22 November 2006
Sheffield Green Party has condemned the waste of £45,000 of council taxpayers money on a propaganda exercise.
Spokesperson Eamonn Ward commented :
"'Your Council, Your Say' is a cynical exercise engineered to produce the results the Labour administration want so they can say 'You told us you wanted us to .' Just 9200 Sheffielders, or 2% of the population, bothered to reply despite the big marquee and the opportunity to vote as often as you liked. People were given just 46 words of background information on which to decide how to respond to three loaded questions and were given no information on the costings of implementing each response. This undemocratic exercise does not provide any sort of mandate.
"This deliberately flawed consultation has been used to drive through Labour 's preferred actions rather than find out the real concerns of the public. It will add to the disillusionment with politics that keeps people away from the ballot box. It has wasted hundreds of hours of councillors' and council officers' time that could have been much better spent. Worst of all, it has wasted £45,000 of council taxpayers' money. Now we are told that 2007 will bring more "Your Council, Your Say". That's more propaganda, more loaded questions and more waste of council taxpayers money"
Cllr Creasy added, "Councillors from all parties listen to people every day of the week. We do surgeries, take on case work, attend local meetings. Some of us are out door knocking to seek people's views on a regular basis. We do our best to act on people's concerns and to influence policies. The "Your Council Your Say" exercise reduces the democratic process to three loaded questions chosen by the ruling group to back up their existing policies. The answers were entirely predictable and add nothing to our understanding of how to make Sheffield a better place for us all to live.
"The majority of people want the council to crack down on antisocial behaviour, but I also meet people who would like more funding for youth work and to save Surestart (which supports parents). People tell me they want to recycle more but their only experience of it in Sheffield is blue bins blocking the pavements and long journeys to an overflowing bottle bank. If they had been clearly offered the option of a regular doorstep collection of all recyclables, their response might have been very different. Politicians should help young people and make it easier to be ecofriendly. We need alternative solutions, not just more punishment."
ENDS
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NOTES : 1. The £45,000 cost was an estimate based on the expected level of response as detailed by Bob Kerslake below in response to a request from Cllr Bernard Little :
"The cost of this exercise is expected to be approximately £45,000. This figure is not yet an exact figure, as the final cost will depend on the number of completed questionnaires that are returned ie the cost of analysing the questionnaires is directly related to the number of questionnaires we receive. We will not have a final figure for returned questionnaires until the deadline of 31 August. The figure of £45,000 is at the higher end of the expected costs, and represents a cost per household of less than 20 pence (based on 229,000 households), and a cost per person of less than nine pence (based on a population of 513,000). "
2. The following was submitted by Eamonn Ward and printed in the Viewpoint column on August 24th :
The ongoing "Gridlock City" debate has been valuable for the city. Sheffielders were able to get across their views and give details of problem hot spots via the Star. The issues are now out in the open and both the council and the public know what they must deliver on. It was a genuine public consultation.
Now we have another, very different, consultation "Your Council, Your Say". Labour promises "together, we can find the right answers" to key issues in the city but close examination shows they are not listening, only going through the motions.
The exercise is neither democratic nor statistically reliable. There is one leaflet per household but piles at council reception desks, so it's not one response per person. There is no convenient postcard to return, immediately cutting the response rate. There is no requirement to give your address so it can't be analysed by area. It says "we would like to hear your views and ideas on any other aspect of council services" but gives no space to write your comments. Most importantly, the questions are loaded to produce the results the council want so they can say "You told us.".
There are just forty six words of background information on which to base our responses to three questions. How can you possibly give credible answers without information on, for instance, costings ?. We are asked if we want to reduce black bin collections to pay for more recycling. Full doorstep recycling would drastically reduce the amount of waste in our black bins - this it is not an either/or situation. Of course, the Veolia contract and the incinerator severely limit funding for reduce, re-use, recycling schemes and provide no possibility of full doorstep recycling but the council are not going to tell us that. The unnecessary and inflexible Veolia "big box" strategy has also alienated many people who struggle to find room for the bins.
Question three asks should we crack down even harder on anti - social behaviour ?. The council are well aware there will be an overwhelming yes vote but where will the funding come from ?. And how much would a better youth service and projects to support community cohesion cost ?.
I had my say at the South Area Panel where Cllr Bryan Lodge, Cabinet Advisor for Streetscene and Green Spaces, surprised me by going into great detail and outlining numerous other questions the council wanted us to answer. I asked him where the opportunity to answer these "other" questions was in "Your City, Your Say" and why he was giving us the background information that 99% of Sheffielders were being denied. Were a few hundred people attending Area Panels expected to go out and brief the rest of the population on the council's behalf ? At this point the chair of the meeting stopped me, advising "this is not a debate" - an accurate summing up !.
"Your Council, Your Say" will cost the council approximately £45,000 - more if there is a high response rate. It took me one minute to work out this was a "design the questions to ensure we get the response we want" exercise. It exploits the dwindling number of people who think someone in authority might actually want to listen to and act on the views of council taxpayers. It does nothing to help the disillusionment with politics that keeps people away from the ballot box. This is not consultation with the council's key stakeholders, the people of Sheffield. It is simply Labour propaganda paid for by council taxpayers.
ENDS
Published and Promoted by Graham Wroe for Sheffield Green Party at 62 Penthorpe Close, Sheffield, S12 2GU