Golowan and it's future back before Penzance Town Council

Much has said and been written about Golowan over the last 6 weeks. For it was 6 weeks ago tomorrow that Penzance Town Council voted to put the core functions of the festival out to private management. This resulted in a flurry of press coverage, an explosion on social media, hundreds signing petitions. People were certainly not happy with the behind closed doors decision. Or to put it more simply 859 people have signed a petition that reads:

"Penzance town council have voted to hand the Golowan festival to a private company. We the undersigned believe this decision should be reversed and the public consulted about the festivals future."

https://www.change.org/p/penzance-town-council-save-the-golowan-festival?recruiter=20902901&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

On friday night (30/10/2015) there was a public meeting held in the Ritz Penzance. Pictured above is Mike Sagar Fenton chairing that meeting. The major thrust of the meeting was twofold, to hear from the Mayor (David Nebesnuick) about his latest recommendation to the full council meeting on monday and to ask him questions and show him the strength of public feeling. The second part was to resolve what the meeting wanted for the future of Golowan. Understandably there was some disagreement between what the public wanted and what the mayor had planned. (if it's of any interest I have complained that the town council papers and recommendation were published before the public meeting and are consequently contradictory and not taking public feeling into account).

Whatever I may think, or other councillors and whatever the mayor will recommend tomorrow night, has yet to be decided. Amendments may well be made, votes won and lost. To say the future of Golowan and it's management is secure and planned is not true.

The Mayor's recommendation is as a result of talking to people involved in the festival over the last few weeks. Is it a climbdown on the privatisation of Golowan? I really don't think so at all. Now it is envisaged that a CIO or CIC (which is presumably yet to exist) will take over Golowan in the coming weeks and deliver the 2016 festival. That the budget will be cut by 5 thousand in year 1 and an additional 5 thousand in year 2. That is £25,000 down to £15,000.

The full text is here
http://www.penzancetowncouncil.co.uk/assets/file/Golowan%202016%20Report.pdf

The meetings response was very clear in it's thoughts on this. There was a later show of hands that indicated; That the budget cuts were unacceptable That the new organisation must be bound by the original aims of Golowan. That the town council and councillors continues to fully support the festival whatever happens in the future (i.e. not cut it loose). That setting up a new organisation would take too long and not be able to run the 2016 festival. It was pointed out that the feasibility of putting this out to tender and making sure any organisation (let alone a bespoke organisation) won the tender would be ultra vires and even judicially re viewable, i.e. unlawful. Clearly a great amount of work is needed before any of these plans see the light of day!

I have a further fundamental problem with the plans, the Mayor justifies the decision to take Golowan out of the Town Council's hands because there were failings in the management this year. To quote:

The stimulus to take action arose from Cornwall Council’s loss of confidence in Penzance Town Council’s management of the festival in 2015 and their plans to undertake a special review of the management of Golowan under an independent chair provided by Plymouth City Council. 

Cornwall Council’s review took place in Camborne on 25 Sep 2015 and involved most of the members of the Council’s Safety Advisory Group. The Mayor, Acting Town Clerk and Festival Director were invited to attend the meeting which lasted 3 hours. Penzance Town Council was debriefed on its failures and weaknesses in preparing for the 2015 festival and the changes required for a successful festival in 2016. It was made clear that the status quo could not continue into 2016 because unless substantial improvements were made it was unlikely that the necessary road closures would be approved putting the festival in doubt.

(I've requested the minutes and notes from this meeting and not had any response whatsoever)

So there were failings apparently, the lesson for Penzance Town Council is apparently to get rid of the hassle and give it to someone else. What were the lessons from this time round and how can these obstacles be surmounted? More pressingly how can a brand new organisation or company learn these lessons. It greatly concerns me that if the challenges of delivering Golowan are seen as too much on the town council, what confidence can there be that any new provider will be ready for these challenges. I'm very much used to ways of working, whereby evaluation is done and mistakes are learnt from and things get better, I have little confidence that any of these proposed plans actually address the supposed failings of 2015 and has a vision for how 2016 can run smoother.

I'm still greatly perplexed at the seeming rush in all this. We have a festival that has survived, albeit with a revival, from antiquity, Even since the revival there has been 25 festivals. Yet we are giving ourselves such a short time-frame to reorder and reorganise this massive festival, the question is why?




