Devolution for Cornwall a nod in the right direction

Today David Cameron will come to Cornwall and outline a devolution deal for Cornwall (Council). As always the devil will be in the detail and we have to be cautious of what is said and what actually comes to pass.

However it would be churlish of me to dismiss the deal out of hand. I've written before and spoke at hustings earlier this year, about freeing Cornwall from the dead hand of Westminster. Allowing us to be free from policies that don't suit Cornwall. Although there is much progress talked about in the media, there is still work to do. As much as it gladdens me that Cornwall will gain back control of European funding, be free to develop renewable energy, integrate and join up hospitals and health care, to make public transport make more sense by aligning bus and train times. 

My criticisms are about what it does not include. Planning and housing are not included, the promise of being able to develop a Cornish planning policy framework and redefining affordable housing to mean something to people on local wages are sorely lacking. As is powers to define here what housing numbers are needed and of course the option to limit second homes. In all these areas one size fits all policies from Westminster will continue to reign. Housing and planning is just one area and there are similar comments to be made about others.

I do think it was a grave mistake for the government's deal to not be debated in the public realm. It falls well short of Cornwall Council's Case for Cornwall, although many such as Bernard Deacon have criticised it's lack of public engagement. It is at least a great deal more than the government's deal which hasn't even had the pretence of public consultation and wasn't even discussed by Cornwall Councillors in public session. 

Fundamentally it must be said it means giving Cornwall Council more powers. It is already the largest unitary authority in the 'country'. I still do not feel that the centralisation of local government to Truro was a process that was completed satisfactorily and that the unitary authority ever really found it's feet. What makes the Cornish devolution deal a landmark case is not the fact that it is the first "rural area" i.e. non city, it is the fact that it is devolution without any new structures or institutions. Wales got an assembly as did London, Scotland got a parliament, various cities got new mayors. It looks as though Cornwall Council will be given a whole raft of powers without anything new, no new politicians and no elections. 

As anyone that's ever read my blog before will know I am wholly in favour of a Cornish assembly. Devolving power to a new body with a strategic focus and the ability to set funding priorities and make new laws. Underneath that having local government to do what local government does. My fundamental criticism is that the Cornwall Council deal will be a fudge of both being neither a national strategic government nor a local administrative one. Perhaps I will be proved wrong, I wait with baited breath... 

Over all though this must be welcomed as a step in the right direction, even for it's flaws. A brief chink in the armour of the overly centralised state in which we live. I sincerely hope the freedoms that are given to Cornwall Councillors are utilised to the best possible advantage. The Welsh politician Ron Davies said that "devolution was a process not an event" I think we have to see this in that context and hope it is true in our case...

See also the Mebyon Kernow press release on the devolution deal here. 

Great news for Jubilee Pool

Tonight Penzance Town Council voted unanimously to put money into the grant bid to central government for our lido. As a part we undertake to enter negotiations with Cornwall Council and in partnership with the Friends of Jubilee Pool to have it devolved to the town. 

Those of you that read my earlier blog will know I had serious problems with the way this was went about by Cornwall Council. In summary we were informed last thursday there would be a meeting tonight and it was make or break for the grant application due in this friday the 9th of May (then in hands of govt to decide). Not enough time to fully consider the merits of the proposal.

Nevertheless I spoke and my main thrust was that yes was the only answer. The thought of losing this as an asset was unbearable.  Further the idea of having a derelict pool in such a prominent position was an unbearable one.

I did however criticise Cornwall Council for not coming to Penzance Town Council (and indeed the Friends of Jubilee Pool) sooner. This is after all the third application and we played no part in the first two bids. We should have been given ample time but weren't. I also criticised the fact that this could easily have been funded from Cornwall Council's capital budget rather than the devolution pot. I explained that this budget was £675 million for the years 2013 to 2017.

Both Cornwall Councillors present (Cornelius Olivier and Jim McKenna) criticised me for this, defended Cornwall Council spending and explained I was categorically wrong. I explained to both that I would show them the link and I have emailed them both. 

