Written evidence submitted by Marc Hudson, editor of Manchester Climate Monthly [OSG 116]
About me: I was a physiotherapist in the NHS for 12 years. I am also deeply concerned about climate change, and have been active on the issue for the last 11 years. Since 2008 I have co-edited/edited first Manchester Climate Fortnightly and now Manchester Climate Monthly. I was a member of the Environmental Advisory Panel run by Manchester City Council, until that Panel was abolished without explanation. I have had extended interaction with the City Council during this period, and was influential in helping them devise the process for the writing of the 2009 Climate Change Action Plan. At various points I have encouraged other citizens to attend scrutiny committee meetings to observe and participate.
I created, for example,
- “spotters cards” of the various members, so citizens attending could see who was who
- a video about how to attend scrutiny and keep your sanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYugGzPJKV8
- I produced a report “The case for an Environmental Scrutiny Committee.”
https://manchesterclimatemonthly.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/pesc-report-one-the-case-for-an-environmental-scrutiny-committee.pdf
For the record, I am not and never have been a member of any political party. I am a citizen who is very concerned about climate change, and the growing gap between the Council’s commitments and its performance, and the fact that the Council’s scrutiny system is unwilling or unable to acknowledge the gap or do anything about it.
About the Council: Manchester City Council has 96 elected councillors. As recently as 2010/11 there were 32 or so Liberal Democrats, and 64 Labour Party councillors. In the 2011, 2012 and 2014 elections every single sitting Liberal Democrat lost their seats, to Labour. For two years there were no non-Labour councillors on the council. In 2016 one Liberal Democrat was elected, meaning the council’s make up is 95 to 1.
Whether scrutiny committees in local authorities in England are effective in holding decision-makers to account
Not in Manchester, at least on environmental matters. The examples are legion.
For example, the officers of the ‘Green City Team’ in 2012 made a series of claims about what would be done in the coming 12 months to the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee.. They then refused to produce the data to show if they had in fact achieved those things. I co-ordinated 15 people to submit Freedom of Information Act requests, and then produced a report ‘What have ye done?’ which showed that most promises had not been kept.
Manchester City Council made a series of commitments in July 2013 around actions it would be taking in the next 12 months. These included specific concrete actions such as holding 5 events during Climate Week in March 2014, installing voltage optimisers in 4 buildings, and creating a “Manchester Standard” for its parks.
The Council chose not to release a report that detailed whether it had indeed undertaken these actions. Citizens, using the Freedom of Information Act, found out that the previously mentioned actions – among many others – had not taken place, and in several cases the data was not even collected. Those results form the body of the report. They are not pretty at all.
This report closes with a series of actions the Council could undertake that would cost it minimal sums of money while rebuilding its credibility, and opening up lines of communication. These include:
- Blogging by both the Executive Members for the Environment and Culture &
Leisure (the Exec Member for Environment promised this in February 2014) - Setting a date for the first monthly “Environmental Dashboard”
- Releasing the rest of the information from the 2013/4 plan without the Freedom of
Information Act having to be invoked - Creating an Environmental Scrutiny Committee that oversees the Council’s
performance
https://environmentalscrutiny.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/what-have-ye-done-report-on-manchester-city-councils-climate-performance/
There was precisely zero response by the members of the committee, who had not asked these questions themselves.
In late 2014 I was able, by personally lobbying, to get the same committee to agree to produce a report on the ‘Carbon Literacy’ training that all councillors are supposed to undertake.
As of March 2017 very few councillors are “carbon literate”. The report has not been produced. No explanation was ever given.
In 2014 the Leader of the Council Richard Leese told Finance Scrutiny Committee that a monthly ‘eco-dashboard’ was in place for Manchester.
It wasn’t, but it was up to me to challenge on this. The dashboards will not be produced
In 2014 the Economy Scrutiny Committee examined the progress reports of the ‘Environmental Sustainability Sub-group’ and found it wanting. I co-ordinated with a number of people to produce an implementation plan. This was derided and attacked by councillors.
In September 2014 I produced a report – based on my work and that of other people called “The Scrutiny Mutiny: Things Manchester City Council could do to really strengthen scrutiny, democracy and 'resilience” about the things the Council could do to make scrutiny more welcoming to members of the public.
https://manchesterclimatemonthly.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/scrutinymutiny.pdf
It included ideas such as these
- create an easily searchable database of upcoming reports etc. (the “forward plan”) , with a traffic light system to indicate when they are constantly being kicked into the long grass (e.g. the Finance Scrutiny Committee’s promised report on how other councils with a preponderance of one party cope with that).
- Make it a disciplinary offence for any executive summary of a document to be as inaccurate as last year’s Annual Carbon Reduction Plan summary was. That document hid the fact that emissions had actually gone UP, and that the council was – despite all previous promises – going to miss its “20% by 2014” reduction target. The executive summary was all bland positives. This is simply unacceptable.
