Kevan Lim

Well the reality of defeat hit home today. I had to go into the county council to close out all my files and transfer my emails to my own account.  Unfortunately someone had decided to switch off all the computer access for councillors who were defeated.  I never cease to be amazed at the insensitivity of some people.  Apart from the fact that I did not end my term as a county councillor until the end of today, how does anyone think you can access your files if they have closed down computer access.  It is important because I still have several important personal cases which I want to make sure are transferred to appropriate officers for action before I end.

Anyway when the computers were switched back on I received a number of emails both from opponents and residents regretting my defeat.  Whilst I appreciate the thoughts it only added to my depression.

The defeat also meant I am  no longer the UK representative on the European bodies I was involved with.  As a consequence I have to arrange  votes to be provided to the Norwegian vice president in connection with an important meeting in Odessa Ukraine this week.  Fortunately she is happy to vote on behalf of the UK delegation.

One good email arrives from one of my French local government contacts who regrets my defeat and complains I should have told him earlier so he could have sent over  his  Corsican brotherhood to campaign on my behalf.  I remember reading the book by Robert Ludlum “The Matarese Circle”.

Not sure having a campaign run by a brotherhood intent on world domination through corruption and anarchy would have helped, although it gave me a laugh and lightened my mood.

I have one final task which is to attend my last meeting of the European energy group in Brussels on the 19th June.  Then its time to really decide what I am going to do.

When ever we have a local election campaign there is one issue that I can guarantee will come up in discussion with electors. Its the highly likely prospect of residents not understanding the difference between the county council and the borough council.. For most people its the council and they have almost no idea of the difference between the two councils. And why should they.

A typical example was a letter from a resident supporting improvements around Clifford Road School for children’s safety, but blaming me for allowing a planning application in the area which will increase traffic even though its the borough council who made the planning decision.

There is absolutely no reason why we should have two councils. Its a reason why I have always supported having a single unitary council for an area. It means voters have a clear line of accountability, one council to deal with and one councillor with responsibility for decisions in their area and we avoid the kind of duplication of services and costs the current system give us.

One issue which I hope will come out of the current public anger about national politics is greater power for local councils. But if councils are to have any impact then government has to simplify the system. That should mean that all public services including health and economic development in an area should be the responsibility of one council. It seems so obvious.

The problem is that successive governments have made it more complicated. Its no wonder voters get confused.

Well today the Evening Star has used my comments about the reduction in Home Care numbers following the conservative changes to the free home care scheme in 2007. Yet amazingly, Graham Newman the conservative executive member for adult care at the county council is claiming its nothing to do with changes they made. In a bizzare quote he says it was the fault of the Labour led county council and changes made in 2003.

Well I think he needs to get his diary out. The conservatives won control of Suffolk County Council in may 2005. According to official figures from the county council, in 2004, 5300 people were receiving home care, went up to 5600 in 2005 with 80% getting it free. In 2006 it had gone up to 5725 with still 80% getting it free.

Then the conservative changed the scheme. Indeed we managed to delay implementation of the ending of the full free home care but it still went ahead in 2008.

And guess what, the numbers dropped in april 2008 to 3523 with only 20% getting it free.

So how could anyone but the conservatives be responsible for the fall in numbers. It would be much more honest if they accepted thats what they had done. As one conservative said at the time. Our priority is the 80% of people who don’t get home care. More »

In any election you will get people making claims in their literature. Often its a question of interpretation.

So for example I claim that the £56 million taken by the conservatives out of spending on social care services over the last 4 years is a cut. The conservatives claim that they are spending the money more wisely mainly by charging for their services. So home care which was free for most is now a charged service.

So technically neither of us is wrong. They have reduced the budget and taken in a significantly higher proportion of the remaining budget by charging. They will argue this is fair, I maintain its unreasonable as some of the most vulnerable are paying higher costs rather than the general taxpayer.

So for the voter its a question of which direction is right.

