Make tax records public

Britain and the British seem very bashful about money. Secrecy reigns. So we’re all suspicious other don’t pay taxes and I think this makes people a little resentful of taxation.

But their is a different way. In Norway every one’s tax records are public. You can see who dodges taxes and who pays not just the legally correct but morally correct amount of tax. You can decide who to do business with on the basis of whether they’re playing a full and active part in helping to pay for all the public services a modern western countries populace have come to expect.

If we’d had this then the recent abuse of public officials being paid by private companies would have been avoided.

Planning Fears

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has just been published, with significant amendments negotiated by the Liberal Democrats in Government since the Draft NPPF was released for consultation last July.

I must admit to being horrified by the original proposals but happily surprised with the final outcome.

Those major Lib Dem inspired changes, since its controversial Draft version, are: 

– The controversial default ‘yes to development’ is no longer part of the Framework. This addresses a number of concerns that the NPPF as drafted may have led to a rash of quickly implemented, unsustainable development.

– The section on protecting the High Street has been strengthened, with a clear sequential test for retail development. This follows the work of Mary Portas, and her review on the future of High Street retail. 

– The “Brownfield First” principle has been clearly set out, as has the principle of “land of least environmental value”. These are crucial concessions to Lib Dem concerns about the potential effect of the Draft NPPF on future Greenfield development.

– The NPPF as published clarifies the balance that planners must strike between economic growth, environmental protection, and social concerns.

– “Core Principles” have been explicitly set out, including (at Lib Dem insistence) an emphasis on the sustainability of potential economic development.

– There will also be further flexibility in ‘change of use’ regulations, to reduce the need for commercial new build. 

– There will be a twelve-month ‘transition period’ for local authorities who do not yet possess an up-to-date Local Plan to have one put into place. The Planning Inspectorate will also offer increased support to those authorities updating their Local Plans to fit with the NPPF.

What do you think? Will the new planning landscape work?

Capital Projects

At the last Dulwich Community Council meeting we decided (in no particular order) how to allocate our limited capital to projects:

1. Artistically illuminate East Dulwich station bridge £10,000 – we think making the station area more attractive will help reduce crime and the fear of crime there.

2. Go slower signs £6,000 – residents often contact us that people are speeding on there roads but they don’t want speed humps. Where do you think we should put the 4-5 active speed signs?

3. Cycle contraflow on Henslowe Road £8,500 – some residents have told us its a long cycle round while others have told us they don’t like pavement cycling. This should solve both points but we hope to do it for a lot less than the ridiculous sum council officers have suggested.

4. Fix North Cross Road grot spot £4,000 – just by the electricity sub station.

5. Community notice boards £3,000 – they’ve worked well so far and more should work even better.

6. 20mph Lordship Lane £15,000 – we’re hopeful that with the new crossings on Lordship Lane simple signing of a 20mph speed limit will work making Lordship Lane even more attractive.

7. Trees on Lordship Lane £8,500 – we want to make Lordship Lane even greener and more friendly.

8. Goose Green School £5,400 – they’ve asked for help greening the school grounds.

9. Goodrich School £3,300 – they’ve asked for help greening the school grounds.

10. East Dulwich Crime Reduction fund £8,000 – some more funds for local Police to tell us how to reduce crime further.

11. Worlingham Road grot spot £5,000 – space between sheltered accommodation and 31A Worlingham Road.

12. Goose Green playground £5,000 – a little help to make it an even better playground.

Total £81,700 (with reserve of £312).

Lobbying beast

Lobbying is of ocurse an important part of a healthy democracy. We’ve all asked that a specific something happens. But professional lobbying – an industry apparently worth £2billion in the UK – can subvert our democracy by giving those with the greatest resources and money undue influence and privileged access to politicians.

According to Unlock Democracy three quarters of people want lobbying to be more transparent, over half of Conservative, and two thirds of Liberal Democrat voters think lobbyists have ‘too much influence’ in politics. I agree with them. We all remember ‘cash for questions’ one of the more extreme cases we’re aware about.

How many are we not aware are happening?

so it is good news that the government intends to introduce a statutory register of lobbyists, but its plans will fail to deliver on this promise. The proposals are flawed in two key respects:

Lack of universality
The current plans will only require lobbying agencies working on behalf of third parties to register. This would exclude some 2,500-3,500 in-house lobbyists – three quarters of the industry – whose activities are identical to agency lobbyists. How bonkers is that!

2. Lack of meaningful information
The government proposes that lobbyists only reveal who is lobbying. Information on a register will only be meaningful if lobbyists’ are required to reveal their dealings with government – whom is being lobbied and what they are being lobbied on. We also think the amount of money spent on lobbying should be declared. Eminently sensible and should root out most abuses.

Clearly lobbying can help to inform decision-making but it must be conducted transparently. A robust public register of lobbying needn’t create an obstacle to this and shouldn’t place an undue burden on lobbyists (with sensible exemptions for small businesses and smaller charities).

What do you think? More cash for questions or lfinally taming of the lobbying beast?

Sympathy but move

I have some sympathy for local politicians undertaking cabinet roles part time. Politics is one of the least secure roles you can have. Giving up a day job to become a local full-time politician is a brave or foolish act especially if you have a family to support.