- Create an online attendance indicator so that members of the public can see which members turned up for (how much of) each committee meeting
I had also sent around a survey beforehand to citizens who I knew had attended scrutiny meetings, and included responses in the report
“what could be done – by the Council or by “civil society” to make to a better/more useful experience next time round .
- "Papers made more accessible, and a little bit longer before meetings. If actions are recommended, it should be clear exactly what the recommendation is, and this should be presented to all in attendance."
- "There needs to be much better clear guidance of what the role of scrutiny and how the general public can get involved so they can be prepared for meetings."
- "Do any of it differently. Maybe break into smaller groups and get some ideas flowing, stop the Council from being too corporate shaped and divorced from "us". Maybe time for some far horizon casting instead of promising the small stuff then failing to even deliver that.
- *moan! *groan! It feels all so bloody futile.Thanks for this opportunity, don't think it will make one jot of difference to MCC, so I am off to live my life and forget about politics for now.
Copies were given to members of two committees. Not a single response was received. None of the suggestions has been enacted.
In January 2017 I wrote to all members of the Neighbourhoods and Environment Scrutiny committee asking them a series of questions. None replied. I attended the next meeting, and the chair of the committee, Councillor Kevin Peel told me that officers would prepare a response. If they did, I never received it.
I had a letter published in the Manchester Evening News
It’s great that the airport is booming and that Councillor Kevin Peel is enthused about New York-style aerial walkways (Manchester Evening News, January 29th).
Closer to earth, and with our feet on the ground, there are real problems with the Council’s “carbon literacy” training. As part of the Council’s 2009 “Climate Change Action Plan” everyone who lives, works or studies in Manchester (roughly a million people) was supposed to have received a day’s training by 2013. The training included an online component and a face-to-face session.
The council was reluctantly prodded by activists into setting a target for its own councillors last year. It said that 60 of its 96 councillors would have completed the training by the end of 2014.
The council comprehensively missed its target. Only 23 councillors have completed both aspects of the training. Fifty (over half of all councillors) have done neither.
Manchester Metropolitan University won a £13k contract to deliver this training.
This information had, of course, to be prised out of the Council using the Freedom of Information Act. This is despite the fact that the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee, which is nominally tasked with looking at all matters climate-related, had last year requested a report on the successes and failures of Carbon Literacy training be brought to its January meeting. It wasn’t.
Perhaps Councillor Peel, and other members of the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee, would like to take it from here?
https://manchesterclimatemonthly.net/2015/02/04/manchester-evening-news-letter-about-carbon-literacy-failure-climate/
There are countless other examples.
The extent to which scrutiny committees operate with political impartiality and independence from executives
The chairs of the scrutiny committees meet with the Leader of the Council (and I believe the Chief Executive) to discuss which items will be agreed for scrutiny and which will not.
In 2016 I tried to get the Health Scrutiny Committee to discuss climate change as a public health problem.
Despite the chair publicly supporting such a move,
this was not successful
I am led to believe that this was because of pressure from the Executive (though I have no proof, and it will be denied vigorously).
Whether scrutiny officers are independent of and separate from those being scrutinised
Their job prospects depend on them not allowing the council to be embarrassed. For example, when a councillor falsely claimed to have attended a scrutiny committee meeting (as part of a successful attempt to get minutes changed so that climate change would NOT be discussed by the Communities Scrutiny Committee), nothing was done.
How chairs and members are selected
All chairs are Labour councillors. All members of the committees (with one exception) are Laour.
In 2013 I raised the likelihood of an all-Labour Council and its implications for scrutiny with the Finance Scrutiny Committee (which has since been renamed as ‘resources’). The chair of that committee at the time was Councillor John Flanagan (now a member of the Executive). He said that a report would be produced for the committee on how other councils with a predominance of one party (as I recall, he suggested Nottingham) dealt with the problems. That report was, of course, never produced.
Whether powers to summon witnesses are adequate
I tried to get the chair of the so-called “Stakeholder Steering Group on Climate Change” to appear at the Environmental Sustainability Sub-group. He did not. When he finally appeared before the Neighbourhoods Scrutiny Committee he refused to answer the basic question about whether members of the council, or public, could attend the meetings of this ‘stakeholder’ group.
How topics for scrutiny are selected
They are vetoed by the Executive, or, in one egregious case in 2012, by co-ordinated action by Labour councillors
The effectiveness and importance of local authority scrutiny of external organisations
The council has funded (with cash grants and seconded staff) the Manchester Climate Change Agency.
The Neighbourhoods and Economy Scrutiny Committee receives no reports on the Agency’s efficacy. It has not requested yearly updates/appearances from the chair of that group (though the current chair has
Examples where scrutiny has worked well and not so well
See above. Individual councillors try, but they are often fobbed off by bureaucrats and executive members. Ambitious councillors know not to press an issue to hard, for fear of damaging their career prospects. For two years there was not a single opposition councillor. Under those conditions, the Westminster system of governance is completely ineffective.
March 2017