My free advice to Lynne Hillan: when you're in a hole, stop digging

The interview Lynne Hillan has given the Barnet Press only makes her harder to like. Photographed looking "intensely relaxed" (first mistake), she manages to offend throughout:

"I would be signing petitions too if I believed everything I read in the paper, but I’ve not got a £20,000 pay rise. I was already on £50,700 from two special responsibility allowances, and if I take the full allowance I will be getting £57,624."

I wouldn't make so much noise about that. OK, the new system means she's lost a special responsibility allowance, but her overall pay still rises by nearly £8,000, a 14% rise.

"We adopted the lowest rate we possibly could and reduced it some more. We will be bringing in a saving this year, and are freezing it for the next four years – year-on-year there will be saving for the taxpayer."

The lowest rate they could? Which they then reduced? How about reducing it further? Moreover, they are only bringing in a saving this year because the cabinet members waived some of their increase. If they claim the full amount next year, the overall allowances budget will increase.

It's news to me that they are freezing the rate for four years. Would they be offering this if there hadn't been so much public uproar? Let's see whether Barnet Tories keep that promise.

"The new system only allows for one allowance, and doesn’t mean a councillor suddenly loses or gains more money overnight – councillors have mortgages to pay and families to keep as well."

A sour note creeps in. Rest assured, Mrs Hillan, no one wants councillors to starve, but there's no danger of it, is there? Hillan should be careful how she talks about this, because people are questioninng hard the whole system of paying councillors at all. Myself, I'm undecided, but I know this recent allowances furore has decided many people against.

What about the timing of the decision to change the allowances system?

Mrs Hillan, who took over as council leader in December, said they had been looking to adopt London Councils’ scheme for some time. When challenged why this had not been mentioned to the electorate before the election, she said: “We hadn’t really discussed it. Only after the election councillors started saying we needed to look at something different.”

Inept handling of the question. Makes it sound as though they had a bout of temporary amnesia. We were looking at raising the allowances, then we forgot we were, then we remembered again. Careless but, somehow, convenient.

How has this episode affected relations with the council workforce?

Unions have hit out at the councillors, with claims that they are lining their pockets while frontline council workers are facing a pay freeze or possible redundancy, but Mrs Hillan argued that politicians had been victims of pay freezes for several years. She said: “I’m not saying I want more money or we should take more money, but the unions have been allowed to increase public sector pay over and over again.”

This comment will go down like a lead balloon with those greedy council workers.

What about Kate Salinger?

Mrs Hillan also refused to comment on Councillor Kate Salinger, who was stripped of all her main committee positions after she abstained from the allowances vote on a matter of “conscience”. Mrs Hillan said it was a matter for the Tory group office and said Mrs Salinger was still chairwoman of the children’s services overview and scrutiny sub-committee.

I'm guessing they couldn't find someone else for that job, which involves a degree of competence that is clearly not required for the other posts, such as chairing a residents' forum. (Hillan has said a lot more about Kate Salinger in an interview with the Times series.)

Hillan now makes another rash promise with regard to councillors' allowances. I doubt somehow that she believes that she could get councillors to accept a 25% pay cut. Another careless remark then:

Mrs Hillan said: “I think we are going to have a difficult time over the next four years. We are inevitably going to upset a few people. We are going to see 25 per cent cuts across the board – allowances are not going to be exempt from that. I know it’s going to be painful for everybody.

Now for the Hillan coup de grâce:

“Residents’ relationships with the council are going to change. When someone calls up and says it’s been snowing can we help clear their path, the answer is going to be, ‘Get a spade out of the shed’.

“That’s not just in Barnet – that’s everywhere.”

Not very reassuring words for anyone that doesn't have a shed or a spade, or would struggle to use a spade through age or disability. This is the council that prided itself on getting around to old people's houses during the cold spell last winter. That was warm-hearted Mike Freer's Barnet. This is ice queen Lynne Hillan's.

She might protest that her spade analogy is just a turn of phrase. In that case, here's one for Lynne Hillan: when you're in a hole, stop digging.

Who needs enemies? Top Hendon Tory vilifies councillors' allowances hike

The dismay of Barnet residents at Tory councillors voting their leader and cabinet members big hikes in their allowances reaches into the heart of the local Tory party itself.

The Times series carries an interview with Conservative association member and Chairman of the Hendon and West Hendon Conservative groups, Adrian Murray-Leonard. He says:

“To take the decision to increase allowances is immoral, disgusting and vile. It is a crazy situation. I don't have a problem with the party, it is the people, they are greedy vultures and I don't want to be associated with them.

“Most of them are in it for themselves. They are living under an illusion of grandeur. Most of the people who are getting whipped to make the decision should stand up against it.”

Barnet council leader Lynne Hillan has been defending the decision in the paper. Posing for a pic in the dress she wore on the fateful night that Item 5.3 was passed, she says:

“Although it may look as if there was a considerable increase for one particular special responsibility, it actually works out that the majority of councillors are either receiving the same as they were before, a very small increase, or some are getting a decrease.

"...It's a redistribution."

