Newton's Third Law alive and well on Ynys Môn

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Why local democracy should be restored in Ynys Môn sooner rather than later

After having already leaked over the weekend his intention to postpone the local elections in Ynys Môn to 2013, the Minister for Local Government Carl Sargeant now officially announces that he is "minded" to do so. His full statement is below.

Some have argued that this is no bad thing; the Commissioners are doing such a good job, they say, lets have another year of them.

I'm afraid I'm not so sure and would instinctively prefer to see local democracy restored on Ynys Môn as soon as is feasible. 

Why? Becasue although the Commissioners have undoubtedly brought about some improvements, there is one important area where they are clearly not making headway and that is in finding the savings mandated in the council's Affordable Priorities programme. Ynys Môn must find £10 million savings over four years, and the Affordable Priorities plan — pushed through by our own councillors before the introduction of Commissioners — was an entirely sensible programme to find £3 million in savings this year in a way which avoided cuts to popular services such as leisure centres, swimming pools, libraries and so on. We now know that the council is £1 million behind in finding these savings, which will almost certainly mean deeper cuts affecting popular services will need to be made next year. And now, seeing how the the local elections will be delayed until May 2013, the decisions on what to cut will be made by unelected Commissioners leaving Islanders with no democratic involvement in the process.

By contrast, were the local elections to proceed in Ynys Môn next May (or shortly thereafter), it would have presented the various candidates and parties the ideal opportunity to set out their stall with regards to what they would cut if elected, thus giving the electorate a powerful say in how the cuts are directed. As it stands, however, there will be no opportunity at all for the public to effectively engage until May 2013 and whatever cuts are made in the intrim will not only be deeper because the Commissioners have failed to deliver the necessary savings this year, but will also be decided upon solely by these same unelected 'technocrats' who are answerable to nobody.

(Tangentially, its instructive to learn that one of this year's largest overspends,  £344,000 in the Education budget reportedly relating to supply staff costs during the senseless dispute at Ysgol Goronwy Owen in Benllech, was another episode in which the Commissioners failed to cover themselves in glory as the sorry saga dragged on un-resolved for months.)
Sargeant statement on YM elections

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Anglesey's new electoral map? (Updated)

40 single member wards replaced with 30 multi-member wards, returning 30 councillors
Click to enlarge

The Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales has released their "further review" (after their first effort was scrapped by the Minister) into carving up Ynys Môn — this time into eleven multi-member wards returning a total of 30 councillors. An illustration of how this will change Anglesey's council election map is above. The details are below:

Detailed summary of the proposals
Click to enlarge

These proposals will lead to a reduction in the number of councillors from 40 to 30, resulting in a councillor to electorate ratio of 1:1,649 (up from the current 1:1,237). Considering that seven current councillors (20% of the total) were returned unopposed at the last local elections I am not against a reduction in numbers as this can only improve democracy on the Island, however I would note that a Local Authority of just 30 members would become very vulnerable to being rolled-up within a larger super-authority at some point in the future (e.g. Greater Gwynedd).

What does concern me greatly however is the fact that if these proposals are accepted in their entirety, then Ynys Môn will be the only Local Authority in Wales who's members will be entirely returned by multi-member wards. Why should this be so? Well, because in his direction to the LGBCW, the Local Government Minister Carl Sargeant specifically told them to do so:

Carl Sargeant's specific directions to the Local Government Boundary Commission for Wales

The charitable explanation would be to suppose that Carl Sargeant believes that introducing multi-member wards might help shake certain incumbents out of what could be termed 'rotten boroughs'. The more cynical explanation is to note the eerie similarity between the above direction to the LGBCW for Anglesey, and Welsh Labour's proposals to replace the current arrangements for electing Assembly Members throughout Wales with 30 two-member (i.e. multi-member) constituencies, with all AMs elected first-past-the-post. The Electoral Reform Society had this to say today of those proposals:

...under the system proposed by Labour, the party would have won 11 more seats - 41 instead of 30, giving Labour 70% of the Senedd on 42% of the vote.

 Steve Brooks, Wales director of the Electoral Reform Society, said: "While this may be good news for aspiring Labour candidates, it's bad news for Welsh voters.

  "Two member first-fast-the-post would rob thousands of voters of a choice and voice." 

He said the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats would have less than a third of seats, despite getting more than half the votes in May.

