Claire Kelley’s Diary

This afternoon I visited Emmaus House, a residential home for elderly Christians in Harrogate, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary.   It was a lovely event, and we had a chance to talk with many of the residents who are so well cared for physically and spiritually in this home.   

I also had a chance to talk briefly with the Treasurer about the difficulties that lie ahead for all residential homes:   personal budgets which elderly people can find so difficult, ever greater shortfalls in the levels of public funding, and a growing elderly population.   He was also most concerned about the loss of expertise in local authorities as more responsibility is passed into the private sector.

This is such an important issue and all of us have an interest in it.   I see little evidence that the government is making adequate arrangements to ensure that older people are cared for with the love and dignity they need.

Only days after a defection handed an overall majority to the Tories on Harrogate Borough Council, they showed their true colours by publishing a proposal to drastically reduce the already too weak powers of scrutiny.   The Council’s administration wants to cut the number of Scrutiny Committees (whose function is to examine administration decisions and policy) from three to one.   This will mean that only eleven backbench councillors will have an opportunity formally to hold the Cabinet to account.   And six of the eleven (including, no doubt, the Chair) will be members of the ruling Conservative group.   Five of twenty-six opposition councillors - fewer than 20% will be able to be part of the scrutiny process.

The Cabinet system of local government - introduced supposedly to increase accountability - has had the opposite effect here in Harrogate.   Opposition councillors have virtually no chance to question decisions made by senior councillors.   Investment in the scrutiny process has been minimal.   Now they want to close it down further.

An elected Council should be a place of lively debate, where people of differing views are able to discuss local issues and reach considered positions drawn from collective experience.   That is not the case in Harrogate.   A small group of senior Tories make virtually all decisions and contemptuously dismiss any opposition as ‘party political point scoring’.   They propose to reduce the function of formal scrutiny to the legal minimum.   

Liberal Democrats will vigorously oppose this this move and perhaps - just perhaps - some of the backbench Conservatives will join us

Today is the day that the County Council’s Executive Members decide whether to judicially review the Schools Adjudicator’s decision on their admissions policies in Harrogate.    The support of the Harrogate Advertiser for the parents’ stance has been most welcome.   

This is a difficult problem - the stark truth is that all oversubscribed schools are selective schools and changing their admissions criteria simply changes the group of children who are offered places.   It does not change the numbers who have to be refused.

It seems to me that the Adjudicator’s suggestion of quotas is the only fair way forward.   The conundrum is how to allocate the quotas - is distance fair, given that the most sought after schools are located in the most affluent areas?   Is a lottery acceptable to parents, perhaps combined with a sibling rule to ensure that families do not end up with their children at different schools?   Or are feeder primaries the way forward?   

These are the questions the County Council should be asking, not whether they should spend our money on a judicial review.

Opposition is growing locally to North Yorkshire County Council’s announced intention to seek judicial review of the Schools Adjudicator’s criticism of their Harrogate secondary school admissions criteria.  

Yesterday the parents of children in Harrogate primary schools received a letter from the Director of Young People’s Services explaining the situation.   This has had a completely opposite effect to the one intended and parents who had not previously been aware of the unfairness of the system are now joining those who made the initial complaint.

Local anger has been increased by learning that the decision to embark on the judicial review process was taken without consultation with Harrogate councillors, by Executive Members and the Director.   And the decision to go ahead will also be taken by Executive Members on Monday 17 November.   As it has been classed as an urgent decision, the call in procedure, which allows councillors to question executive decisions, cannot be used.

Local residents are now questioning the democratic procedures of North Yorkshire County Council and whether they pay any attention at all to the views of the people living in the town which makes the largest contribution to the funding of the county.