I take it from this that our Cornwall Councillors haven't lobbied for capital funding to be used for the pool and have little knowledge of the budget itself. Which is a real shame. My pride aside and disappointment that I have a better grasp of funding available to capital projects than our Cornwall Councillors. It was a very good meeting.

Now indeed the future of the Jubilee Pool is finally looking up, notwithstanding the whims of Whitehall and Eric Pickles who will decide the grants fate. We could be looking at an investment of nearly £3 million in the pool. Which will not only repair the storm damage but repair and refurbish those parts that haven't been good for a while. Hopefully we can go from a tired and dated structure in a prominent position to one we can all be proud of. This is not only thanks to Cornwall Councillors, town councillors but also to the indefatigable Friends of Jubilee Pool and the 4000 who signed the petition calling on Cornwall Council to match fund the bid.

*****UPDATE*****

Jim McKenna replied this morning and explained he thought I was talking about this years revenue budget not the four yearly capital budget. I can only think that as he was sitting behind me he didn't hear me clearly and perhaps I was not speaking loudly enough....

******************
Further update

Councillor Olivier (also Labour's general candidate for the St Ives constituency) emailed he disagreed with my points in a rather rude fashion accusing me of being parochial and ill informed. Cornelius ignored the fact I was right about the capital budget and what he said in the meeting was wrong. Amazing how a year changes things last year he along with Tim Dwelly wrote to the Cornishman including the sentence: "Our aim is to get a fair share of Cornwall Council investment ." But now the story is there's no money and we should bow and grovel for a few crumbs from the table...

A vision for Cornwall Council on St Piran's day

Dydh da, Gool Sen Pyran Lowen, Happy St Piran's day. Hope you're all having a good one and celebrating Cornwall in some way on this special day.

Pinched from facebook.com/MebyonKernow

Today is a day to think back to the Cornwall of the past, to celebrate what our rich heritage and history is given us, whether it be the black and white flag of St Piran, the pasty or our language, or any of the many things that typifies Kernow. It's also a time to look forward to reflect on the future as well as the past. I thought now would be a good time to blog on Cornish politics and specifically local government. I wish here to outline what I see as some of the shortcomings of this the first Cornwall Council and what I think can be done to rectify some of these shortcomings and make Cornwall a better governed place.

There were always going to be great challenges for the first Cornwall Council, it was a massive experiment to take 6 district councils and 1 county council and transform that into one mega authority. As Mebyon Kernow among others warned at the time, the savings the Liberal Democrats and Labour claimed were overly optimistic and the benefits dubious. (It cost an estimated £20 million to create unitary and abolish the districts). We have ended up with a centralised local government and here in Penzance -as elsewhere on the periphery- it very much feels like our voice isn't heard and that we have lost the power and influence (not to mention jobs) we used to enjoy under the districts. That said it could have been worse, thankfully the new symbol proposed by the Lib Dems was thrown back into the garbage were it belonged. Unfortunately the £500,000 it cost to design couldn't be discarded.

The great challenge for the next council is how to rectify this immense problem. How to get, what should be and in some senses is, a large and influential body to represent Cornwall better and not just the middle bit. I've said for a long time that one simple and easy way to do this would be to ensure a better geographical spread in the cabinet. Despite the constant chopping and changing Penzance like many Cornish towns has never had a cabinet member, to be fair I don't think any of our present Councillors have had the attendance record and commitment for various reasons to accept such a big responsibility. However the point remains, the cabinet is a simple way to ensure that all parts of Cornwall have fair or at least fairer representation by having cabinet members from all over our land.