"That would be damaging for democracy and damaging for devolution"

Anyway, the full report from the Local Government Boundary Commission is below. Members of the public have up until January 3rd to have their say, and can do so by emailing: lgbc.wales@wales.gsi.gov.uk

UPDATE: John Dixon, respected former Chair of Plaid Cymru, has just written the following regarding Carl Sargeant's decision to force an entirely new and different electoral system on just Ynys Môn:

"But is it right to have a different approach in one council area from that being implemente deverywhere else, where the main reason for that difference appears to be to facilitate the election of different people? There is no doubt in my mind that the Minister has acted in accordance with the powers conferred upon him, because those powers don’t seem to require that he provides any reason or argument for adopting a different approach in one area, or place any constraints on what considerations he might apply.
And that’s where my concern lies.  There is a dangerous precedent here, under which the Minister has directly interfered in the work of the boundary commission to instruct them to take a particular approach in Ynys Môn,largely because he doesn’t like the result of the elections there.  I don’t like them either – but I’m simply not convinced that rigging the electoral system is the right way to deal with that problem. "

Isle of Anglesey Further Draft Proposals e

Local Democracy on Ynys Môn to be denied for another year

BBC Wales are reporting that next May's local elections to Anglesey Council may be postponed for a year. The BBC merely says it is a possibility, but the fact that someone has decided to sneakily leak the story to the media on a Sunday makes it fairly clear that this has actually been decided.

When the Commissioners were first sent into Ynys Môn back in March this year, the Local Government Minister, Carl Sergeant, floated the possibility that Anglesey wouldn't go to the polls until May 2013 (instead of May 2012 like all other Welsh Councils) in order to allow the Commissioners to complete their work and for new electoral boundaries to be put in place on Ynys Môn. However, since then there has been precious little information about whether to not next year's local elections would go ahead or not. In fact, at a Commissioners Board Meeting held in Llangefni on September 5th (which I attended), the assembled Councillors asked the Commissioners present whether the elections would go ahead on May 3rd, 2012 or not — however farcically none of the Commissioners or Senior Officers knew and the Chief Executive was consequently asked to write to Carl Sergeant to find out.

Since then, nothing had been heard… until now. And instead of having an official announcement that local democracy on Ynys Môn is to be suspended for a further 12 months, we are instead informed through the backdoor thanks to a sneaky leak to the BBC on a Sunday.

++ Serco wins RAF Valley contract ++

RAF Valley staff learned today that Babcock International has lost the Supply, Motor Transport, Workshop and Fire Services contract for the Hawks at Valley. Government services outsourcing firm, Serco Group — which, amongst other things runs hospitals, prisons and local authority education services — will take over Babcock's responsibilities from April 2012 after a six month handover period. Babcock will retain the Aircraft maintenance part of the contract until it comes up again for tender in a couple of years time.

Problems on the HORIZON?

Its being reported today that RWE N.power — one half of Horizon Nuclear Power, the joint venture company behind Wylfa B — is looking to pull out of the UK new nuclear programme because of the huge costs it is having to bear due to the forced closure of nuclear plants in their home market of Germany. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster the German government, under pressure from Germany's historically strong Green Party, decided to close down all of its 17 nuclear reactors by 2022.

It was always clear after the German decision to scrap nuclear power that the sums for Wylfa might begin to look decidedly shaky if the potential to duplicate similar new nuclear plants elsewhere was diminished — especially when you also add into the mix the deteriorating European economic situation. Indeed, this is not the first time that rumours about the demise of Horizon have appeared in the press — back in July the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that both RWE and their other partner, E.On, were on the verge of shelving their UK nuclear projects. More recently there have been further rumours that Horizon had been looking for a third energy company to join the joint venture in order to both generate more investment and spread the risks further.

So, will this stop Wylfa B? My guess is probably not. Why? See the below diagram:

Source: The Economist

The fact is that most nuclear plants (including the current Wylfa reactor) and half of UK's coal plants are due to close over the coming decade meaning that of a total of around 75GW in generating capacity in the UK, 20GW will disappear by 2015. And as the current peak demand is around 65GW and growing, that means that the UK could be facing energy blackouts by as soon as 2015.

So ultimately the fact is that the UK Government needs Wylfa B far more than Horizon needs to build it. Lights will start to go off within a few years so there is no option but for the UK Government to ensure that plants like Wylfa are built, by hook or by crook… 

Anglesey Aluminium: Credit where credit is due

Following yesterday's announcement by Anglesey Aluminium of the preferred bidder for the final parcel of their land in Holyhead, we now know that the Penrhos site, which shed 450 jobs in 2009 when the Aluminium smelter closed, will soon provide for well over double that number of jobs.

This did not happen by accident. The credit for it lies not with the various politicians now queuing up to claim some of the kudos, but with Anglesey Aluminium's Works Director, Brian King. He persuaded the Rio Tinto Board not to take the easy option of a quick land sale to developers and instead resolved to only sell the site on to companies with concerete business plans to create sustainable jobs. 

So just two years on from when Anglesey Aluminium was forced to close, we now know that the site will soon provide work for over 1,000 people. This is a far better 'legacy' for Ynys Môn than Anglesey Labour Party's shortsighted demands that the site be gifted to the Island like the old Shell works at Rhosgoch — a site which incidentally still lies empty more than 20 years later. 

So hats off to Brian King for his vision and resolve to do the right thing by both Holyhead and Ynys Môn.