover what Hartlepool Council is doing is “vexatious” It should make interesting reading!

I’m the Hardest Working St.Hilda Ward Councillor. That’s OFFICIAL!

Hartlepool Council have introduced a new scheme to measure how much work a Councillor does. I was apparently the second worst Councillor for going to meetings in 2007-8 but I am now the hardest working of the three St.Hilda Councillors according to the 2008-9 figures which placed me =31st out of 46. The other two St.Hilda Councillors being 37th and 43rd out of 46. (More details here).

Mandelson, Freeman Of Hartlepool

I was one of the handful of Councillors who objected to the way the Freedom of Hartlepool was awarded to Lord Mandelson. In my opinion he did nothing for Hartlepool other than use it as a safe seat for his political ambitions. Mind you, the Labour party have abused Hartlepool for years and the people still vote them back in! They say people get the government they deserve. Just look at the lies told by labour about Hartlepool Hospital! I hope everyone remembers this at the next elections. Read More here).


Steel Making and Corus Closure

Every government since 1972 has collaborated in the slow death of UK steelmaking. I said at a Hartlepool Council Meeting that, “So long as the UK remains in the EU then steelmaking will continue to die and will eventually disappear totally from the UK” There was not one single Councillor in the Hartlepool Council Chamber who dared to contradict me! No matter how much they may now demand action to save steelmaking the Labour, Liberal-Democrat and Conservative Parties have all actively participated in killing steelmaking in the UK and they know it! (read more here).

Tall Ships!

Where do I start? Of course there will be no doubt that regardless of what really happened the Tall Ships will be a huge success for Hartlepool, bring in millions of pounds and create hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs and put Hartlepool on the international map for other reasons than having Peter Mandelson as a Freeman and a monkey as Mayor. Yerr, Right! I just hope everyone enjoys the Party. The Council Taxpayers will be paying for it for years to come! Read More here.

Expenses

Just in case anyone cares I have never claimed a single penny in expenses for any Council business. When first elected I did take a fax machine as I was told it was important to be able to receive information that way. I think the only time it was ever used I had to get a new printer ribbon as it had dried up completely. In the spirt of "payback" I'm more than happy to return it to the Civic Centre. When I was first elected I also took a shredder but it was so inadequate to the job I bought an industrial size one myself. I'd also be happy to return it to the civic centre! I didn't take the Filing Cabinet as I already had one myself. I don't get a council laptop or anything like that.

Where to end?

I started this entry with a note about secrecy and behind closed doors dealings. It was agreed that the Councillors’ Register of Interests was going to be available on line this year. Unfortunately it has yet to appear. If anyone would like to see mine however it is here on my blog.

I could go on and on. The scandal of the Headland Residents living with dust from the Port Operations (See here) is something that needs to be dealt with in 2010 and the success story that is the Heugh Battery Trust should be celebrated (See here). My initiative to get live internet streaming of meetings in the Civic Centre will also continue in 2010, this however is being resisted by the Council as a whole, possibly because they are scared that the residents might find out what really goes on! Anyway, enough for now.

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2010 to everyone.

'But we've always done it this way' – it's time to take a sideways look

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/feature_story.asp?id=13335&topic=

Tinkering around the edges of outdated business models will never produce the efficiencies currently required from all parts of the public sector, says Neil Malpas

A new era of frugality will only add to the pressure on public sector organisations to improve performance and deliver even greater value for money.

Many bodies in the public sector, however, are hugely inefficient because of the business models they use, in terms of where they allocate resources and how they deploy staff.

Changing the way existing processes work can have a dramatic impact on both performance and the bottom line. One example of this is Doncaster Prison. Most prison models work around the various stages a prisoner encounters – pre-screening, entry, care in prison, leave and ultimately the probation system – but these aren't what really impact on the individual. It's the other things – the separation from their partner or children, being distanced from the job market and having nowhere to live on release – that make reoffending more likely.

By looking at things from a personal perspective and introducing projects to provide prisoners with accommodation on release and a "Lads and Dads" programme to maintain contact with their children in the meantime, Doncaster Prison has been able to ensure prisoners retain links to the real world, resulting in a lower rate of reoffending and making significant savings for the taxpayer.

