What the Tories say – and what they really mean

Posted on May 5th, 2010 by Jeremy Cliffe

“We all know that the easiest thing in the world is for an opposition party to blithely talk about all the efficiency savings we will make in government: how we will streamline public spending […] with a few well-chosen cuts that miraculously deliver substantial savings without harming public service delivery at all.” – David Cameron, 2008

“The Conservatives claim that the spending cuts can, in effect, be rendered painless by efficiency savings that they say their advisers have identified.” – Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2010

The Tories like to boast of their proposal for a £12 billion cut to National Insurance. The cost of the cut, so they claim, is to be met by painless ‘efficiency savings’: “no-one will be worse off” says Osborne; “no plan to cut jobs” says Hammond; “no cuts to frontline services” says Cameron.

Many beg to differ. The economist Howard Reed has calculated that the planned spending reductions could lead to 75,000 job losses, fifty-eight leading economists say that the NI cut would “lead directly to job losses and indirectly to further falls in spending through the standard multiplier process”, whilst the Chairman of Standard Life recently argued that the Tory proposals would “damage the services people rely on in times such as these”. It has also been suggested that if the Conservatives win tomorrow they will have to resort to a VAT rise to fund the NI cut – lowering a progressive tax by increasing a highly regressive one; in relative terms, taking from the poor and giving to the rich. Painless cuts will not suffice. As Cameron himself put it in 2008, promises of ‘sweeping savings’ and ‘efficiency drives’ are “the oldest trick in the book”.

Over the past months, Tory Stories has revealed example after example of Tories in local government pulling that very trick. The pattern is well established: vague electoral pledges to remove ‘frills’ and ‘waste’ give way to savage cuts to essential services, often accompanied by a remarkably casual approach to truly unnecessary spending:

Nottinghamshire Conservatives last year promised ‘efficiencies’ under a ‘business administration’ that would “make sure that people are cared for”. They have gone on to sell off thirteen residential homes, increase charges for meals-on-wheels and home care, and cut community transport, welfare rights advice and extra-curricular activities, all whilst hiring a new council spin doctor, redecorating council offices and cutting top band tax by some £100/year.

Surrey Conservatives promised to ‘pursue efficiencies’ whilst concentrating on ‘quality of life’. Yet they have drastically increased spending on publicity (by £1.1 million in 2007-8 alone), frozen the wages of the lowest paid council staff and, in pursuit of ‘maximum savings’, will shortly discontinue a popular school bus scheme. The former CEO last year attacked the council’s “obsession with the control of inputs and resources […] mistaken for a focus on efficiency” and described councillors’ attitude as “private sector good – public sector, bad”.

Hammersmith & Fulham Conservatives used their 2006 manifesto to stress their ‘compassionate’ credentials, pledging ‘value for money services’, cuts to ‘bloated, unnecessary bureaucracy’ and an explicit promise not to charge for home care. On taking control, ‘Cameron’s favourite council’ promptly introduced eye-watering charges for home care, meals-on-wheels and childcare, sold off twelve homeless shelters, closed down youth clubs, community centres and a school and turned a public park into a private polo field.

Westminster Conservatives have declared war on ‘red tape’, promising to ‘become even more efficient’ and ‘retain and improve services rather than cut indiscriminately’. These pledges sit uncomfortably alongside the council’s record of cutting council housing maintenance, 500 council jobs (including neighbourhood policing) and support for voluntary groups, all whilst lavishing millions on a council tax freeze, a £3 million spin budget, a £1 million council website, ‘hospitality’ costs and bonuses for top officials.

Barnet Conservatives last year unveiled its ‘easyCouncil’ strategy. The savage cuts to almost every area of council provision have been presented in the language of ‘targeted intervention’, ‘no-frills’, ‘cheap and cheerful’ ‘flexible’, ‘responsive’, ‘a relentless drive for efficiency’ and ‘consumer choice’. The rhetoric is new and painless, but the policies are not: service cuts for the vulnerable and tax cuts for the rich.

