09 October 2008
WLGA Annual Conference 2008
WLGA Leader, Cllr John Davies – Conference Speech
Thank you Minister for your kind words and comments. It is a pleasure for me to respond to your speech
I want to start today’s conference by extending a warm greeting to all delegates. I am not going to dive straight into the politics. I want to start by making a number of points which are about the people in this room and the support they have given the WLGA and me as Leader.
I am both honoured and a little bit surprised to be in this position There was a story about a French Parliamentarian who went to sleep for half hour during a debate and when he awoke he found he had been made Prime Minister twice! As the leader of the largest group in the Association which leads to the leadership of the WLGA I know how he feels. That said the leadership of the WLGA is a task which has huge advantages and it comes in the support I receive from my colleagues. I am not going to make a tired speech about how all groups in the WLGA work in consensus and put the interests of local government first. That has been a fact since 2004 when first Alex Aldridge and then Derek Vaughan put in place a system aimed at ensuring that every voice was heard and listened to. Meryl Gravell has also been crucial to this and I am proud to serve with both Derek and Meryl in what is a leadership team of equals.
More than that working as an independent I understand that there are these strange things in place known as “political parties” but we appear blessed with political group leaders such as Dyfed Edwards, Gordon Kemp, Rodney Berman and Derek again who are fully alive to their responsibilities and provide the essential backdrop to our work as the one of the most mature and effective political organizations in Wales.
What evidence do I have to support his contention? My answer is that it can be seen in the way that our association works with our authorities and the wider family of local government as a partnership which leads to significant improvement for our communities. The examples are many:
• We were the architects of the Beecham review which we will discuss in depth tomorrow.
• We have placed new onus on supporting Social Services as one of our larger services, setting up the improvement agency and seeing excellent joint reviews from Neath Port Talbot to Anglesey and the remarkable turn around in Blaenau Gwent
• We have once again seen our Performance Indicators for 2007-08 show overall continued improvement, with 71.6% of comparable indicators showing improvement on the previous year. This builds on the progress last year, where 72% indicators improved
• We have seen Estyn inspections recognises new standards in educational quality. This year excellent outcomes have been achieved in Newport and despite the difficulties that the inspectors had travelling down that glorified dirt track that is the A40 my own authority did rather well! We are also delighted that under the determined leadership of Huw Evans Denbighshire Education authority is showing significant and rapid progress on its improvement journey.
• We have filled the void left by the abolition of quangos and put in place a framework to support the key cultural events in Wales ranging from the Urdd, the Royal Welsh show and National Eisteddfod leading to some of the most successful events in recent years in Swansea, Flintshire and Cardiff.
• We tightly manage our finances without recourse to deficit or bail out, and have in the past 3 years set the lowest council tax rises since the onset of devolution.
• We have surpassed the efficiencies required by the Making the Connections agenda
All this and more is detailed in the excellent WLGA publication “Rhetoric vs. Reality”.
Why then do I major on this points? Is it in a boastful sense or is it because this progress lacks due recognition? I was delighted last weeks at Brian’s comments in the Western Mail on local authority performance and I thank him for that. Sadly however there does seem in some parts of the Assembly government to the emergence of what I would describe as the Stepford Wives view of local government. You have heard the argument many times and know it well. Thus in 22 of the most complex, intricate and difficult to manage organizations in Wales we are told that everything must be perfect, docile and calm. But if anything goes wrong the we are all dammed and collectively told that what we do is not good enough or even more remarkably that the Assembly needs to take it over!
An example - A difficult but honest report produced internally for detailed scrutiny at the relevant committee in Cardiff Council led to a call for social services to face Assembly intervention and even be run by them. At this point let me ask the pertinent question who in the Assembly would do this and if the expertise is indeed encompassed in Cathay's Park perhaps it could be shared before things go wrong? As it stands we are being criticized when we know that social care barely figured at all in the “One Wales” document, has suffered Cinderella status in the civil service and plays a bit part in the drama of Welsh politics to something much larger called health. The Assembly draft budget this week unfortunately reinforces this trend.
I overplay my point but surely the sign of a mature partnership is accepting that that in 22 sets of complex front line services such as education, social care and housing things will go wrong and when they do work together to sort them. The average council in Wales runs over 600 discreet functions and unlike the Assembly Government we make the odd mistake. The mantra of continuous improvement is all well and good but ours is the language of difficult choices and perhaps seeing some services fall back slightly as we seek to protect the front line services. Again I am grateful for Brian’s full recognition of this today and in the Western Mail
Another point in terms of mature partnership must be collective responsibility for key decisions. I pay tribute to all those authorities grappling with the vexed question of surplus schools places. I know that an excellent debate on this took place last week in the North Wales Regional Board where the six councils are seeking to work together on this vexed issue. But again the debate suffers from double standards. On the one side we have the constant call for more resources to go into education from local AMs yet when we try to achieve this by dealing with the issue of surplus places the same AMs stand on picket lines trying to keep open what are in many cases unsuccessful and uneconomical schools.