Another example is a police force that had a problem with incidents such as car thefts or bag- snatching, which can have a huge impact in terms of people's perception of policing in the local area. By reallocating people with specific skills to the parts of the police process that took the most time and effort, the force was able to achieve a significant reduction in "volume crime" figures.

But simply juggling the existing setup will only result in a tiny percentage improvement. To multiply that, bodies need to look at things from a new perspective. Any organisation can do that if they have people – perhaps managers within different departments – who have been there and done it before. But there should be no sacred cows – everything must be up for review.

Managers need to take a bit of time looking at what has been done in the past to try to improve processes. But often in the public sector there is a strong desire to avoid projects "not invented here" and this lack of ownership needs to be suspended. Take the time to look more broadly across similar areas and departments and other public-sector organisations. Set aside some time for some creative thinking, if only to establish that there really isn't another way to do it.

Sometimes an external partner is needed to provide that kind of sideways view. We were recently asked to look at a public sector organisation that had 26 locations across the UK and ran a fairly straightforward process. The business itself was also asked to provide its own analysis. Its cost-efficiency programme revolved around closing two offices because two towns contained two sites. We came back with one location across the UK and a completely different setup. Turkeys are never likely to vote for Christmas but it also shows the value of having been through similar projects in the past and having a fresh approach.

Such an analysis should also include an evaluation of outsourcing. Some elements of an organisation's operations have to be kept in-house and those can then be subject to more traditional efficiency programmes – cutting costs but also implementing measures to improve people and the support they get to do their jobs. Other processes can be best provided by external providers; in which case it's about looking at the scope of any project and the levels of risk transfer. But that can only be done if organisations have already evaluated the business processes through experienced eyes.

Using a partner organisation can also create a greater degree of flexibility in projects that remain in-house, but this will only work if there's a genuine relationship based on visibility. If everyone only sees their own bit they will never be able to help respond to client requests or spot potential problems in the future.

Another area where effective business modelling can have a real impact is project rescue. Often the trend here is to flood the project with extra people, but that simply hides the issue for another two years. Where projects are going wrong – rather than just having the wrong programme director or a poorly skilled team – a complete redesign is usually required, looking again at how things are being done and the overall structure of the project. Again, it's looking sideways at what's not working rather than simply trying to fix the broken parts.

The next few years offer an unparalleled opportunity for public sector bodies to improve efficiency. But that will only be possible if they're prepared to challenge the way things have always been done.

More people work in NHS than ever

More people work in NHS than ever, but the growth is seen as the 'last stage before the tanker slows down and turns'

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=11654&topic=

There are more people working in the NHS than ever – 400,000 more than when Labour came to power in 1997 – but as budgets get tighter it could be a short-lived boost.

The latest figures show that more than 1.6m staff work for the NHS, following an increase of 18,000 in the second quarter of this year and 23,000 in the third quarter. However, the good news needs to be tempered with caution for the future, the NHS Confederation has warned.

Pointing out that the number of NHS jobs being advertised is continuing to go down, policy director Nigel Edwards said: "We suspect this is the last stage before the tanker slows down and finally turns. People still do have growth money this year and they are pursuing targets and other government objectives. Furthermore, some of this recruitment will have been taking place before people had fully woken up to the scale of the problem to come. We think the decline in the number of jobs advertised, however, is significant."

The NHS figures were part of an increase in public sector staff in general, taking the number to more than 6m, despite councils getting rid of 3,000 people and public corporations taking on 5,000 fewer employees. However, some have attributed part of the rise is public sector workers down to the fact that banks are now in the public sector. In Scotland, a 6.4 per cent increase is being put down to the reclassification of Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Lloyds Banking Group as public corporations.

At the same time, the Office for National Statistics has reported that the number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose by 21,000 in the three months to October to 2.49m, the smallest quarterly rise since last May, but the 7.9 per cent unemployed rate is still the worst for 13 years. The ONS pointed out that full-time employment f

the rise of town hall propaganda?

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=11673&topic=

Local newspapers are being "driven out of business" because of the proliferation of council funded publications, the Conservative shadow local government secretary has claimed, writes Dean Carroll.