But the problem is not just of representation. For whatever reason the last Council leader (Alec Robertson) choose to do away with regular 'State of Cornwall' debates by full council, that were planned. This would have provided a great opportunity for Councillors of all parties and from all corners of Cornwall to have their say and speak up for concerns in their areas.I think this demonstrates one of the ways in which the council is inward looking rather than outward looking. Part of the reason for this is that Cornwall Council has a lot of work to do, if we remember before unitary 7 authorities did what Lys Kernow does now, 123 councilors now do what 331 councilors did before 2009. Add on to this the almighty challenge of brutal cuts coming from central government and the challenges this poses. I don't think for a moment that Cornwall Council looking past its own grounds and considering the whole of Cornwall is an easy task but it is a duty it must embrace.

People look to Cornwall Council for leadership, businesses and industry look to it for support. I have long held the view that the council needs to do more to support industry here, I find it disappointing that tourism gets support, an important part of our economy but it's only a part. All of our other industries don't get barely any support. We've seen great economic hardship since the last election, we've seen shops close, businesses fold and unemployment become more and more common. It ought to be the job of Cornwall Council to help, lets be clear there is only so much it can do, but this is no reason for it to do nothing. Whenever anything closes and people are laid off we must always consider that helping, intervening to stop this has a great cost but there is a much greater cost when people lose their jobs, their wages, their spending power and ultimately their ability to pay tax. Many in Penzance have great fears of the loss of the heliport for example, time will tell but the loss in tourism for the town and Scillonians perhaps no longer visiting will have an economic effect. This is but one example there are countless others across the Duchy. Cornwall Council needs to take a bigger economic role and do more to care for the business and industry that keeps Cornish people in work. Use it's connections, lobbying power and expertise to try to find solutions to some of the problems we face.

The council also needs to do more to lobby for Cornwall to central government. I always had great admiration for the council's attempts to get our trunk roads devolved (assuming our road tax had been diverted as well). Instead the government may or indeed may not upgrade the A30 at Temple. I think it's a shame our roads won't be devolved . Although I admire the council for trying, although I wish that they had been more ambitious. Getting more control and funding for roads is one thing, but its one part of a big picture. Cornwall Council should be lobbying for Cornwall's railways to be upgraded at long last. Look to not only improve our links with England but also our transport links within Cornwall. The council has the power and influence to get our farmers and fisherman's voices heard at central government and in the European Union.

I know many of the things I have written that I want the council to do, are what a Cornish Assembly could do much better. But it is well within the power of Cornwall Council to have more vision and to be more ambitious, to mature as an authority and to speak for Cornwall. To hold our economy as a duty. We face uncertain economic times, the future looks like a nightmare cocktail of austerity and heaven forbid a triple dip recession. The people of Cornwall face huge challenges in the coming years, the price of everything is rising yet wages are stagnating. If I have one vision of where Cornwall Council can go in the next term it is one that spearheads the fight for the Cornish economy. That rises to the challenges before it and tries its best to secure Cornish jobs not simply focusing on how to lay people off.

Cornwall Council privatisation plan just won't die

The widely discredited unpopular Joint Venture for Shared Services between British Telecom and Cornwall Council refuses to go away. Despite the wishes of Councillors, the thousands who signed the petition  and the fact the old council leader losing his job over supporting the scheme it is still being promoted by the authority.

Today the Cornwall Business Partnership wrote to the council publicly backing the BT scheme on This is Cornwall. This should of course come of no great surprise BT is one of the partners of the Cornwall Business Partnership and surprise surprise so is Serco in the guise of Peninsula Enterprise.

The question is yet again asked, will the views of the public and elected Councillors come first or will big business and those seeking lucrative outsourcing contracts and public money have the final say? If the Conservatives really want this scheme, they should stand on that platform next May in the election, thus canvassing the support of the Cornish taxpayer rather than relying on the counsel of Kevin Lavery and his former employers BT and Serco.

Cornwall Council: The old privatisation King is Dead Long Live the new privatisation King

Yesterday saw a turbulent meeting at Cornwall Council, which saw an increasingly hot tempered debate and ultimately the sacking of Alec Robertson as Council leader (63 votes to 49) and the widespread proclamation that the Joint Venture for Shared Services was dead in the water. And that the election of the Conservative Jim Currie spelt the end for this privatisation scheme. But is it the end of it?