WLGA was proud to support Councillor Dyfed Edwards in recent the ferocious debate in Gwynedd because he was right. We were also delighted to see that our great friend Dafydd Ellis Thomas who properly understands the value of good central local relations has lent his full support to this issue. The WLGA again today calls for a national debate over the future of schools in Wales, free of party political considerations to highlight why such decisions around school rationalization have to be taken and to reinforce the message that the sustainability of children’s education is at the heart of this debate and not short term political popularity.
It is inevitable at this point that I also address the issue of finance and budgets in light of this weeks announcement. Over the past month we have seen meltdown on the financial markets. Warren Buffet has talked of an “economic pearl harbour”. The Sunday papers this week were full of discussion talk of rising unemployment and recession. And in such a climate we are reminded of the words of the great Franklin D Roosevelt that “only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment”.
What this means for the public finances in the UK and more directly in Wales will be difficult times. WLGA accepts the shrinkage of the Assembly block grant and recognizes that the good years have ended. What we want in this environment is fairness and equity, a proper understanding of our pressures and recognition that if the money is not forthcoming that we “get real” and concentrate on the things that are important. Following the problem’s of last year the very productive recent discussions we have had with Jane Hutt on the foundation phase show us at our best when the Assembly and local government construct a common understanding and joint case.
John Maynard Keynes once said “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone”. The theory has of course hit the buffers.
In this climate, particularly in the context of Welsh economy with its huge public sector presence we should seek to cushion the harsh impacts of the economic ill winds. That means governments have to run deficits when the economy is slowing down. Gordon Brown has accepted this, and so has Alistair Darling. But what about the Assembly Government which could play a pivotal role?
I have some suggestions and questions -
SUGGESTIONS
• I have recently written to the First Minister asking for a reconsideration of the £38m efficiency top slice of the settlement and for local government to keep this in the same way that our Scottish colleagues have negotiated through their concordat with their executive. In the words of Gordon Brown “in these unique circumstances it is right to borrow and raise public expenditure”
• In the same way we have a deprivation grant we need a sparsity grant that applies to all authorities but impacts particularly in rural areas. There is no sparsity element in the social services formula and the Assembly’s rural committee has fully recognized the extra cost of the service access in large rural areas.
• Applying a 1.5% floor to only 3 authorities is a sticking plaster on a huge wound. At minimum it should have been at last year’s level of 2% but WLGA will again present an alternative budget to argue for more resources across all councils.
• We have agreed with the Society of Welsh Treasurers and SOLACE to map the consequences on local government services of continually reducing budgets and undertake a study in the longer term of the impact of reducing CSRs on council services. We invite the Assembly government to jointly undertake this work with us.
• Inflation may fall next year but for now rising costs such as energy and fuel threaten service delivery. Contract costs on gas and electricity are rising up to 100%. Can we have a proper discussion on how to get through all this without recourse to the standard call for more collaboration as the “magic bullet”. The latter will not deliver the necessary level resources in scale or time that will solve this immediate problem.
QUESTIONS
• Can we put in place a concordat that codifies our partnership with the Assembly and that takes on board the key Beecham recommendation to unhypothecate some of the £642m of grants outside of the settlement.
• Can we see more transparency in capital funding which is heading towards crisis in our schools and other assets. The process behind the Strategic Capital Investment Board might be understood in the Assembly but has not been properly communicated outside of Cardiff bay.
• Can there be there be restated agreement on funding new responsibilities set in a fully worked concordat. As it stands I serve notice today that if the Measures on playing fields and healthy eating are passed these will require significant new levels of resources.
In conclusion local government detects in some quarters the dangers of a real caricature emerging in the devolution debate in Wales. The supposition behind it seems to be that there is an unblemished and overwhelming constitutional political project that has become a national obsession for the political elite in CF 99. On the other there is a range of rather dull and boring services such as environmental health, street lighting, community safety and home care which are falling off the radar. But you ignore these services at your peril. My key message today is that the success of devolution rests on good public services. Value local government and trust it and it will deliver.
For more information contact: Natasha Weeks