Looking to the media landscape ahead should the Tories win a general election, Caroline Spelman indicated that town halls would be required to review their own publications to check they were not "going beyond their remit". She revealed that a Conservative government would also evaluate the Local Authority Publicity Code "with a view to tightening it up", adding: "At one time, literature from the town hall was confined to updates about bin collections over Christmas or changes to library opening times – now they have evolved into fully fledged newspapers."

Spelman held up Boris Johnson's scrapping of The Londoner newspaper, which saved £2.9m, as a good example for councils to follow. A Tory policy note revealed that concern had grown over "the rise of town hall propaganda" due to generous budgets at council-run publications like Tower Hamlet's East End Life, which had double the number of staff as the commercial rival the East London Advertiser.

But Local Government Association chief executive John Ransford told Public Servant Daily that councils had developed their own titles because "local newspapers have abandoned reporting of local political situations", adding: "They will report issues like bypasses, housing developments and big planning stuff but the reporting of what the council does and the way it does it has virtually disappeared in regional and local journalism.

"During the 1970s and 1980s, there would always be two or three local papers attending committee meetings. Reporters would cover meetings and challenge councillors and officers afterwards; they would start editorial campaigns and set debates going."

The Office of Fair Trading recently warned that commercial newspapers were facing increasing competitive pressures from public sector titles. Advocating discussions between local authorities and news organisations to establish a way forward, Ransford said: "It's important that there is a vibrant local media and so I think it is important that councils have talks with the local press to see if arrangements can be reached.

"Access to information and criticism is part of our democracy. That is important as getting people out to vote so councils must explore locally how things can be achieved – there will be different answers in different places. I don't think there is a simple answer."

Asked what he thought the biggest threat to paid-for local newspapers was, Ransford said: "The market has changed with the creation of free newspapers, the internet and the economic situation people have been in – our whole way of sourcing information is now different. You can access news online through a phone now. But personally, I still like physically reading a newspaper and I find it difficult to read things on screen."

Secrecy and behind closed doors decision making

Secrecy and behind closed doors decision making goes on all the time at Hartlepool Council and ordinary back bench councillors are deliberately kept in the dark! That is the only conclusion I can draw from the way “Pink Papers” are still being used in Hartlepool Council.

I have had an on-going battle with Hartlepool Council in my efforts to get access to information. As an elected member of Hartlepool Council I try to represent my constituents to the best of my ability but am frustrated in this aim when I am denied access to information about what is happening. The whole debate around the granting of the Freedom of Hartlepool to certain individuals is obscuring an even more important issue, namely the use of Pink Papers in Hartlepool Council to block openness and transparency and keep not only the people of Hartlepool in the dark but also to stop Councillors such as myself finding out what goes on.

Pink papers were used to stop me finding out about the on-going re-organisation of Hartlepool Council and I have repeatedly been denied access to other information I have requested. I am now at the point where I am making requests under the Freedom of Information Act in an attempt to get access to Hartlepool Council papers. It should be unbelievable to Hartlepool Residents that an ELECTED COUINCILLOR is being forced to take these steps to get information and shows how secrecy is a way of life at Hartlepool Council! If an elected councillor can’t get information then what chance does a member of the public have?

The Council meeting in December did acknowledge that Pink Papers needed to be more widely available and so approved copies of the papers to the Chair of Scrutiny Co-ordination Committee and the Chairs of the four Scrutiny Forums. A move by myself, and supported by some other independent thinking Councillors, to have papers also sent to the leaders of the Groups on the Council (Labour, Conservative, Lib-Dem and Admin) was blocked. The pink papers are now available to the five Chairs, who all happen to be Labour Councillors, but not to anyone else. Pink papers are therefore fully available to the Cabinet and just under half the other Councillors, the Labour half, the rest of us are still cut out of the loop.

Democracy in action? Not in Hartlepool ? Not under this Mayor and the Labour Group.

Vote Labour?