No politician speaks this language of ‘efficiencies’, ‘frills’ and ‘targeted intervention’ better than David Cameron, whose own atavistic priorities fit seamlessly into the above pattern. It all amounts to a slight of hand, obfuscating the rank transfer of goods and services from the poor to the rich. It is the vulnerable who benefit the least from council tax cuts but depend the most on the home care, youth clubs and bus services so often culled to fund them. In the same measure, it is the vulnerable who will benefit the least from Cameron’s inheritance tax cut, marriage tax break and National Insurance cut but depend the most on the public services due to be offloaded onto the voluntary sector in the name of the ‘Big Society’. As Cameron so accurately put it to his party’s councillors in 2007: “You demonstrate Conservative government – your values, your achievements, represent our party in action.”

If you only read one thing today…

Posted on May 5th, 2010 by Jeremy Cliffe

… read this article by Johann Hari in today’s Independent. Here are some excerpts:

In 2006, a group of rebranded “compassionate Conservatives” beat Labour for control of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, a long stretch of west London. George Osborne says the work they have done since then will be a “model” for a new Conservative government, while Cameron has singled them out as a council he is especially “proud” of.

[...]

The Conservative administration was determined to shrink the size of the state and cut taxes as an end in itself. Rather than pay for it by taking more from the people in the borough with the most money, they slashed services for the broke and the broken first. After the homeless, they turned to help for the disabled. In their 2006 manifesto, the local Conservatives had given a cast-iron guarantee: “A Conservative council will not reintroduce home-care charging”. It was a totemic symbol of leaving behind Thatcherism: they wouldn’t charge the disabled, the mentally ill or the elderly for the care they needed just to survive.

Within three months, the promise was broken. Debbie Domb, 51, is a teacher who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. She had to give up work, and now she needs 24/7 care. After being lifted up by a large metal harness and placed in her wheelchair so she can talk to me, she explains: “This was always such a great place to live if you were disabled. You were really treated well. Then this new council was elected and it’s been so frightening… The first thing that happened when they came in was that they announced any disabled person they assessed as having ‘lower moderate’ needs was totally cut off. So people who needed help having a shower, or getting dressed, had that lifeline taken away completely. Then they started sending the rest of us bills.

[...]

And in this boarded-up youth club, in Debbie’s panic, in the image of Jane and her bump on the floor of the park, I realise I am peering into the reality of David Cameron’s “Big Society”. The council here told people that if they took away services like this, there would be volunteers; if the state withered away, people would start to provide the services for each other. But nobody opened their home to Jane, or volunteered to feed Debbie, or started a new youth club on their own time and with their own money. The state retreated and the service collapsed. It’s a rebranding trick. The Conservatives know that shutting down public services sounds cruel, while calling for volunteerism sounds kind – but the effect is exactly the same.

[...]

So what is Cameron so proud of here? There seems to be only one answer: in this area the Tories have managed to cut council tax by 3 per cent. They’ve given back about £20 a year to somebody on an average income, and about four times more to a rich person. That’s why, when Cameron was challenged about what has happened here, he said: “When I look at the record of what the Conservatives have done here in Hammersmith and Fulham, far from being embarrassed as the Conservative leader, I’m proud of what they’re doing.” As I heard this, I remembered that earlier this year Cameron’s close friend and shadow cabinet member Ed Vaizey said Cameron is “much more Conservative than he acts, or than he is forced to be by political exigency”. The principles that run through Cameron’s politics seem to become visible at last, as clear and as stark as the Westway on the Hammersmith skyline: tax cuts, whatever the social cost.

Is wielding the Hammersmith hammer really worth it? Is cutting taxes by a fraction justified if it means abandoning the most desperate people – the homeless, the disabled, the poor? Is that who we want to be? The last time I see her, Debbie Domb tries to move a little in her chair – painfully, slowly – and says: “People should look at what they have done to us in Hammersmith. This is what Cameron and Osborne want to do to Britain. They say so. Remember, the people running this council said before they were elected that they were compassionate Conservatives. I can see the Conservatism. Where’s the compassion?”

