As soon as the OneWight public meeting had finished earlier today, Government Minister, Mark Harper was whisked off to County Hall, with Sandown Cllr and OneWight campaigner, Ian Ward as his taxi driver.
The purpose of his visit to the head quarters of the Isle of Wight council was to meet with Cabinet Member for the Economy, Tourism, Leisure, Planning and Property, George Brown and council leader, David Pugh.
Cllr Pugh told VB that their discussions touched on the issues outlined in his recent letter to the Prime Minister (see below).
Practicalities of what would happen during an election with the monitoring officer and ballot boxes was also raised, as well as dialogue on the council’s proposal for a Solent LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership).
Pugh’s letter to the Prime Minister
If you haven’t already seen David Pugh’s letter to Primer Minister, David Cameron, here is the unedited version
The Rt Hon David Cameron MP
Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and
Minister for the Civil Service
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA10 August 2010
Dear Prime Minister
PROGRAMME FOR GOVERNMENT / GOVERNANCE AND REPRESENTATION
I am writing, as the Leader of the Isle of Wight Council, to set out how our community can help deliver the Coalition’s Programme for Government. This is coupled with a request that your Government gives consideration to allowing our Island to benefit from flexible governance and representation arrangements.
The Isle of Wight is a distinct local community, with an electorate of just over 110,000, and a resident population of 138,000. We are unique in England and Wales in being the only significant land mass completely separated (unbridged) by sea. With our strong sense of community identity and engagement, there is undoubtedly a strong desire to see greater on-Island accountability for how public services are provided, and also for us to be allocated unshared parliamentary representation.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
The proposal in the above draft legislation that the electorate of any constituency should not be subjected to a variance greater than 5% of the UK electoral quota would leave the Isle of Wight facing the prospect of part of our community sharing a parliamentary representative with the mainland.We have observed the enthusiasm of the OneWight campaign that is currently being promoted across the Island. There appears to be a clear majority view amongst residents in favour of us not sharing an MP with the mainland. There are a few dissenting views, such as those expressed in recent letters to the local media – recognising that we are currently “grossly under-represented in the Commons” and highlighting the potential advantages of our community being served by two MPs (albeit sharing one).
As the local council (with Islandwide governance as a unitary authority), we have not adopted a formal stance on this matter, and would seek to work effectively with whatever arrangements for parliamentary representation are finally agreed. We appreciate that it is norm in other parts of the country for constituency boundaries to cross-cut local authority boundaries, and such scenarios work perfectly well in practice.
However, we do recognise the majority view that our local community appears to be expressing, and I ask that your Government gives consideration to an exemption being applied to the Isle of Wight. It is recognised that such an exemption would leave the Isle of Wight under-represented in Parliament, with our population not receiving a level of representation worthy of its size. However it appears that this is a situation which the majority of Island residents would be comfortable with. I am therefore arguing, on their behalf, for the Island’s right to be under-represented, with just one Member of Parliament to serve the whole community.
Of course, with such an approach would come local responsibilities. Representing such a large population – and one with a diverse range of issues – would place considerable demands on any would-be MP. It would be the responsibility of local political parties to ensure they offer candidates who demonstrate a clear ability to fulfil such a role effectively and competently. I am sure that local parties can rise to such a challenge.
Turning to the proposed legislation, we note that Orkney & Shetland and Na h-Eileanan an Iar have been defined as “preserved constituencies”, and will be exempt from being regularised in line with the UK electoral quota rule. The Deputy Prime Minister described this exemption as being “on the basis of unique geography”. This is a fully understandable rationale, but I would strongly request that the unique geography rule is also applied to our island community. Whilst the Isle of Wight is not as geographically isolated as the aforementioned Scottish islands, we are a community with unique constraints and circumstances, as I have already highlighted further above.
I therefore ask that strong consideration is given to amending the draft Bill when its Second Reading takes place on Monday 6th September, with the following addition at paragraph 9(1)(6)(1)(c), under Schedule 2 – Rules for Distribution of Seats:
“¢ a constituency named the Isle of Wight, comprising the area of the Isle of Wight Unitary Authority. Paragraph 9(1)(2)(3) would then have to be amended to read 597 instead of 598.
Location, governance and management of public services
As I mentioned at the beginning of this letter, the Isle of Wight Council wishes to assist the Coalition in delivering its Programme for Government – and the overall direction of the reforms being proposed is to be welcomed. The focus on empowering communities, individuals and families is absolutely right – however there must still be a local governance framework to co-ordinate the overall provision of public services.Furthermore, this framework must have genuine democratic accountability. There can be no substitute for direct elections within a defined local area such as ours, where the resident population have the opportunity to choose public representatives to oversee the co-ordination of such services.