The left was triumphant yesterday after the dethronement of Alec, people including myself hailed the end of this great gamble. Encouraged by Jim Curries words in his bid for the leadership, seeing off the contender Neil Burden with a speech decrying the privatisation scheme, whereas Burden now the deputy leader spoke for a slimmed down version of the scheme. The morning after the night before I have some doubts about the level of victory, no doubt the Guardian article by Patrick Butler had it right (if details a bit sketchy, Cornwall County Council apparently and no mention of the NHS and health partners being part of the scheme) with the title Thatcher's pro-outsourcing fantasy fails in reality. A popular protest evident in the petition, the cross party support for it, the protest outside Lys Kernow yesterday by members of the Unions, Cornwall ant-cuts Alliance, Penwith anti-cuts Alliance and members of Mebyon Kernow and the Labour party. Not to mention of course councillors voting with the public against the interests of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat dogma of neo-liberal privatisation emanating from Westminster. This was a victory both for common sense and the interests of the public in keeping public services run by the democratic and accountable authorities.

However we must be wise to the fact that Jim Currie is still a Conservative and the right leaning Conservative-Independent coalition  is still in power at Cornwall Council (after an alternative coalition involving the Lib Dems was not reached). We must also acknowledge that Jim Currie was until recently deputy member of the Tory group and cabinet member in charge of finances and corporate support. Under his tenure in this office plans were drawn up to turn the council into a commissioning body, precisely the kind of move that led to the Joint Venture/ Shared Services plan. Read more about that here from back in April this year CC press release "Commissioning Council". Add to this the fact that the same councillors that have devised this scheme are still in office and the same officers and particularly Kevin Lavery are in power. As Tony Collins of the Campaign 4 Change warned yesterday:

"The new leader  Jim Currie won the vote in favour of his appointment by a margin of only three.  Though he is against an outsourcing deal, he will find himself up against opposition from some colleagues and particularly some senior officials.

The strength of feeling in some parts of the council for a deal to be signed is remarkable. Could that strength of feeling overcome opposition to the signing of a deal, even with Currie as the new leader"

Cornwall Council votes out its leader- a setback for pro-outsourcers?

A very good point, Tony also discusses to the fact that Jim despite his words yesterday in garnering support from councillors, has not ruled out reviving the scheme. An interview with Jim Currie on This is Cornwall contains the passage:

Mr Currie had been elected to the top job with the implicit backing of non-party members who supported his stance against the council’s joint venture with a private sector firm. However, he said that his concerns were with the massive scale of the venture that had been pursued and that he might have been happy with a substantially smaller deal.

He said the bid – which would have seen Cornwall Council and a private firm form a partnership to run key services – was not dead in the water.

“Never say never,” he said. “It might be an option of last resort.”

But he added: “We are not galloping forward with it at any great haste.”

Jim Currie ready for council business

So not ruling it out entirely?
Have members of the council that supported the claim of being anti-privatisation (including Mebyon Kernow and an assortment of Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Independents) been hoodwinked?
Was the Independent Bob Egerton and the Liberal Democrat Ruth Lewarne right to propose and second Jim Currie's leadership bid?

As ever whilst the Tories (and their Indy chums at CC and Lib Dems up the road) are in power the fight to keep public services public, to put people before profit goes on. The debate next tuesday in response to the public petition calling for the original motion, will be the first test of the leadership of Jim Currie, will he come clean then as an outsourcer? will we face yet another no confidence vote as yet another Tory defies the will of the people and ordinary councillors?

Please join me in doing the following and help to hold these people to account and keep their word.