Cameron’s campaign tour, aka The Labour Achievements Roadshow

Posted on April 14th, 2010 by Jeremy Cliffe

Last Friday David Cameron visited SPEAR, a youth charity in Hammersmith. A slick and media-savvy event, the visit formed the backdrop to his party’s Big Society plan, which, so its manifesto claims, envisions the state taking action to “agitate for, catalyse and galvanise social renewal”.

Yet rather than speaking of Cameron’s nebulous aspirations to ‘mend our broken society’, the event stood to exemplify the strength of community engagement under Labour. Tory Stories has found that SPEAR is in fact a direct beneficiary of Labour’s support for the voluntary sector.

The charity is a project of St Paul’s Centre, a faith-based education group in West London that provides work experience, training and careers advice for those aged 16-24. Founded in 2003, the centre has benefited from a panoply of Third Sector initiatives introduced by Labour: it is funded by Connexions (- launched by the government in 2000 -), the Community Cycling Fund (- introduced by Ken Livingstone in 2003 -) and the Youth Capital Fund (- part of the ‘Youth Matters’ programme described by Tory MP Edward Heathcoat-Armory as an ‘utter waste’ of money -).

SPEAR has also received operational support from Jobcentre Plus (- launched by Labour in 2002 -) as well as ongoing funding from the Urban Partnership Group (- itself funded by the Learning and Skills Council, the London Development Agency and SureStart, all established by the current government -).

This case well underlines the growth of the Third Sector under Labour: full time employment in the sector is up almost 25% on 2000, whilst UK charities’ income over the same period has increased by 40%, thanks in no small part to Labour’s extension of gift aid, the Charities Act and the Hardship Fund. The level of charitable giving in the UK is now the highest in Europe, whilst the proportion of the population doing some voluntary work, having fallen from 51% in 1991 to 48% in 1997, had climbed to 59% by 2007. Small wonder, then, that an investigation by the Economist magazine found that “The evidence supporting the existence of a “broken society” is thin indeed”, and that a recent poll by Third Sector magazine showed that charity professionals overwhelmingly support Labour over the Tories:

Third Sector Magazine, 8/1/10

It is just as well that Hammersmith’s young people can rely on SPEAR. The borough’s Tory council (known as ‘Cameron’s favourite town hall’ and a ‘policy test bed’ for the party) has sold off schools, community centres and youth clubs, cut the youth budget by £500,000 and turned a local park into a private polo field, all whilst lavishing £5 million on rebranding, £35 million on new council offices and further millions on 16% pay rises for top officials. It has also been slammed by local charities for selling off a community building used by no fewer than 22 different voluntary groups. Responding to the protests, the council said that the building was ‘surplus to requirements’.

In any case, Labour will be grateful to Mr Cameron for drawing attention to the government’s achievements in this way. After all, the SPEAR visit was not an isolated case. Over the past week the Tory leader has visited Leeds City Museum (admission free under Labour) and Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital (the first new hospital in the city for over 60 years, representing £545 million of NHS investment), launching his party’s manifesto in Wandsworth, the London borough in which unemployment has fallen most relative to the last recession (from 19,025 in 1992 to 6,641 in 2009).

Where will Cameron go next? There is no shortage of options. A new SureStart centre perhaps?  The Scottish Parliament? The Disability Rights Commission? Keep track of his Labour Achievements Roadshow here.

Proof that Tory spending confusion goes right to the roots

Posted on February 3rd, 2010 by Joe Laking

Over the past week there has been some confusion as to exactly what Cameron’s plans for the economy are. If the Tories win the next election would there be an emergency budget to identifyimmediate public spending cuts or has Cameron come round to the idea that immediate cuts would damage the recovering economy? The confusion over spending plans goes far beyond the central party, Tory run councils seem no clearer on their priorities…

North Somerset Council is looking to make savings; they have discussed commissioning service providers to run the Playhouse, tourist information services and leisure centres. It has been announced that plans for a flagship residential home for those suffering from dementia, promised in 2005 to replace the closing Poppyfields Residential Home, will not go ahead owing in part to the economic downturn.

