To deal with questions under Council Procedure Rule number 11.1
Question from Councillor Cartwright:
“(a) Given that the public perception of all councils is reducing rapidly with having to pay more council tax for less service, could the Leader of the Council please explain why, in a recent press release, he made the comments that he was happy with the response to the consultation when only a fraction of households responded (2150) from more than 48,000 households – a return rate of just 4.4%?
Whilst the Leader could not have predicted the return rate, would it not have been more plausible to have thanked the people that chose to respond with the more real statement that he was disappointed that so few residents actually did. Surely this would have created more respect in the public opinion in light of the actual result.
(b) Having produced, created and distributed such a large piece of work at expense to the tax payer for the benefit of the customer, would the Leader please explain why the administration have chosen to completely ignore their views and choose instead to pick a third option not available to residents in the questionnaire?
(c) Given the damage that this will do to the reputation of this consultation and the authority as a whole and potential future consultations (they never bothered to listen to my views last time), what does the administration propose to do to remedy what a large portion of the customers whom you sought guidance from will think about the result and actual outcome?”
Response from the Leader of the Council:
“(a) Cllr Cartwright questions the value of 2150 responses, and he therefore obviously does not understand the statistical significance of such a response rate. This compares favourably with national polls, such as those used by MORI, who take much smaller samples as the basis for their conclusions. This response is twice the sample size of 1107 people from Leicestershire and Rutland (120 were from Hinckley and Bosworth) who responded to the police consultation on their proposed 1.99% increase. Our number of responses therefore provides a very high level of confidence that the answers provided were representative of residents in general.
So, I am happy to repeat my comment, I am pleased that so many people responded to the consultation, it has given us statistically relevant and valuable information to inform our decision making, and I thank them for taking the opportunity to respond.
(b) Public consultation plays a vital role in advising the council of its customers’ views and is conducted in a variety of different formats, and for different reasons. In this instance we wanted to reach as many people as possible within a specific timeframe to assist with our decision making. It was a consultation; not a referendum or ballot of any other sort. We were seeking the views of the public on options that we were considering to fill the void, left by the Lib Dem administration, in the council’s budget for 2016/17. We provided two different options to focus those views.
The consultation provided us with two significant pieces of information, firstly that 70% of residents would vote ‘yes’ in a referendum to a Council Tax increase of £16. Secondly, just under 40% of people who currently use the green waste service told us that they would pay £35 to retain the service. It also means that 60% of people thought £35 was too expensive. They are right, and that is why we are not proposing a charge of £35.
The Government’s recently announced finance settlement introduced another option, which was to increase Council Tax by £5 without the need for public referendum. Officers have also worked with the Executive to identify other savings to close the funding gap. As Cllr Cartwright will be aware, the cost of a referendum would be in the order of £100,000, which would also reduce the benefit of a larger Council Tax increase, and if we can avoid spending such money then we should. For those reasons, the budget that will be presented tonight is a balanced budget, without a £35 green waste charge, with only a £5 Council Tax increase, and without the need for a referendum.
So, far from ignoring residents’ views, we are taking them into account in our decision making. We are taking advantage of what the Government has put on offer to us, and fixing the budget situation we inherited in as fair a way as we possibly can.
(c) Asking for people’s opinion is rarely something that will cause reputational damage. What does cause damage is when Cllr Cartwright writes articles which state that this Council used the bin men to deliver consultation documents, and then blames a contractor’s illness for their lateness, and then claims that he was responsible for the extension of the deadline for the return of questionnaires, when in fact he was not.
Last year, the Liber Democrat administration ducked the budget issue, in fact they have been ducking it for years, hiding behind the temporary grants and bonuses that were provided by the last Government - using them to prop up the day to day running of the Council, failing communities who have had homes built in their backyard, and failing to put long term solutions in place. We have tackled it head on, and softened the impact of putting the finances right by making sure that we will introduce efficiencies over the next three years. I am sure that the public will respect responsibility far more than they will respect irresponsibility and inaction!
I would suggest that Cllr Cartwright should be more worried about what our customers think about the damage inflicted on the finances of this Council by him and his colleagues, and leave us to get on with fixing the mess they have left us in.”