16th December 1914

The Heugh Costal Defence Battery stood ready for almost 100 years, but went into action against an enemy for less than an hour. However, in 2000, almost fifty years after it had been closed, a small group of amateur enthusiasts decided that the Heugh Battery and the 42 minute Bombardment of Hartlepool were too significant historically to be allowed to be forgotten. Working without funding, electricity or even permission to be on the site they formed the Heugh Battery Trust, had the site scheduled as an Ancient Monument and began to restore the site as a museum and tourist attraction.

Six years latter, Griff Rhys Jones, presenter of the BBC Restoration Programme, described the battery during filming of the TV show, as “A truly wonderful site worth preservation.” Mr. Rhys Jones also declared that it was his intention to visit the site again in the future.

It was on the morning of 16th December 1914 that three German battleships, carrying twenty 11” guns and dozens of smaller calibre armaments, emerged from a light fog off the north east coastal town of Hartlepool. Opposing them, the Heugh Coastal Defence Battery had two 6 inch guns, supported by the single 6 inch gun Lighthouse Battery.

When the German ships steamed out of range 118 civilians were dead, over 200 wounded, the town’s gas manometers were in flames and hundreds of houses were destroyed. Mark Marsay, in his definitive account of the Bombardment of Hartlepool, “The Day the East Coast Bled” estimated that property damage was £200,000 in 1916 values. Military losses were 15 killed and 37 wounded. Private Theophilis Jones of the Durham Light Infantry, who was on sentry duty when the attack commenced, was the first British soldier to be killed by enemy action on British soil during the Great War. A plaque now marks the spot where he died.

Originally built in 1859 the Heugh Battery was designed to guard against possible French invasion; the first armaments were nine 68 pounder breech loading cannon. These were progressively upgraded until 1907 when the guns that engaged the German battleships were emplaced. The Heugh Battery continued to receive new and updated guns after the Great War and ultimately contained Mk 24 radar aimed guns with a range of around 14 miles.

By the 1950’s the technology to launch a nuclear attack by long range missile had made coastal defence obsolete. So, after almost 100 years, the Heugh Battery was closed, the magazines and emplacements were backfilled and most of the buildings demolished. The site became a playground for generations of Headland children and the Battery Command post, with its commanding view of Hartlepool Bay, became home to a bird watching group.

However, the concrete revetments were too massive to be removed. It was their continued existence, nearly fifty years later, that fired the enthusiasm of the volunteers who became the Heugh Battery Trust.

Having the site scheduled as an Ancient Monument opened many doors for funding but ironically placed huge restrictions on the Trust as regards what it can do during its operations. Today there is still water ingress into the refurbished underground magazines and efforts to stem the leaks are hindered by the inability of the Battery Trust to do any digging on the site without the approval of English Heritage.

“Battle damage” Trust Chairman, John Southcott, explained as he pointed out the main features of the brick built, barrel roof of the magazine, “If the water is coming in because of deterioration of the site then we can repair it. However, if it’s due to battle damage then its part of the history of the site and so has to be left alone”.

The site was only accessible to visitors by appointment or on special open days until 2008 when it had the honour of being officially opened, on 18th November, by HRH the Duke of Gloucester. Visitors today can see not only the excavated magazines and restored revetments, with replica guns emplaced, but also the best collection of artillery pieces and associated artefacts anywhere in the north of England. The collection of large calibre guns exceeds that of the Leeds Armouries. The Heugh Battery also recently acquired a Challenger II Tank to go with their Ferret and Warrior armoured cars.

Steve Waites, Projects Director at the Battery, is happy to accompany visitors around the main workshop. Standing beside a grey painted 25 pound light artillery piece, he used the gun to illustrate how activities on the site are now entering a new phase “Until now most of the work has been preservation” he explained, “but now we are going beyond that with this Second World War 25 pounder which we are going to restore to working order.” The provenance of the gun is not totally clear but does have one verifiable claim to fame. The gun was definitely fired at Arnhem! Unfortunately not during the 1944 battle but at the 1977 filming of ‘A Bridge too Far’.