However when election literature is fundamentally wrong how does the voter know.

The conservatives have now issued election leaflets showing all the council tax increases since 2001. Surprisingly their chart shows the conservatives responsible for the last 5 county council budgets. Which is strange considering they have only been in control of the county council for 4 years.

The problem is that budgets are set in the February of each year so in 2005 it was the Labour/Liberal administration who set the budget and with the Conservative opposition voting against. The Conservatives then won in may 2005 and inherited that budget.

So does it matter you may say.

Well I suspect most people won’t even notice. However it does raise the question, if the conservatives don’t even know how many budgets they have been responsible for, then are they capable of running the county council.

or could it be something to do with the fact that it was one of the lowest council tax increases since 2001.

Southend on a warm sunny day.

I am attending a meeting of the East of England Europe panel which I Chair. I am the only labour councillor in the region who chairs one of the regional assembly panels.

Its a grouping of councillors of all parties together with some business and community interests, EEDA the regional development agency, and Members of the European Parliament. We rotate the quarterly meetings around the region with one a year in Brussels.

We are one of the few forums where we got an opportunity to question MEP’s and encourage them to pursue interests of benefit to the Region. Most MEP’s have been good attenders at our meetings. The only exception has been UKIP who have never turned up over the last 4 years.

One of the main issues today is the major European Research and Development support programme called framework 7.      This programme offers support to business to help new research and development especially in areas like bio-sciences and renewables. Its worth over 30 Billion euros’s. No that isn’t a typo. Its 30 Billion.

I have been pressing the development agency for some 18 months to extensively promote the programme to business in the region. Whilst they have used a support company to do so, they have now terminated the contract. Not satisfied with the answers we get about their future promotion of the scheme I get the panel to agree that we need a major commitment from EEDA that this is still a big priority. Its not just the large sums of money available but its the opportunity to help companies rapidly expand important R & D in areas that will be vital for growth in the east.

I sit on the audit committee of the County Council.  Very boring you will say.  Actually no!
it is one of the more effective committees of the County Council.

Amongst its investigations has been the failure of a home care provider to meet the contractual requirements of the county council.  They  were failing to turn up on time for home visits to elderly patients or some times not at all whilst claiming money from the county council.

It was also the committee that investigated the Chief Executives salary increase and recommend changes to council procedures following the District Auditors report.

yes both of these issues were mine, but the committee has a conservative Chairman and a conservative majority.

The reason I think it has worked well is because the Chairman, a conservative county councillor from kesgrave is fairly independent of the leadership of the county council and expects the committee to fully investigate any examples where the county council is failing to either get value for money or is failing to deliver adequate service to users of the service.

This independent attitude has probably got him into a bit of trouble with his conservative colleagues but it has meant the committee has been effective and has not been afraid to challenge failings in the system at the County Council.

So next time you meet a boring auditor remember he or she is probably doing a very important job.

Its always the simple things that make life difficult.  I had agreed with a request from Clifford Road school that they needed to improve safety arrangements outside the school.  The sidestreets around the school are relatively narrow.  So the school wanted safety barriers put up in both tennyson road and woodville road.  I had agreed to pay for barriers next to the school entrances.  This would solve two problems.  Children coming out of school would not be able to run straight into the road and parents driving to school would not be able to park on the pavement directly outside the school entrance.  Seemed a simple solution and I agreed to pay for the scheme from my locality budget.  Asked ipswich borough to do the work.  Surpise, Surprise two weeks later when I am chasing up the work, the borough tell me that might not be able to do it because the county council might object.
After several very strange telephone conversations, I am told by the county that their is a policy which discourages safety barriers because “children might run into the barriers and hurt themselves”.  Well this is news to me.  certainly never remember any such discussion and I thought I would know as I sit on the County roads and transport committee.

Anyway I tell them the barriers will go up.  Hopefully they will do the survey work this week.

Its frustrations like this which drive me crazy