Road-Warrior of the e-Government Highways Committee

Bending an ear

Had a great meeting early this morning - Robert Massey, Lewisham Cabinet Member for Children & Young People came to visit the School Council at Perrymount (about time the School Council got its' own bit of the school website...), who've been bending my ear about places to play (not enough of them) around the school and where they live. They kept him talking for about an hour in the school library, and there are 2 or 3 places I need to go and have a look at where something might be done. Now, where can we put a skate-park in Perry Vale, that kids will feel safe in, and the noise won't annoy the neighbours too much???

(There may be a photo of this important summit meeting to come, taken by one of the school staff. But Robert took my advice and didn't get persuaded to pose - unlike one of his predecessors ;->)

I predict a riot, or, back to the Nineties

What I missed last night (because the ALMO board meeting went on a bit) was getting to the Children (etc) Select Committee to hear the item about reorganising Special Needs Education. Perrymount School (where I'm chair of govs) is a mainsteam school, but with quite a few kids who have mobility and medical needs (and a very nice accessible building). Meadowgate (where my wife Jacq is chair of govs) is a Special School, and would be affected radically - but probably in some quite positive ways. Jacq was supposed to be giving evidence to the committee. Several interests to declare there, I guess, if I had been in time.

So... I went downstairs to where the sort-of-parallel public meeting was going on (at the same time as the Select Committee??? - why???), which was packed out (standing room only, really!) with mostly pretty cross parents of kids with special needs, who are not being well-served by our policies and services, whilst at the same time straining our education budgets to bursting point. I certainly didn't envy any of the council officers who'd been put up the front to face this angry mob.

Strangely, I'd just (mostly for nostalgic reasons) unearthed a video copy of the "Town Hall" BBC2 fly-on-the-wall series, filmed in Lewisham in 1991-92, which opens with a not-too-different education-inspired riot - with a not-too-different cast! Spooky! (Not recommended viewing for new councillors of nervous dispositions, and I can't find it online anywhere, but if you insist you can find a partial copy of the series via the LSE Library catalogue.)

"What ahbart moi drains!"

The ALMO ('council' housing management) meeting last night held no big surprises - although it (oops - we!) face a tough job getting most of Lewisham's housing services (including repairs) up to the "two star" standard needed to bag the essential government grant.

As luck would have it, this morning I got a housing case on the phone (the first one - surprising!) - some poor woman with a too-familiar tale of a promised new bathroom, the plumbers coming in early June, dissappearing a week later with bath and basin non-functional, making an appointment to come back and finish the job 4 weeks later, not showing up all that day, then a letter of "we couldn't gain entry, so you're at the back of the queue" (I paraphrase - don't sue me - I'm sure it wraps more words around it than that!). I think, though, that I managed to swiftly catch the right housing officer (one who seems to know the ropes) on the phone, and get something happening.

(Anyone who's been to enough tenants forum meetings will know where the title of this article comes on that agenda)

Remember the ALMO

I've been nominated onto the "ALMO Shadow Board". That sounds a bit sinister until you know it's the Arms Length Management Organisation (for Lewisham social housing), and it has a "shadow board" just until it's fully constituted. Seems like a good way of managing what used to be "council housing" - within the constraints imposed on us by central government (Thatcher's central government originally, to be fair!). I've got a briefing arranged with the interim Director of it today; hope it doesn't turn out like those explanations of "how PFI works" - of which I still haven't got enough PhDs in Economics to get the point!

This evening I have a meeting of the Lewisham Disability Coalition Trustees, which I'm still on as a non-Council representative (and want to stay as such if possible). Cllr Bentley has got the official Council 'seat', and I helped him out the other day with a quick low-down on how LDC works (and some of its' recent history).

Two Clicks Away Can Be OK!

Cllr Andrew Milton (I don't know where he gets the time to keep up several blogs) seems to have got in first with news of Lewisham Council's landmark ruling (;->) about links to "potentially political content". Basically it says that the Council (even on web pages about individual councillors, like these two) can't include anything "political" (find long definition for yourself!); even though what we do as politicians must, I suppose, all be "political" (just as most things an electrician does are probably "electrical"). Even though our pages mention which parties we represent, it's not allowable to include links to the websites of each party.

But it is, since last week, allowable to link to a ("non-political") URL, which in turn includes links to something that might be "political" (such as a councillor's personal homepage or blog which, if we're doing what the voters, presumably, think we're paid for as some of their elected politicians, probably includes "politics"...). Thus "Two clicks away can be OK"!

I think this all makes the Council look a bit silly, and as if it fundamentally misunderstands the nature of information, references and the Web. But assuming our lawyers' interpretations are correct, it's the laws governing Lewisham (and all other local authorities) that are 'an ass'.

Andrew Milton has decided to use his personal blog as an intermediate link to his councillor's blog. Being of a more infrastructural turn of mind, I got the circular and swiftly registered the domains twoclicksaway.org and non-political.org, (�8.99 a year being a small price to pay for a good joke) and thought about the little web-service that I need to run on them, to create a content-free (and definitely politics-free) intermediate page. Then I can offer this to anyone who needs such a 'political firewall' (maybe there's a Chinese market... Hmmm!). Sometimes I wish I could be bothered to make lots of money out of ideas like this - but it seems a lot simpler to just do them on a sort of Open Source basis.