The Heugh Battery is located on Moor Terrace, The Headland, Hartlepool. The site is open 10:00 until 16:00 throughout the year Thursday to Sunday. Special events are advertised on the Trust Website (www.heughbattery.com). Admission is £4.00 for Adults. Children (under 16's)/NUS/OAP £2.50, Family Ticket (2 Adults and 2 Children) £11.00. Veterans, current service personnel and under 5's Free.

How to spot a socio path

While such personality disorders as psychopathy, paranoia and obsession/compulsion all have strictly defined criteria, psychiatrists are still struggling to decide precisely what constitutes a socialised psychopath.

One of the more obvious characteristics of socialised psychopaths is that they give the impression of talking "at" you. Prof Jeremy Coid describes it as like being regarded as a cardboard cut-out. "Even in a sexual relationship with them, you are still just an object for their personal gratification," he says.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following questionnaire is based on research and experiences of socialised psychopaths.

For each trait, decide if it applies to the person you suspect may be a socialised psychopath, fully (2 points), partially (1 point) or not at all (0 points).


Do they have problems sustaining stable relationships, personally and in business?

Do they frequently manipulate others to achieve selfish goals, with no consideration of the effects on those manipulated?

Are they cavalier about the truth, and capable of telling lies to your face?

Do they have an air of self-importance, regardless of their true standing in society?

Have they no apparent sense of remorse, shame or guilt?

Is their charm superficial, and capable of being switched on to suit immediate ends?

Are they easily bored and demand constant stimulation?

Are their displays of human emotion unconvincing?

Do they enjoy taking risks, and acting on reckless impulse?

Are they quick to blame others for their mistakes?

As teenagers, did they resent authority, play truant and/or steal?

Do they have no qualms about sponging off others?

Are they quick to lose their temper?

Are they sexually promiscuous?

Do they have a belligerent, bullying manner?

Are they unrealistic about their long-term aims?

Do they lack any ability to empathise with others?

Would you regard them as essentially irresponsible?

A score of 25 or above suggests strong psychopathic tendencies. This does not mean the person is a potential mass-murderer: socialised psychopaths are not mad, nor do they have to resort to violence. Even so, a close professional or emotional relationship with a socialised psychopath is likely to prove a damaging experience.

(With acknowledgement to an article by Robert Matthews in the Sunday Telegraph Review, May 4th 1997)

Corus Announce New Plant to be Built

Did anyone notice the announcement last month by Corus that it plans to build a 20 million euro steel plant in the Netherlands, with the help of 15 million euros from the EU and 5 million euros from the Dutch government.

Of course this has nothing to do with the long term plans drawn up in the 1950's by the The European Iron and Steel Community to control steel making in Europe.

Our government is unable to help Teesside due to EU Rules! This is the same EU which is paying for new steelworks in Holland! Ironically of course it is the British Taxpayer who will be funding most of the new steelworks through our contributions to the EU Budget. Maybe this is one of the “silver linings” the Mayor was talking about at the Council Meeting on Thursday!

What links the Copenhagen conference with the steelworks closing in Redcar

www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker

What is the connection between Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer who has been much in evidence at the Copenhagen climate conference, as chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an Indian-owned steel company's decision to mothball its giant Teesside steel works next month, ripping the heart out of the town of Redcar by putting 1,700 people out of work?

Nothing of this complex story is likely to be heard in the dreary concrete shed outside Copenhagen where, as temperatures drop towards freezing, 17,000 prime ministers, officials and climate activists are earnestly discussing how the planet is warming up towards extinction. But it certainly sheds a little light on a colossal worldwide racket these delegates are helping to promote, because the end of the story is that we shall all be paying to export thousands of British jobs to new steel plants in India, for no gain in the reduction of worldwide CO2 emissions.

Thirty years ago Britain's state-owned steel industry, over-manned and highly subsidised, was the most inefficient in Europe. By 1988, after Mrs Thatcher's privatisation and having lost two thirds of its workforce, it was as efficient as any in the world. In 1999, for reasons never fully explained, much of it was sold off to the Dutch firm Corus, which in 2007 was bought by the Indian giant, Tata Steel.

