Camden News
Publications by New Journal Enterprises
spacer
  Home Archive Competition Jobs Tickets Accommodation Dating Contact us
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
spacer
FORUM - Opinion in the CNJ
 

Councillor John Mills
Judge us on our record

Would the Tories, Lib Dems or Greens match Labour’s record in Camden? Not by a long way, argues John Mills

ON May 4 2006, having been first elected in 1971, I shall step down from being a member of Camden Council.
It will be a big wrench to do so. I have loved being involved with local government for 35 years. What are my thoughts as I leave?
The first is to reflect on how important local government still is. How well or badly the council operates has considerable impact on everyone, even those whose only contact with the local authority is having their refuse collected and the streets cleaned.
For many people living in the borough, however, the local authority provides a much wider range of services than this – housing, social services, education, leisure, planning and benefits – and whether they are well or badly run makes a massive difference to their lives.
Over the last decade, Camden has made a huge effort to improve the way the borough is run.
Of course, not everything is as good as it should be but, in an imperfect world, Camden Council has done much better than most other local authorities, gaining a great deal of external recognition in the process.
In my opinion, the calibre of both members and officers in Camden is well above average and they have done a better job than in most other places. It would be nice if this were recognised more widely than it has been.
Second, it makes a lot of difference who is elected in local elections. Both individuals and political priorities have a big impact on what happens and that, because being a councillor is a fairly thankless task, you have to care a lot about the borough to get on the council and then to stay there.
In Camden, it is because of the determination and commitment of the people who have been elected that the borough has, for a long time, been a relatively highspending authority but with an exceptionally wide spread and depth of services.
Of course, the downside is complaints about the level of Council Tax but the upside has a lot to do with what makes Camden such a desirable place to live – much better than average council facilities and a lot more money spent on keeping the community together than in many other places. If this is what most people want, surely they should be entitled to vote for it.
Third, I think we are all lucky in Camden that we have a community which is exceptionally interested in what is going on and thus heavily involved.
From tenants’ associations to environmental pressure groups, from those concerned with education issues to people involved in every nook and cranny of the voluntary sector, there is a huge amount of interest in what the council does.
This makes the life of councillors – and officers – both harder work but also a lot more interesting and rewarding. How do you balance the interests of car owners with pedestrians – let alone the environment and the frustration of traffic congestion? How should scarce social housing vacancies be allocated?
What criteria should be used to decide who should go to which school? Finding fair and acceptable ways of dealing with all the conflicting interests involved in tackling these sorts of issues is difficult, but very satisfying when it works out right.
It is nice to see that the extensive survey evidence we have shows that more and more people in the borough think that the council pays attention to their needs, even if they cannot always be satisfied.
What, therefore, do I hope will happen on May 4? Of course, I hope that there will continue to be a Labour-controlled council – but also something more. When the votes are cast, I hope that they will be a judgement on what has been done locally.
The forthcoming elections are not about the Iraq War or identity cards or national changes to the way education is organised.
They are – or ought to be – about whether the Conservatives or Lib Dems or even the Greens would do a better job running Camden Council than Labour. In my view, the record of the last decade suggests that any of them would have a struggle to match, let alone to beat Labour’s local record.

• Cllr John Mills is a veteran Labour councillor and the Town Hall’s former finance chief.
 
spacer














spacer


Theatre Music
Arts & Events Attractions
spacer
 
 


  up