Sign the petition to shelve Shared Services here.
Contact your Cornwall Councillor here.
Contact the new Cornwall Council leader jcurrie@cornwall.gov.uk

Newquay airport, time we had a good chat about it

A few years ago the last Liberal Democrat administration on Cornwall County Council decided to take over what was RAF St Mawgan as a commercial airport. At the time I had mixed feelings about it, obviously as a nationalist I want Cornwall to have assets like airports (and a stadium and a whole host of other things), but on the other hand I was a little concerned about the council running the venture.

The argument for the airport was that it would be a good thing for the Duchy that people coming to and from Cornwall would no longer have to fly to Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol or Cardiff, Birmingham and London. I understand the logic of this, there is a potential for tourists from the rest of this island and overseas to fly direct to here making Cornwall more accessible. The same works in reverse, if Cornish people want to go somewhere why face driving for hundreds of miles before even going near an airport. I am sure I am not the only one to have flown to Ireland and spent a long car journey wondering why we were travelling hundreds of miles to the north east (to Birmingham) to go north. Of course, tourism is just one of the attractions of having a Cornish airport. It could be argued that businesses rely on the service too. Flying in a few hours to Gatwick, Glasgow, Manchester, East Midlands, Dusseldorf, (and from there to other locations) significantly reduces the travelling time, making long distance meetings and returning home possible in a day.

The possibility of Newquay airport is there above, the dream of Cornwall having it's own airport has not translated well into reality. This is for a number of reasons, firstly taking over the facility happened at exactly the wrong time, 2008 to today has been a time of a long recession, people haven't the money for holidays. Secondly it is hard for a small airport to compete with bigger airports, especially ones that serve more routes. Thirdly passenger numbers indicate that Newquay airport is of less and less use to people, 2008 431,100. 2009 359,578. 2010 285,000. 2011 an estimate of 195,000. This has been reflected with airlines no longer operating from Cornwall (Monarch and Ryanair for example). The business case for Newquay airport is non-existent, no one would buy the airport as it has no history of turning a profit. The real headline of the airport is the cost, the taxpayer has to massively subsidise the airport with Cornwall Council and European money. The latter European money also means that the airport can not be sold due to contractual constraints that state that money would have to be returned to Europe.

Effectively we have been saddled with a very expensive airport used by very few but paid for by many. Now is the time that the people of Cornwall thought long and hard about the airport. Is it worth the cost? Is there a sound case that the airport is worthwhile? Does it add anything to the Cornish economy?

A soon to be Algerian Navy Merlin operating from Newquay

The Conservative led Cornwall Council and British Government is intent on supporting the airport but in a very peculiar way. Utilising the non civilian (ex-USAF/ RAF) aspects of the airport they have attracted Agusta Westland there. London announced that the airport would be a Enterprise Zone, bringing attractive subsidies and tax discounts and hoping to increase the non-flight potential of the site. I understand this and respect it, diversification of business seems essential these days. However I don't understand the strategy, if the airport can not make money as an airport what is the point? Also what happens when the Enterprise zones finish? There is every chance that companies there will leave, that is the key flaw to enterprise zones everywhere.

For Newquay Cornwall airport to survive it needs to at least pay for itself and it needs to do so providing flights. Other ventures there are all well and good but can only supplement the income. It is imperative upon Cornwall Council to sort out this mess. I would love to be wrong -for the good of the taxpayer and of Cornwall- but I fear that an organisation that can't make harbour improvements in Penzance has no chance of this much more complicated task. The airport is not a sustainable venture, it soaks up a huge amount of money. Whether Cornwall needs or wants an airport is actually immaterial whilst the airport relies on huge taxpayer subsidies. We have to face the fact that the government's economic plans are not working the deficit is nowhere near being touched and and the punitive taxes and duties on fuel and vat are harming the fragile economy. Further the Eurozone crisis indicates that things may well get much worse before they get better. We need to be thinking ahead, the amount of money available to spend by authorities is bound to continue to reduce, the amount of money people have to spend is also going to reduce. This will have a great effect on the airport. The time to act is now, if we want an airport here in Cornwall we need to find a way to make it profitable....