One of Corus's prizes was the Redcar steel works, once Europe's largest blast furnace. It is this which is now to be mothballed, according to Corus because of worldwide "over-production". But this is transparently not the case, since its new owner, Tata, is planning to more than double its steel production in India over the next three years. Furthermore, only last month Corus announced plans to build a 20 million euro plant in the Netherlands, with the help of 15 million euros from the EU and 5 million euros from the Dutch government. Our Government says it is unable to help over the closure of Redcar because this would not be allowed under EU state-aid rules, although Gordon Brown says he may be able to offer a little "re-training".

The real gain to Corus from stopping production at Redcar, however, is the saving it will make on its carbon allowances, allocated by the EU under its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). By ceasing to emit a potential six million tonnes of CO2 a year, Corus will benefit from carbon allowances which could soon, according to European Commission projections, be worth up to £600 million over the three years before current allocations expire.

But this is only half the story. In India, Corus's owner, Tata, plans to increase steel production from 53 million tonnes to 124 million over the same period. By replacing inefficient old plants with new ones which emit only "European levels" of CO2, Tata could claim a further £600 million under the UN's Clean Development Mechanism, which is operated by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – the organisers of the Copenhagen conference. Under this scheme, organisations in developed countries such as Britain – ranging from electricity supply companies to the NHS – can buy the right to exceed their CO2 allocations from those in developing countries, such as India. The huge but hidden cost of these "carbon permits" will be passed on to all of us, notably through our electricity bills.

Thus, at the end of the day, Redcar will lose its biggest employer and one of the largest manufacturing plants left in Britain. Tata, having gained up to £1.2 billion from "carbon credits", will get its new steel plants – while the net amount of CO2 emitted worldwide will not have been reduced a jot.

And the connection with Dr Pachauri? Directly there is no connection at all. But it just happens that Dr Pachauri's other main job, apart from being chairman of the PCC, is as director-general of the Tata Energy Research Institute, funded by Tata, which he has run since 1981.

He may not benefit in any
way personally from Tata's exploitation of the various
carbon trading schemes set up to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, but it is the IPCC which provides the recommendations which drive those schemes, Last year, on official figures, buying and selling the right to emit CO2 was worth $126 billion across the world. This market, now enriching many of our leading financial institutions (not to mention Al Gore), is growing so fast that within a few years it is predicted to be worth trillions, making carbon the most valuable traded commodity in the world.

Forget Big Oil: the new world power is Big Carbon.Truly it has been a miracle of our time that they have managed to transform carbon dioxide, a gas upon which all life on earth depends, into a "pollutant", worth more than diamonds, let alone oil. And many of those now gathered in Copenhagen are making a great deal of money out of it.

Christopher Booker's The Real Global Warming Disaster (Continuum, £16.99) is available from Telegraph Books for £14.99 plus £1.25 p&p.

Steel Making been a dead man walking for over 50 years

Most points I raise during a Hartlepool Council meeting result in a brisk come back from the other political parties. Labour are usually first into the attack but certain Tories, Lib-Dems and Independents can usually be relied upon to follow the Labour lead and attempt to shout me down.

Tonight however was different! After 8 years as a Ward Councillor I made a point in full council that reduced the other councilors to shamefaced silence. Not one councilor contradicted me or attempted to put an alternative viewpoint. The silence was total!

During the debate about the Corus closures several councilors, including the Mayor, made speeches demanding help for the steelworkers and insisting “the government must do something”. The Mayor even said the closure had a “silver lining” as it brought new money and opportunities into the town.

Unfortunately the end of steelmaking on Teesside was inevitable when the European Iron and Steel Community came into being in 1951. This was the first step in the formation of the European Union and when the UK went into the EEC in 1973 accepting the eventual loss of steelmaking in the UK was part of the price for joining, (along with concessions over agriculture, fishing and trade with the Commonwealth).

Steelmaking in the UK has been a dead man walking ever since!

Every government since then has collaborated in the slow death of steelmaking. I said at the Council Meeting tonight, “So long as the UK remains in the EU then steelmaking will continue to die and will eventually disappear totally from the UK” There was not one single Councillor in the Hartlepool Council Chamber who dared to contradict me! No matter how much they may now demand action to save steelmaking the Labour, Liberal-Democrat and Conservative Parties have all actively participated in killing steelmaking in the UK and they know it!

