Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-299)
17 SEPTEMBER 2003
CLLR DAVID
JONES, CLLR
HOWARD SYKES,
ANDREW KILBURN
AND ANDREW
FLETCHER
Q280 Chris Mole: Only one or two?
Does that suggest you are not doing it enough?
Mr Kilburn: It might be. It is
an issue we could look at.
Q281 Chris Mole: Have you gathered
any information on public perceptions in Oldham of community cohesion?
I gather that some of the pathfinder workers have begun to survey
some of these issues?
Mr Fletcher: It is a subject for
our next quarterly citizen's panel survey and the results of that
can be available in November. Obviously, that ties into the work
that the Home Office have been doing on community cohesion indicators.
We are very involved in that and use it in our thinking.
Cllr Sykes: There is also some
information that is beginning to come out from housing, not necessarily
about community cohesion but about how people regard themselves,
where they live, their neighbourhood and however they define that,
be it their street, their small geographical area, their town
or village, and their relationship with the borough and I think
there will be some very powerful messages which will confirm things
in that. That is another key part to the earlier questions from
the Chairman that will feed through to that.
Cllr Jones: Just coming back to
the comments you made about a few letters perhaps indicating we
had not got the message across, the letters are a misapprehension
by people that community cohesion is integration-led. The fact
is that it is not integration-led in Oldham, and therefore the
vast majority of people understand what you are attempting to
do through community cohesion, matters like building community
confidence. It is those people who misunderstand the process who
write the letters and I think we have been successful in that
we have so few letters on that issue.
Q282 Chris Mole: The suggestion I
was alluding to was that most council newspapers feel they need
to be entirely balanced and perhaps this is an area where you
need to be more proactive in what you are saying than otherwise
might be the case, which leads me on to the next question. Ritchie
was fairly critical, making assertions such as the council not
facing up to the stark reality of ethnic division and suggesting
that even since the riots the debate has not been taking place
within the council. Do the elected councillors feel that the council
has an important role to play in promoting cohesion through its
political and community leadership, and how have you responded
to that?
Cllr Jones: If you are keeping
to timetable we will be rushing away at four o'clock to a council
cohesion hour because that is one of the things that we have introduced.
In terms of leading cohesion within the local authority and politically,
I have taken on the portfolio on cohesion and so has the Chief
Executive in terms of officers, and so we have the lead of the
Chief Executive and the members and officers who are responsible.
We have brought in the community cohesion hour, we have changed
the way in which we scrutinise the processes and we have changed
the scrutiny process to make sure that this is part and parcel
of everything that we do, but it is not an add-on that you do
when you write a report, "What am I going to put in as the
community cohesion issues that are here?". It is something
that, like the writing through a stick of Blackpool rock, runs
through the whole of everything that we do.
Cllr Sykes: You referred to Ritchie.
We could get into a bit of a debate about some of his conclusions
which I think were based on some thin evidence, but we are where
we are. There is a much more honest debate now and I do not think
there was a lack of unwillingness by people to debate the issue.
I think there was a fear in many people's ignorance of not understanding
the issue and being frightened of causing offence and I think
that was equally true amongst the elected members. The best debates
we have ever had in my 16 years on the council were post-Ritchie,
when we had some very full and frank discussions, as you would
expect, sometimes in open, sometimes in closed, about this, and
I think that has begun to permeate into other organisations where
we can at least talk about it. That is half the battle that we
have got in this borough, that people do not feel frightened or
threatened and that they can talk about some of these issues which
are the concerns for them and their families. I think we have
moved on beyond that now. There is an expectation out there that
people want to see things delivered and changed. The first thing
you have to do is create that climate and I think we are well
on the way to doing that now, just from the number of people who
speak to you in the pub about this, whereas perhaps beforehand
they would not because they might have been frightened they would
get a flea in their ear. I am not saying they are the most informed
people in the world sometimes but it is there and it has created
that climate.
Q283 Chris Mole: The council has
clearly been under a great deal of scrutiny during the last two
years following the disturbances, and of course through the comprehensive
performance assessment process that everyone gets subjected to.
What internal changes has the authority made as a result of these
processes?
Mr Kilburn: Significant. A completely
new management team has been appointed. We have moved to a position
where internally issues around race and quality are that much
more centre stage. There is a much broader training programme
for all the staff. There are management development courses where
community cohesion is a central element being planned, and we
have looked at the way in which we organise a whole variety of
other activities and, as the leader has talked about, there is
the overview of scrutiny. We now have a Community Cohesion and
Diversity Overview and Scrutiny Committee that focuses particularly
on the sorts of issues that are in front of us. We have made a
significant number of changes in that area.
Q284 Chris Mole: So you hope that
you will move away from the criticism of being more compliant
than creative? You say you are changing your culture, style and
behaviour; you are attempting self-change, etc?
Mr Kilburn: We have responded
to two years of intense scrutiny and we have had some very hard
messages, some of which we have accepted and taken on the chin,
some of which, as has been indicated, we may take issue with.
Q285 Chairman: You took some issue
with Ritchie. What about the comprehensive performance assessments?
Do you think they were wrong? They virtually had you in the relegation
zone, did they not?
Mr Kilburn: We emerged as a weak
authority, along with two others in Greater Manchester and a number
of others. In broad terms we accept the outcome of that. The corporate
governance inspection in terms of some of the issues did not give
us sufficient credit but there is absolutely no merit in arguing
the toss about issues such as this. You have to get on and respond.