As I wrote above the Town Council meeting will be held tomorrow night. Until then nothing is settled and I know there are various alternatives and amendments being proposed. Quite what the end product will be is far from certain. The meeting will be held in the Lecture Theater, Zennor building, Penwith College, 7 pm start. If you live in Penzance and wish to contact your councillors the contact details are here:
http://www.penzancetowncouncil.co.uk/councillors

Tomorrow's agenda:
http://www.penzancetowncouncil.co.uk/assets/file/Town%20Council%202.11.15.pdf

Penzance Town Council issue statement on Golowan

Coming hot on the heels of a widespread social media campaign to keep Golowan public, the front page of the Cornishman and a lot more going behind the scenes. The Chair of the Finance and Property Committe Dick Cliffe has issued a statement approved by the Mayor David Nebesnuick on behalf of the town council about the decision made 3 weeks ago today.

I've had no input into the content of this letter and I was sent it after it was finished. I do not agree with many of the points and would like to see a lot more clear facts to back up some of the sweeping statements.

Here's some brief comments.

There is a statement that: "Indeed the Council would prefer the event (Golowan) to be independent of the Council." This is not the policy of the town council, it may well be the views of some councillors but it has never been discussed let alone decided upon by the council. I certainly do not agree with it.

It continues: "Should an organization come forward at some point in the future, and expect significant Town Council grant funding to deliver Golowan, then we would want to see an established track record of delivery of large public events to a budget." Again never been discussed quite who 'we' is therefore is unclear. Again the town council has not discussed other options only to put it out to private management, let alone set parameters for another organisation to run it. It is only the town council in a meeting that can make such decisions. Again I do not agree with the statement, it's specifically and carefully written to preclude any community group or organisation within Penzance having anything to do with the running of Golowan and leaves only the private sector available.

On another tack my previous blog, I criticised the taking of this issue in private. The reasons given was because it was confidential. I've asked the question why if this statement is public and a varied argument made for the future management of Golowan, could the meeting itself not also have been public? I await an answer from the authors of this statement. I suspect the answer is because public pressure is telling and that many people feel that this is not an issue for the town council alone and there is a huge public interest, keep up the good work folks...

The open letter is here https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6TN2L9M
The poll asking for a public meeting is here https://fans.vote/ACjkiqbudBQ/?wid=&ref=voted

Full Penzance Town Council statement is here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2m8p_rrHuXtZm50dXB5MGcyMjVhWTlZZElCUnZnc0lfVmhj

Golowan no longer a community festival after a Penzance Town Council meeting behind closed doors

With some of us still pondering our way through the Penzance 400 report and trying to discover what to read between the lines, we all have a fresh cause for consternation, another festival involving Penzance Town Council; Golowan. Now I will be clear at the beginning that this was discussed in private session by councillors, that I am hamstrung to say much more on the subject.

I can however talk around it, a motion was brought before the town council on monday 21st September after the press and public had been excluded from the meeting. The public face of it is these words, as taken from the public agenda: "(b) Future Management of the Golowan Festival 2016 (see attached)". The attachment is of course private. I can confirm that this was the first and only time this matter was considered by the town council, since I was elected. I like other members had only 3 days from receiving the agenda to consider the item. Obviously due to the fact that it was considered private, councillors had no opportunity to speak to people involved and consider the arguments from those on the ground nor have a chance to canvass the opinion of the people that voted us into office. 

The last full council meeting, was a packed agenda and the usual rule for a 3 hour meeting maximum had to be suspended for the last items to be considered. As you can see for yourselves from the agenda it had 18 reports for decision that doesn't even include minutes or reports for information, including a future home for the town council, a proposal to reduce the number of town councillors, devolution priorities year on year for the next few years, CCTV, Morrab Gardens, Isles of Scilly parking, Poltair hospital and so the list goes on. Matters vital to the future of the council and the town itself, incurring budgets of millions and affecting a huge swathe of public services. As there was such a great rush, members were written to and asked to read papers carefully to facilitate less questions and more speedy voting at the meeting. It is in this context that we have to realise that the Golowan decision was made at the end of a very very long meeting with a packed agenda. 

Add to this the abject lack of consultation by the council itself to members of the public, interested parties and even councillors themselves. Is it any wonder that we now have an open letter signed by over 300 people, calling on the council to rescind that hastily made decision?  