Dust everywhere!

For generations Hartlepool people have made their living from the sea as fishermen, deepwater sailors or working at the port. In recent years, however, residents living on the historic town wall, who are closest to the water front, have become concerned about possible health implications of the port’s operations.

A member of the Town Wall Action Group, spoke out at a recent public meeting attended by the local authority, port operators and ship owners. “Dust from the port covers our homes and cars every time a ship is being loaded,” he explained. “It discolours window frames and eats holes in the paintwork of our cars. God knows what it’s doing to people who breathe it in?”

Irvines Quay is the area of the port being blamed for the problems. The quay is used for loading bulk carrier ships that take crushed scrap for recycling. Some of the scrap is stored under cover but large piles are left exposed to the weather on the quayside. When lifted by grab crane these piles produce clouds of dust, which is spread by prevailing winds over homes on the Hartlepool Headland. It is this dust that is causing health fears amongst residents.

The local authority, under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, regulates any nuisance from a port, including the loading and unloading of cargos. The Port Operator stresses it complies with all appropriate health and safety regulations and has been licensed by the local council.

The company loading the ships has funded an independent laboratory to carry out monitoring of the operation. This monitoring identified that the dust contains mainly iron oxide (rust) but also with traces of titanium, nickel and heavy metals. The analysis showed the levels detected are within the permissible health and safety limits for these substances set by the UK Environment Agency.

The Tees Valley Public Health Authority were asked to reassure the Headland residents that there was no evidence of unusual health problems in patients registered with the GP’s Practice in the in the area. An analysis, by the Chief Public Health Consultant, Professor Peter Kelly, of 4,000 medical records showed no significant statistical increase in liver problems or skin complaints, these being the two conditions most commonly associated with metals contamination. “I found that in terms of heath deprivation the Headland is not significantly different from the overall Hartlepool average.” said Professor Kelly at the public meeting. Professor Kelly did then agree that a further study should be undertaken, to look at levels of cancers in the area affected by the dust.

During the heated public meeting correspondence about the issue was produced that went back over 20 years. Local Councillors demanded that the Borough Council needed to do something about these problems. “It is well past time that these operations were shut down once and for all! “said one Councillor.

Residents were not reassured by the results of the meeting. There are still very real and unaddressed fears that a long term health problem is building up.

While waiting for the results on the cancers study the campaigners are compiling a dossier of evidence from people in the Headland area who think they have been affected by this dust problem. “Everyone should ensure their problems are included in the dossier” said a local campaigner “We are taking this right to the top, all the way to Downing Street if necessary. We are not going to just let it drop for another 20 years!”

why did Robin Hood steal from the rich?

Why did Robin Hood steal from the rich? Simple: the poor haven’t got anything worth nicking. I tried that joke in the Nottingham Archers’ shop and it didn’t even get a groan. They’ve heard every Robin Hood joke ever told. Modern bows, using space age materials, mean that today anyone can participate in Archery. You no longer need a huge chest and an arm of iron. Being able to punch your arrow through the armour of a charging knight is not a requirement. Contests are now decided on accuracy, not who can shoot the furthest or fastest. A competition standard bow and quiver full of personalised arrows will cost less than £400. Compare this to a set of golf clubs or tickets to Leeds Festival and it’s not a huge entry price to pay to enjoy a sport that is a bit different from the usual student activities.

Just don’t mess with me!

It’s been three hours since I shook down my illegal gambling den. The ‘take’ will be building up nicely. It should give me enough money to fly to Cuba and make a few investments. No, I’m not a big time international criminal; I’m addicted to ‘Mafia Wars’ on Facebook. One of over 6 million people now playing on line, every day. I started as a humble ‘Street Thug’ doing muggings for a few dollars to increase the size of my ‘family’. Progress can make you a ‘Big Boss’ raking in millions from deals around the world. I now own casinos in the USA and cigar factories in Cuba and have reached sufficient status to allow me to ‘wet my beak’ (as we Mafia say) in the Russian organized crime scene. So far I’m only running an unlicensed Moscow taxi rank, but I’m not stopping there! Just don’t mess with me!