We have produced an improvement plan, we have got a clear set
of objectives for the next 12 months, we have already achieved
a number of those and we will go on and achieve the rest. We have
got a clear objective thereafter to be a good authority in three
y ears, and an excellent one in five. That runs through our whole
set of objectives. I believe that we have heard the messages and
learned the lessons.
Q286 Chris Mole: The Audit Commission
said that there was a mismatch between the council's expectations
of support from the Government and that available. What was that
all about?
Mr Kilburn: As with many authorities,
we were making the point about our ability to tackle certain problems
within the resources available to us, and that is not an unusual
point for a public authority to make in tackling a range of issues,
and I think that is what gave rise to that.
Q287 Chris Mole: So when you came
out of the CPA process weak you received support from the Office
of the Deputy Prime Minister. Has that proved effective?
Mr Kilburn: Yes. We have had contact
with a range of officials from there and one of them indeed chairs
the improvement board which is due to meet on Monday to go through
the progress that we are making. We found the response of the
ODPM positive and helpful, and certainly when we went to see the
Minister we found a Minister who was not well briefed but had
clearly briefed himself, had read the documentation and quizzed
us in some significant detail and made it clear that this was
an issue of considerable interest, so I do not think we would
take issue with any of the support from the ODPM.
Q288 Chairman: Can I take you on
to the council as an employer and service provider? You are one
of the largest employers in the town, are you not? Why did you
decide that you needed a new equality and diversity policy?
Mr Kilburn: Because we were operating
against a background of something that was historic, that had
not moved on, and we also needed to reflect legislative change
in the 2000 Act. There was a variety of reasons there and as we
looked at the pattern of employment in the borough and the nature
of our own workforce it was clear that we needed to take some
steps.
Q289 Chairman: How long had the old
policy been in place?
Mr Kilburn: I could not honestly
tell you. Probably since the early nineties.
Q290 Chairman: So why had not someone
looked at it before someone had to come in from outside basically
and tell you to do something?
Mr Kilburn: I think we had reviewed
it and we had changed elements of it. What we had not done was
take a wholesale review of it.
Q291 Chairman: But you were the Chief
Executive, were you not?
Mr Kilburn: I was, yes.
Q292 Chairman: Do you not feel some
responsibility?
Mr Kilburn: Inevitably you feel
some responsibility. I would not seek to duck that. There was
a whole range of issues there, some of which were being tackled
at the time and some of which were brought to our attention.
Q293 Chairman: What are you now doing
to make sure that the council workforce reflects the local community
more effectively?
Mr Kilburn: We are looking at
the way in which we recruit. We are looking at the form of advertising
that we undertook. We are looking at the way in which we train
not only those people who are responsible for the recruitment
process but also managers across the piste. The figures quoted
in the independent review certainly were wrong in terms of the
complexion of the workforce.
Q294 Chairman: What is the correct
figure?
Mr Kilburn: The actual figure
is 5.6, which is some way short of the 14 per cent ethnic minority
population in the borough but is significantly better than the
two per cent that was quoted in that report.
Q295 Mr Clelland: What have you looked
at in terms of good practice from other local authorities, and
if you have come across good practices which have you adopted?
Mr Kilburn: We have been working
with the Improvement Development Agency. We have looked at particular
areas. I suppose if you take one, we are looking currently at
our IT and are working with Kirklees who have invested significantly
in recent years in ways that we need to do. The advantage of that
is that they have clearly had some difficulties in certain areas
and we can learn from them. In terms of some of the wider community
issues, Leicester were here earlier and referred to the detailed
report that was undertaken on their behalf. We are going through
that and trying to see if there are lessons and issues there for
us. In each area we are trying to explore best practice for those
two examples.
Q296 Mr Clelland: Do you think you
receive the support you need as a shadow pathfinder area?
Mr Kilburn: In terms of community
cohesion?
Q297 Mr Clelland: Yes.
Mr Kilburn: I do not think shadow
pathfinder means a great deal, to be honest. In terms of the issues
we face had we been a pathfinder it would have been beneficial,
but being first reserve in that particular game was not helpful.
Q298 Mr Clelland: How could it be
improved?
Mr Kilburn: I think you have either
to be a pathfinder or not. It is as simple as that. People were
trying to soften the blow but ultimately you either receive the
money or you do not.
Q299 Mr Clelland: More generally,
what would you like the various government departments and agencies
do to help you deliver?
Mr Kilburn: I think there is an
increased recognition of the longstanding problems that we face.
We have tackled the issues in terms of starting to build confidence
with government. I do not want to appear repetitive but it does
seem to me that the Housing Market Renewal Fund, in terms of both
the scale of resources and the longevity of the programme, is
precisely the way that we need to go. Ideally what we would be
doing would be preparing a programme of activity for Oldham across
the range of activities in which we are involved and submitting
that for approval rather than the still very bitty lines of funding
for which one is continually applying. Weaving those together
to make sense is not the easiest thing to do. By way of example,
we had a meeting with the Crime and Disorder Executive last Friday
and we took a report on the funding. One could either view it
as a masterpiece in terms of the way that we have drawn funding
from 27 different sources or a complete dog's breakfast in terms
of trying to deliver some sensible and central objectives. I am
an optimist; I take the former view. We are getting on with it,
but it is not a sensible way to fund what is obviously a key objective
for us.
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