Here's a link to the open letter which provides some insight to what the decision was: 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6TN2L9M

For what it's worth, I do not agree that the motion should have been discussed in this manner. The future of a such a pivotal community festival is most definitely a matter of public interest and not to be packaged up with sensitive matter and hidden behind the veil of commercial sensitivity. Or in other words the decision to put Golowan out to commercial management, should be a matter of public debate, careful consideration and have been put before councillors as a simple question in the interests of openness and transparency. In the current climate this would seem to radical!

Penzance 400 over spend report

After much mud slinging, hand wringing, press coverage and the like. The report into the over spend for the Penzance 400 celebrations has been published and placed in the public domain. Here I want to draw attention to some of the points but as it is 35 pages long and available online for those willing to go through it, I won't here. Although of course I have been through it and am willing to talk about either in the comments section below or via email robscornishblog@gmail.com.

As a short summary of what happened. The council had agreed to hold events to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the town receiving a charter last year. Although a number of events including a charter fair, a beating the bounds ceremony, theatrical performances, a Penlee exhibition were organised the big event was the 'Pirates on the Prom' Guiness World Record Attempt. To cover the costs of running these events the town council budgeted for £22,850 (which came from £12,000 sponsorship and £10,850 from council budgets. There was a HLF bid to pay for the rest. Unfortunately and what was a rather embarrassing mistake picked up in the report, there was another bid being entered for Penlee House, the problem being one organisation can not apply for 2 grants simultaneously. Therefore the PZ 400 bid was withdrawn, the rest of the narrative is picked up in the report:

"When the clash of bids was finally realised (late February 2014), the bid from PZ400 was withdrawn, with less than three months before the event. By then a substantial number of contracts had been issued and considerable advance publicity arranged – not least the event was being featured in First Great Western’s onboard magazine. 

It is clear cancelling the event at such short notice was not a practicable option available to the Council or the Director of the event, without causing serious damage both to the reputation and financial standing of the Town and the wider area. 

Finally, with only days to go before the event, both Cornwall Council and Devon & Cornwall Police raised their requirements for Health & Safety and Policing the event. There had apparently been insufficient advance dialogue with these parties to plan for these eventualities. 

The day itself, although it did not break the Guinness Book of Records figure, was by all accounts a success and went off without a hitch. The event brought a large number of people to Penzance – who spent a considerable amount of money in the town." Page 17 

This is where procedures went out the window. The council remained committed to the total spend which had rocketed to £63,622.75, therefore £55,846.81 over the agreed budget. This money was duly spent and recorded through the Finance and Property Committee. However there was no official decision to spend this extra money (as demanded by the Council's Standing Orders and Financial Regulations). The report unfortunately did not apparently uncover record of who made these decisions although the money was spent. It neither reveals what council and other members of the Penzance 400 Organising Committee had to say when it was reported to them that the HLF bid would not be submitted. Certainly staff and members of the council were aware of this problem and surely aware of the increasing potential financial liability for the council.

There are a number of recommendations and conclusions in the report, they are well worth a read (as is the whole report). For me, my culpability and the reason I should apologise is for not paying better attention and asking more questions. The Good Councillor Guide is clear in the following statement: "As a councillor, you share collective responsibility for financial management of the council." (page 3) The report notes that the Penzance 400 spend went over budget it also notes that only 1 councillor picked this up, this is clearly not good enough with any amount of money let alone £55,000+. This is even though clearly in black and white to 3 committee meetings it was in the papers the difference between the budgeted and actual expenditure. It's with little surprise that one of the report's recommendations is this:

"Councillors in Penzance Town Council have, on this issue, abdicated their responsibility to scrutiny. This is a fundamental duty and should be carried out regularly and within the public domain. If scrutiny had been regularly exercised this issue would never have arisen." Page 31

Draw your own conclusions from the report available online here, There is various levels of blame levelled at people in authority and those more involved in the day to day matters of this. But for myself even though I was not in a position of authority within the council relevant to this over spend, I have to be aware that the major role of councillors is to ask questions, to not show complacency to always be listening, reading and scrutinising and acting accordingly.

I hope this report will be ultimately a good thing for the council and councillors will consider what is asked of them more readily, I also hope that the Report's recommendation of healing differences between members is listened to. We have this huge devolution agenda coming up and Penzance Town Council seems eager to have more powers, responsibilities and bigger budgets, I feel for this to happen we need to show the people of this town that was can deal with what we do now, in a professional and competent manner.

the Cornwall Devolution Deal and the continuing centralisation to Cornwall Council

With the Cornwall Devolution Deal announced last week, we must ask what about powers within Cornwall. The fact is Cornwall is one of the most centralised local government areas anywhere in the UK. Lacking the middle tier of local government in districts and boroughs. Although there is lots of talk of localism and 'double devolution', what does this all actually mean? What do the current plans entail?