The other key government theme which we are already delivering on is the commitment to give professionals a greater say in the provision of services. Next year, the Isle of Wight will become the first local authority area in the country to implement a fully commissioned model of secondary schools, with all of our post-11 education being delivered by a mixture of educational trusts, academy providers and diocesan authorities. These bodies bring together community representatives, businesses and education professionals to oversee the future delivery of secondary education. Principal accountability for the performance of these providers will rest with the Isle of Wight Council, with its local democratic mandate.
With all of this in mind, I appeal to your Government to give the Isle of Wight the opportunity to develop a locally unique model for the accountability of a wide range of public services, in line with your overall aspirations for localism and empowerment. The Isle of Wight Council already has one of the widest remits of any local authority in the country – being a unitary county combined with a fire and rescue service. As a small community, we do not have the opportunity to benefit from the significant economies of scale which larger counties and boroughs have available to them when delivering different service areas. Therefore our wide-ranging model only works by focusing on services being delivered in a joined-up, streamlined and efficient manner – sharing resources and overheads right across our breadth of services. It is within this context that I wish to encourage your Government to explore with us the opportunity for further integration of public services, which will achieve greater efficiencies whilst also offering enhanced accountability.
With regard to health and public health, I welcome the statement made by yourself and the Deputy Prime Minister in your recent open letter to Cabinet colleagues, in which you made clear your intention to give “locally elected councillors a say over local NHS services”. Any such move has to go hand-in-hand with giving GPs – the professionals – a greater say, as your Government has made clear. However, with the radical health reforms which have been proposed, your Government is looking to set a minimum size for how the commissioning arrangements are managed. If the formula of what is proposed for public health and provider health services is applied in a uniform manner across the country, the Isle of Wight could end up with health services being overseen from the mainland. We consider that this would be a retrograde step which could dilute the quality of provision being offered to Island residents, and its local accountability to them. In response to this possibility, we are developing a unique model for a combined trust, possibly through social enterprise, that would see such provision combined with LA care services. These ideas are being developed in conjunction with the Cabinet Office and the Department of Health.
Turning to the police reforms, we are currently considering your Government’s proposals, with a view to making a detailed response to the Home Office consultation. Our focus will be to see local accountability strengthened, with an enhanced role for the Isle of Wight community (which is currently served by an Operational Command Unit of the Hampshire Constabulary), in holding future governance and management structures to account. We recognise that the intention to create Police and Crime Panels would allow for this
– and we will be looking to see such bodies established for the Isle of Wight area, to tie in with our Community Safety Partnership and local scrutiny functions. Again, due to the physical limitations of cross- Solent integration, we remain committed to exploring how police functions could be further delivered in closer collaboration with the local authority – and in doing so provide enhanced local accountability at the same time. We will reflect these points in our response to the Home Office consultation.We are also interested in exploring whether responsibilities of the Department for Work & Pensions could be devolved to on-Island management – with the possibility of integrating with our benefit and housing services.
We fully recognise that, in the current climate, these public services can only be affordable and viable at an on-Island level if we find new ways of working – and aspire to pull all such services together to achieve efficiencies under one locally combined organisation. The IW Council is open to the nature of this one organisation (e.g. social enterprise, joint venture); accepting that this is not about local authority control, but about local accountability for services. We believe that our island community is best placed to demonstrate
how radical public service reform can take place at a local level, coupled with enhanced local accountability.Summary
Essentially, we are asking that the unique circumstances of the Isle of Wight are not only taken into account in terms of agreeing how our parliamentary representation is defined, but also when determining how public services are constituted and locally managed. In many ways, the latter issue is of far greater significance than how our parliamentary representation is constituted – and that is certainly our focus as the local authority, given how public services have such a day-to-day impact on the lives of local residents.As a distinct and defined community – by the indisputable physical characteristics that make us an island – we are indicating a willingness to forgo our equitable entitlement to parliamentary representation, but wish instead to essentially receive over-entitlement in terms of which public services are wholly based on and commissioned from the Isle of Wight. We consider that our clearly defined boundaries should be the key measure by which the governance and management of local services are constituted for our community.
Furthermore, I must stress that we do not wish to be an isolated island – and remain strongly committed to working in partnership with others. For example, we have just submitted a Local Enterprise Partnership proposal with our local authority counterparts on the other side of the Solent (with strong private sector involvement). However, our overall focus remains on seeing the governance and management of essential services retained on the Isle of Wight. We wish to make these services more accountable to our active and
engaged community; which certainly aligns with the Coalition Government’s ambitions.We would welcome the opportunity to develop these concepts further with the Department for Communities & Local Government, the Cabinet Office and / or other relevant government departments, and in doing so provide an opportunity for the Coalition Government’s reform agenda being rapidly implemented at a local level. The Isle of Wight has historically been a testbed for new initiatives and unique governance models – a role which we would relish the opportunity to take up with renewed vigour.
Thank you for taking the time to read this detailed letter. I hope that the Isle of Wight can become a strong and effective delivery arm for the Coalition’s Programme for Government.
Yours sincerely
Councillor David Pugh – Leader of the Isle of Wight Council