Short-term you have little job security. In the Lib Dems you have to please all your colleagues and they elect you to the role every year. Annoy them and you’re out. In the Labour party the leader appoints you. Neither routes to holding a cabinet portfolio offer much job security!

Longer term the ‘pay’ a councillor gets is an allowance and isn’t pensionable. Special Responsibility Allowance for things like cabinet roles also come without any pension. So again giving up a day job to become a full time politician means no pension.

So I absolutely get being a part-time cabinet councillor and holding a normal day job part-time that with a very considerate employer you can go back to being full-time if you need to.

What I don’t get is being in a role that needs a full-time councillor leading the portfolio but doing it part-time. Housing in Southwark is a role that needs a full-time councillor. Southwark is the largest social landlord in London and third largest in the UK. That’s not a part-time role. It transpires that Cllr Ian Wingfield is only working as Housing Cabinet councillor two days a week. To get some direction into the role he’s created a ‘quango’ to advise him costing £104,000 and appointed new senior housing council officers costing £380,000 a year. I’m appalled.

If he can only do the role part-time, and I’m sympathetic to part time woring, he should be a cabinet member for a different portfolio that could be done part-time without incurring huge costs for council tax payers and tenants.

Draft House

Blackcherry appears to have been sold and renamed Draft House.

The first thing the new owners do – talk to neighbours NOPE but apply for shorter licensing hours.

They have applied to be open Thus, Fri and Sat 10am until 1am and the  rest of the week 10am until midnight. Draft House licensing extensions. This is dramatic improvement on the current 2am and 3am closing.

If you think Lordship Lane and East Dulwich already has enough anti social problems from late night revellers then please do SUPPORT this application by emailing licensing@southwark.gov.uk and please copy me james.barber@southwark.gov.uk. Equally if you think we don’t have enough late night drinking tell me that.

The only tweak would be closing at midnight on Thursday.

Whenever you see or hear any anti social problems that don’t warrant a 999 call please do call the the non emergency 101 number. Without reporting problems they never happened as far as licensing and Police officers are concerned and businesses can keep on causing alcohol fuelled problems for East Dulwich.

But this application is a move towards a saner East Dulwich.

London Fire Brigade Museum

The Mayor of London has this week confirmed that he wants to shut the London Fire Brigade Museum 1 April 2012, despite the closure costing more than three times the annual running costs of the museum. Meanwhile it has emerged that visitor numbers have tripled in the last six years.

Responding to a series of detailed questions from Lib Dem Mike Tuffrey, the Mayor has confirmed that the net cost of operating the London Fire Brigade Museum in 2010/11 was just £81,000, while the cost of closing the museum and storing the collection is estimated to be £276,700.

Despite having previously described himself as a “strong supporter” of the museum, Boris Johnson was unable to provide further details of a potential  ‘blue light’ replacement museum which would bring together the historic collections of the Metropolitan Police, London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service.

The Fire Brigade committee will take the final decision about the future of the LFB museum on the 15 March 2012. Sadly that’s probably a rubber stamp of the Mayors views.

Please do sign the online petition to save this Museum here.

Fit of pique

Wednesday night we had Full Council assembly – budget setting.

For some bizarre reason the Labour administration had decided to have a class photo of all the councillors in the council chamber £350+ photographer + £30 per copy for 63 councillors.

The irony of such profligate spending at a budget setting meeting where budgets are being cut was lost on everyone except me. So you wont see me in this photo. I didn’t attend this pre assembly photo.

The Charter School

I was shocked to read the admissions adjudicators report about The Charter School admissions. The report is shocking. Amazingly Southwark Council supported the school submission to the adjudicator despite the council leader being a ward councillor for the most negatively affected area.

BUT I’m pleased to see the school has now acted quickly to accept the reports findings about the schools admissions administration hadn’t reflected the actual policy and this is corrected. This will change who goes to this school – probably at the margins – but only time will tell what impact this has. People will buy and sell houses to be closer to outstanding schools so really hard to tell what the long term impact will be.

But the good news the school now accepts safe walking distance using routes that local Police officers has confirmed are safe rather than mapping that effectively was driving routes only.

Well done to all the residents who made this happen.

Right to be forgotten

The European Union is proposing a new data protection rule – the “right to be forgotten”.

The idea is that individuals would be able to insist that data about themselves must be deleted unless it was being kept for a legitimate purpose.

I think this is a potentially great antidote to people doing daft things on the internet and not being able to escape them. It would also be useful for escaping the clutches of annoying marketing companies. This week I’ve had an appalling time stopping one company from repeatedly posting things to my dead mother. This proposal would add even greater weight to be treated with dignity when fixing such things.

The other important element would be a requirement to notifiy people within 24hours if a company loses your data, has it stolen or has it hacked. With the “right to be forgotten” it would mean only live data was available to be lost, stolen or hacked and protect many people whose data isnt actually relevant to an organisation anymore but has been kept.

Businesses are concerned at the requirement for a statutory Data Protection Officer but by harmonising these rules across European the Commission estimates a total saving of £1.9bn a year across Europe. It would also mean people could be more relaxed about providing data which could further boost internet use and the depth of internet use.

Fingers crossed these new consumer rights get approved.