It doesn't just look as though there was a considerable increase for one particular special responsibility - there was a considerable increase for one particular special responsibility, hers: Lynne Hillan's getting an extra £20,000 a year for being council leader.

(And redistribution is not usually considered progressive unless it results in a more equitable sharing of the cake.)

She says that, overall, councillors' allowances will not rise - but that is only because this year the Cabinet members have agreed to waive some of their increase.

The GMB union has got involved now. The national office is looking into a judicial review of the way the council took the decision, not giving the required notice for that piece of business.

Shall we try that again? - residents forums next Monday and Tuesday

A quick reminder to residents of Finchley and Golders Green and Hendon that there are Barnet council residents forums next Monday and Tuesday nights. Details:

Golders Green and Finchley: Monday 26 July, 6.30pm, St Michael's Church Hall, Golders Green, NW11 8HL

Hendon: Tuesday 27 July, 6.30pm, Sangam Centre, 210 Burnt Oak Broadway, HA8 OAP

Now, just a warning, if you wanted to raise the issue of council leader and cabinet member allowances increases, the new chair of the Chipping Barnt residents forum, Barry Evangeli, told attendees last week they could not talk about that.

But there's no reason why we should not have a try at the other forums. Force the chairs of those bodies to make the same ruling, if they dare - then we should make an official complaint to the council, because at these forums residents should be allowed to raise any item related to council business.

If they refuse to answer questions on any matter, that's up to them and we are entitled to interpret their silence, but they have no right to stop residents raising questions. Here is the relevant passage in the council's constitution:

Residents Forums perform a consultative and advisory role.

They provide an opportunity for any resident to comment on any aspect of council service, plans and proposals.

Petitions galore as even the Times series takes a stand

One of the local newspapers, the Times series, avoids getting on the wrong side of the council, so it is a mark of how much Barnet's Conservative councillors have offended that the Times series has now launched - very prominently - a petition: Reject the Rise.

Here they explain why. The wording on the petition, which you can sign here, is:

We the undersigned believe councillors should not accept pay rises agreed under the new allowance structure voted in by Barnet Council on July 13, 2010.

We call upon council leader Lynne Hillan to rethink the rise.

Personally, I think the wording on John Dix's petition is better, more concrete (and longer!). You can sign that here.

And Hendon's former MP Andrew Dismore has a petition as well. You can sign that here.

The more the merrier. Will Lynne Hillan take the slightest bit of notice? No, but David Cameron might.

Barnet unions in the news

Austin Harney, the secretary of Barnet trades council, a colleague of mine, is featured in the Times series, commenting on the council leader and cabinet members' allowances hike. Austin says:

The Conservative Party should not hesitate to discipline their members on the cabinet of Barnet Council, and even threaten them with expulsion from the party if these Councillors do not forfeit their latest increases.

The truth is that these Conservative councillors know that they can impose any policy to their whim and still become elected for every term of office.

Yet, the fact remains that if they stood as independents tomorrow, they would easily lose.

Austin calls on

all people working and living in the London Borough of Barnet to petition their three Conservative MPs, and demand that these councillors withdraw their preposterous increases or face expulsion from the Tory Party.

Meanwhile, the GMB union has calculated that "more than £9m in taxes went uncollected by Barnet Council last year":

The council, which needs to save more than £6m after budget cuts this year, failed to gather £9.873m in council tax and business rates in the 2009/10 financial year.

This makes it the fifth worst offender in London after Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, Croydon and Southwark.

Barnet councillors - it's not too late to change your mind!

Dear readers,

please sign this petition set up by John Dix (who stood in the council elections on the Residents' Association of Barnet ticket): http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/barnetcouncilpayrises.

Please ask friends and neighbours to sign. It makes the case for what was wrong with the Conservative councillors' recent decision to drastically increase council leader and cabinet member allowances, and offers a remedy: just revert to the status quo ante.

Over to us to sign, and over to them to change their decision!

Barnet residents banned from discussing what they like at their own forum

Barnet council residents who went along to Chipping Barnet residents' forum this evening hoping they could ask councillors and council officials about anything they like (council related) were disappointed.

The new chair, Barry Evangeli, who has replaced Kate Salinger, removed from her post for abstaining over the now nationally notorious Barnet council leader and cabinet member allowances hike, told residents they could not ask about this topic.

The Barnet Bugle has an early report of this (no, I wasn't there so this is all hearsay!). I'm sure many more details will emerge in the coming days.

What a farce! I wonder whether the same charade will be repeated at the Finchley and Golders Green forum next Monday and Hendon forum next Tuesday.

David Cameron's [I initially typed David Coleman - I wonder why] Big Society won't come to much when this Tory controlled local town hall isn't prepared to explain itself to its own residents on a question of great interest such as this.

In case you can get along, here are the details for those other residents' forums - let's see if our chairs are as brazen as Evangeli:

Finchley and Golders Green - 6.30pm, Monday 26 July, St Michael's Church Hall, Golders Green

Hendon - 6.30pm, Tuesday 27 July, Sangam Centre, Burnt Oak