To turn first to the Case for Cornwall, as readers are probably aware this is the document put together by Cornwall Council asking the government for more powers. (available here). This is where the term double devolution comes from as the document explains:

"Together the Case for Cornwall and the Council’s continuing ambition to devolve embrace the notion of double devolution. Getting powers and responsibilities devolved to as low a level as possible, subject to sound governance and delivery arrangements being in place, demonstrates the common commitment of the Government and the Council to empower communities and ensure true local ownership and accountability." p.18/19

Here there is a great deal on principle and mighty fine it is too. There isn't a clear commitment to address the issue of centralisation in Cornwall and to take some of the powers and facilities and bring them back to local control. 

Nailing down what this actually means is harder to find. There are few mentions of town and parish councils in the document. They overwhelmingly talk about towns and parishes in reference to the council tax referendum cap. Which was placed on principle local authorities by the government to force a referendum if they sought to raise council tax by more than 2%. Interestingly it also includes police authorities, so far Bedfordshire police has been the only authority of any kind to call a referendum, lost overwhelmingly 69.5% against. The reason other authorities haven't is they obviously fear this result, so the coalition government effectively created a block on council tax rises.

However towns and parishes have not, so far, been included in the cap. Which allowed Penzance Town council for example, to raise the precept by 5% for the last year and 35.53% for this year. This is quite common in Cornwall and elsewhere as a result of budget cuts the principal authorities have shed services due to budget cuts and towns and parishes have taken on services and raised their precept to pay for it. Although this is a huge issue and leaving towns and parishes out of the referendum cap and I can understand why Cornwall Council included it in the Case for Cornwall.

However it is the only mention of towns and parishes in any substance in the whole of the Case for Cornwall document. I can understand to an extent that devolution should be bottom up not top down that it shouldn't be Cornwall Council's role to dictate devolution, I still feel it doesn't bode well for how seriously devolution within Cornwall is taken.

As we know the Case for Cornwall was not accepted by government and instead we now have the Cornwall Devolution Deal. If we can criticise the Cornwall Council devolution ideas for not considering devolution downwards then the government's announcement is deplorable. It doesn't even mention town and parish councils.

It does seem like we now will have devolution that gives more power to Cornwall Council. That takes more decisions and puts them in fewer hands. Although I firmly remain in favour of devolution it does trouble me that the Cornwall Devolution Deal does not deliver on 'double devolution'. In 2009 local government was centralised into Cornwall Council and it seems this process of concentrating power and decision making has picked up pace...

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. 

We can't let the Tories take away the hard won freedoms of the human rights act

With the election barely over the Tories are starting the way they mean to go on, determined and uncaring. Vying for first place in their priorities with more punishing cuts the Tories are determined to do away with the Human Rights Act. Not content with joining up with the Lib Dems in their first term to do massive damage to welfare, public services and remove morality from decision making entirely. Content with taking away many of the things the state can do for citizens, David Cameron now wants to go one better and attack liberty itself and attack the protections in law.

For information these are the rights in the HRA

Right to life
Freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment

Right to liberty and security
Freedom from slavery and forced labour
Right to a fair trial
No punishment without law
Respect for your private and family life, home and correspondence
Freedom of thought, belief and religion
Freedom of expression
Freedom of assembly and association
Right to marry and start a family
Protection from discrimination in respect of these rights and freedoms
Right to peaceful enjoyment of your property
Right to education
Right to participate in free elections

You have to come to a point where you wonder what will be left in the wake of the Tories? Which of these rights they wish to do away with? I find it perplexing in the extreme to even imagine which of these principles could be that bad, Right to life? No punishment without law? Freedom of expression? 

Human rights have developed internationally over the last few centuries. When people started to consider that individual freedoms should be explicitly protected in law. To temper the power of governments and to make them be held to account, so they can't act like they wish. So people can't be discriminated against, imprisoned of have their individual freedoms and liberties threatened without cause. One of the reasons human rights even exist, was the collective horror of people over the activities of dictatorships, Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany chief among them. People came together fought in world wars so we can live in a better world, a fairer world and a freer world. We must be very wary of a government that wishes to give itself more power, by taking power of off it's citizens. The Tories latest move threatens to attack the very nature of liberal democracy and the rule of law.