Minutes:
The following question from Councillor Cartwright was put to the Leader of the Council under Council Procedure Rule number 11.1
“(a) Given that the public perception of all councils is reducing rapidly with having to pay more council tax for less service, could the Leader of the Council please explain why, in a recent press release, he made the comments that he was happy with the response to the consultation when only a fraction of households responded (2150) from more than 48,000 households – a return rate of just 4.4%?
Whilst the Leader could not have predicted the return rate, would it not have been more plausible to have thanked the people that chose to respond with the more real statement that he was disappointed that so few residents actually did. Surely this would have created more respect in the public opinion in light of the actual result.
(b) Having produced, created and distributed such a large piece of work at expense to the tax payer for the benefit of the customer, would the Leader please explain why the administration have chosen to completely ignore their views and choose instead to pick a third option not available to residents in the questionnaire?
(c) Given the damage that this will do to the reputation of this consultation and the authority as a whole and potential future consultations (they never bothered to listen to my views last time), what does the administration propose to do to remedy what a large portion of the customers whom you sought guidance from will think about the result and actual outcome?”
Response from the Leader of the Council:
“(a) Cllr Cartwright questions the value of 2150 responses, and he therefore obviously does not understand the statistical significance of such a response rate. This compares favourably with national polls, such as those used by MORI, who take much smaller samples as the basis for their conclusions. This response is twice the sample size of 1107 people from Leicestershire and Rutland (120 were from Hinckley and Bosworth) who responded to the police consultation on their proposed 1.99% increase. Our number of responses therefore provides a very high level of confidence that the answers provided were representative of residents in general.
So, I am happy to repeat my comment, I am pleased that so many people responded to the consultation, it has given us statistically relevant and valuable information to inform our decision making, and I thank them for taking the opportunity to respond.
(b) Public consultation plays a vital role in advising the council of its customers’ views and is conducted in a variety of different formats, and for different reasons. In this instance we wanted to reach as many people as possible within a specific timeframe to assist with our decision making. It was a consultation; not a referendum or ballot of any other sort. We were seeking the views of the public on options that we were considering to fill the void, left by the Lib Dem administration, in the council’s budget for 2016/17. We provided two different options to focus those views.
The consultation provided us with two significant pieces of information, firstly that 70% of residents would vote ‘yes’ in a referendum to a Council Tax increase of £16. Secondly, just under 40% of people who currently use the green waste service told us that they would pay £35 to retain the service. It also means that 60% of people thought £35 was too expensive. They are right, and that is why we are not proposing a charge of £35.
The Government’s recently announced finance settlement introduced another option, which was to increase Council Tax by £5 without the need for public referendum. Officers have also worked with the Executive to identify other savings to close the funding gap. As Cllr Cartwright will be aware, the cost of a referendum would be in the order of £100,000, which would also reduce the benefit of a larger Council Tax increase, and if we can avoid spending such money then we should. For those reasons, the budget that will be presented tonight is a balanced budget, without a £35 green waste charge, with only a £5 Council Tax increase, and without the need for a referendum.
So, far from ignoring residents’ views, we are taking them into account in our decision making. We are taking advantage of what the Government has put on offer to us, and fixing the budget situation we inherited in as fair a way as we possibly can.
(c) Asking for people’s opinion is rarely something that will cause reputational damage. What does cause damage is when Cllr Cartwright writes articles which state that this Council used the bin men to deliver consultation documents, and then blames a contractor’s illness for their lateness, and then claims that he was responsible for the extension of the deadline for the return of questionnaires, when in fact he was not.
Last year, the Liber Democrat administration ducked the budget issue, in fact they have been ducking it for years, hiding behind the temporary grants and bonuses that were provided by the last Government - using them to prop up the day to day running of the Council, failing communities who have had homes built in their backyard, and failing to put long term solutions in place. We have tackled it head on, and softened the impact of putting the finances right by making sure that we will introduce efficiencies over the next three years. I am sure that the public will respect responsibility far more than they will respect irresponsibility and inaction!
I would suggest that Cllr Cartwright should be more worried about what our customers think about the damage inflicted on the finances of this Council by him and his colleagues, and leave us to get on with fixing the mess they have left us in.”
By way of supplementary question, Councillor Cartwright asked if the tone of the response was due to the Leader’s embarrassment at the situation, and he felt that he had not answered the question. In response, the Leader explained that new options had become available since the consultation, and in considering these, the outcome of the consultation had been taken into account. He felt that he had answered the question and was not embarrassed about the issue.