Lest we forget

Freemen and Aldermen

In a heated meeting last night Hartlepool Borough Council approved seven names to go forward for consideration as Freemen and Honorary Aldermen of the town. Speculation that Peter Mandelson was one of the potential new Freemen has already been reported in the local newspaper and been the subject of some correspondence in the Hartlepool Mail Reader's Letters Page.

The names being recommended had been selected by the Council’s Civic Honors Committee from nineteen original nominations. The Full Council met tonight in closed session to debate the selection and to confirm, or reject, the recommendations.

According to the Agenda each of the seven names would be debated individually and voted on individually. This gave the Council the opportunity to accept or reject each nomination on their own individual merit. The Labour Group, detecting that possibly not all seven of the names had an equal level of support, proposed that the list should be accepted as a single package, thereby removing the requirement for discussion of individual nominations.

This "all or nothing" proposal was opposed by several Councillors who felt each name should be debated on its own merits. The choice of individual debate or a single "all or nothing" decision was put to the vote and the Council tied 19 votes to 19 votes. The Council Chairman, Councillor Carl Richardson (Labour) used his casting vote to force through the all or nothing option. One Councillor at the meeting described the decision as "Democracy as they know it in North Korea".

At times after this the meeting descended into chaos with the Chairman rejecting potential points of order and failing to recognise Councillors indicating they wished to speak. When the vote was called for confusion reigned over what exactly the Council was being asked to vote on.

The vote on the Freemen and Aldermen nomination was finally taken on a roll call basis, with individual members being asked to register their vote so that it could be recorded in the minutes.

To approve a Civic Honour requires a more than two thirds majority of the votes cast to be in favour. When the Roll Call was completed 22 Votes were recorded in favour of the seven names and 10 were recorded against. The majority of the Liberal Democrat group showed the courage of their convictions and abstained from the vote. Of course "Courage" and "Convictions" are not two words normally associated with Liberal-Democrats. All the Conservative Councillors present voted against the motion with the exception of Conservative Councillor Pauline Laffey of Park Ward, who voted for the motion. Councillor Laffey’s support was enough for the motion to approve the seven names by a single vote! The look the Conservative Leader's face when he realised it was one of his members who saved Labour's blushes was a picture! Once again Laffey shows her "Blue Labour" rosette. I am sure she will get her reward from her Labour Comrades in the future. After all it was John Bercow's tactics of sucking up to Labour that got him the Speaker's Chair in the House Of Commons. I wonder which chair Pauline Laffey is expecting in return for her loyalty to the Labour Cause?

Although reports in the local press have identified Peter Mandelson as one of the new potential Freemen of the town this cannot be officially confirmed. The names of the individuals to be honoured will not be officially released until they have been approached to confirm they will accept the honour should it be formally offered to them. Until this time Hartlepool Council are applying the Local Government Act 2000 to officially keep the names confidential.

Shorthand and Blog Review

I've been a bit busy the past few weeks. Too busy to blog to be honest! I am trying to learn T Line Shorthand in order to pass the NCTJ Exams and qualify as a 'Junior Reporter' and this has been takingup almost my every waking moment. The shear frustration of learning one way of doing it, trying to apply the rules and then being told about all the exceptions! Drives me mad! And in fact I've just seen its 8.59am so I've got to go to Sharthand NOW!

Before I go I must share one website I found recently, http://www.politics.co.uk and in particular http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/stephen-allison-$1325866.htm which is about ME, yes someone has actually gone to the trouble of reviewing my blog! and here was me thinking no-one actually read it apart from me amd my mother!

Anyway they say:

"A strange personal-diary-cum-political commentary that is occasionally unintentionally funny.

Mr Allison must be a refreshingly unaware sort of chap for someone involved in politics, and that makes this blog both rather endearing and occasionally, we have to say, hilariously pompous at times.

Overall it's rather sweet and enjoyable, although as hardened hacks we admit to finding the publication of his daughter's A level results a little much to stomach."

They rate me at 5.5/10. Not sure if that's good, bad or just an average score given to most people. When I have time I'll investigate more. NOW I'M OFF TO SHORTHAND!