Mapping things in Perry Vale

For the record, here's a Streetmap.co.uk view that includes all of Perry Vale Ward (and surroundings - so don't take it as definitive, and do use the postcode search to check which ward your address is in if you're not sure).

It's not GIS; but I'll try blogging casework that's about places (potholes, litter, broken streetlights, and that sort of thing) with a map. Not the addresses of people who have casework, obviously!

Maybe I'll try GoogleEarth links too...

Remote control

Alesund harbour
Originally uploaded by John Paschoud.

I've been in Alesund, Norway (that "A" should have a little circle over it - but don't get me started on how hard Norwegian is!) all this week, at the annual conference of UNINETT (the Norwegian educational networking agency).

I'm still managing to keep a virtual presence in Perry Vale and Lewisham, though, and I'm making some progress on the issue of councillors being allowed to use casework software on their council-provided PCs; and on our ward advice surgery leaflets; and on a case about clearing up a fly-tip in Hindsley's Place.

Luckily this week hasn't included any v.important council meeting that I would have had to miss (even to mis-credit goals scored - sorry Darren!)

And (of course!) I've been working very hard for the British taxpayer, describing how we're doing national access management infrastructures for education (the Norwegians are doing something parallel). They're also a bit better than Britain at assuming wi-fi should be everywhere (and free in lots of places).

Proper Politics Breaks Out!

Tonight's first ordinary Full Council meeting (the AGM doesn't really count) was a blast! A well-packed public gallery, who nearly provoked Chair Barrie into chucking them out for rowdiness. A motion (to go around the where-to-put-the-new-school loop over again) from the LibDems, which (quite predictably) all the smaller parties voted for ...and so Labour lost (shock! horror!). Ron (Labour chief whip) was a little cross about two particular members who hadn't showed up - who (I think) might have been able to get us a score-draw.

Two more motions: To attempt a common-sense resolution for the 'Big Yellow Box site' in Grove Park (Tories); and to Recycle More (the Greens). Both of the 'this council believes Satan is a bad influence on our youth' variety (after some skilled amendment), so everyone voted for them, in a jolly mood. 60 (yes, sixty) written members questions to Mayor and Cabinet, with a lot of them wanting their chance to put a supplementary (== make a point) helped the whole proceedings to stretch into well after 10pm.

This all mostly served to prove that Council, whatever the party balance, can only do it's worst and ask the Mayor very politely if he'd look into something. Good for stable progress perhaps, but it can't have looked incredibly democratic to some of the spectators. At this rate we'll have to start making up interesting council motions in Labour Group again!

Casework software

This may well be a shameless plug (Interest to declare here, etc, because I'm strongly associated with CFL), but...

I got my up-to-date-and-paid-for copy of CFL Caseworker installed (on my desktop PC and my non-council laptop) on Sunday, and started setting up standard letters and similar; and it's genuinely much better than previous versions I've used or tested. The more casework you do (with oft-repeated issues and some constituents who tend to be 'frequent flyers'), the more efficient it gets.

It would be nice if there was a way to share standard lists of agencies etc (that are common to all elected representatives in the same borough, for example - I feel an XML data exchange schema coming on here...) No doubt if I start using it 'in anger' (sometimes literally) I'll think of some more functional requirements to go in the future versions pot.

I've asked Susan to show me how the official council web casework system is supposed to work, to give it a 'fair hearing', but I've heard so many negative reports of it from other councillors.

It will also be nice if I can succeed in persuading the Head of IT and the Head of Law at Lewisham that Caseworker, and the equivalent packages produced or recommended by the other parties (I know the LibDems have a very similar package), can be installed on council-issued laptops.

The best (funniest) argument I've heard so far is that this is deemed "political software" (a term I've not heard before, in my many years in both IT and politics). Barring "software that can be used for political purposes" (like, producing an election leaflet with Microsoft Word?) is much like that new offence of "being in possession of articles that might be of use to a terrorist" - I've always assumed that things like pencils, toilet rolls, and cheese sandwiches are probably of as much use to "a terrorist" as they are to any other person; but it's nice to know our valiant security services have an extra reason available to keep them locked-up ;->.

If our dutiful and appropriately cautious council officers thought about this rationally for a moment, they would realise that all councillors have signed-up to an agreement not to use any council resources for 'political campaigning' purposes - and we would be in trouble if we did. They (council officers) are not expected to put annoying technical restrictions in place to prevent us breaking the rules!

So little time...

Oh dear! I've left it far too long now ...not for lack of things to post, just time to get around to doing it. I'll start by making a list, rather than trying to pile them all into one (yes, I know I should try a wiki instead for more structured stuff...)

First meeting with the Head of IT Strategy
Being a Road-Warrior of the e-Government Highways Committee
(and I hereby bag that for an alternative blog title, if someone else hasn't already)
Our first proper new-style advice surgery session
Forest Hill Day, and welcome meetings-again
A Planning power of Emergency Conservation
Not the paperless office

I've attracted a couple of anonymous comments to older posts; so I can't tell if they're from someone whose opinions I care about, or not. Perhaps you'd like to let me know. I can't be bothered to switch on paranoid-level security (unless it becomes annoying).