However the economic downturn has had no effect on their plans to relocate council employees to a new building, a move that will cost the council an estimated £16m (pdf file). This move involves closing non-Town Hall offices in Weston-Super-Mare, affecting an estimated 883 members of staff. On 14 Jan, in spite of several interventions from concerned members of the public, thecouncil approved the plans to purchase the new site, borrowing roughly £14m for the move.

The council has yet to confirm whether any redundancies are to be made, there has been an ongoing dispute between the executive and a local newspaper about this issue. Whatever the eventual decision, the council’s actions have left a lot of employees feeling pretty insecure about their employment situation. The lack of clarity in Conservative Party policy, from national to local, is worrying.

Ombudsman slams H&F council as pregnant domestic violence victim is forced to sleep in park

Posted on January 28th, 2010 by Stephen Cowan

When David Cameron came to Hammersmith & Fulham recently he told locals that “when I look at the record of what the Conservatives have done here in Hammersmith and Fulham, far from being embarrassed as the Conservative Leader, I’m proud of what they’re doing”.

Last Thursday the Local Government Ombudsman condemned H&F Council and determined it must pay compensation to a pregnant woman fleeing domestic violence, after Cameron’s ‘flagship’ local authority refused to provide her with support and temporary accommodation. The terrified woman was later found seeking shelter in a park.

The Ombudsman found that “she was not provided with the level of support and assistance she could reasonably expect as a person who was homeless and in priority need”. You can read the Ombudsman’s report here.

The sharp practices detailed by the Ombudsman are a now regular occurrence and go some way to explaining why H&F Council only accepts less than half the numbers of homeless people it had under Labour back in 2006. Regular readers of my blog will recall how the Conservative Administration tightened acceptence criteria so that more homeless people would be turned away.

A leading Conservative Councillor gave an insight to the attitude being taken behind this policy change when he described the homeless as a “law and order issue” while explaining why he had banned the BBC and Crisis from running a Christmas shelter. The Tory Administration has also cut funding to local homeless charities and sold off twelve homeless hostels.

I have written to those responsible seeking a full explanation about this case and called for a review of the policies that brought it about. I will let you know when I get a response.

Are Nottinghamshire County Council’s cuts purely ideological?

Posted on January 12th, 2010 by Ravi Subramanian

Nottinghamshire County Council’s controversial 2010/11 budget proposals have already been documented by Tory Stories. And not only do these proposals target the most vulnerable; they are also largely unnecessary. The Conservative-led council claims that there is a £33m budget gap, yet UNISON has shown has that alternative measures would close at least £24m of this gap without the proposed cuts.

Firstly, raising council tax by a modest 3 per cent would raise £9m. The weekly cost would be 46p for a Band A house rising to £1.37 for a Band H house. Under the current proposals, in contrast, many vulnerable people will be forced to pay over £10 per week more in charges.

Secondly, there is a predicted under-spend this year of £10.4m. The council has decided to put £5.4m of this into reserves. It could use the full £10.4m to protect vital services.

Thirdly, the council has reserves of over £150m, of which £24m is unallocated. Reserves are there to help in hard times, and in a recession public services are needed more, not less. The council could use £2m of its reserves to avoid public service cuts.

Fourthly, the council spent over £19m on agency workers last year; the highest spend of all East Midlands councils. If it implemented proper management measures it could easily save 10 per cent, which comes to £1.9m.

Fifthly, the council’s predictions assume that there will be no increase to the council tax base, i.e. the increase in revenue because of newly built homes. Growth of new homes has slowed dramatically, but it has not stopped. Using nationally available figures we predict a modest growth in the tax base of 0.5 per cent. This gives an additional £1.5m.

Sixthly, the council created extra cabinet posts after the June elections and recently advertised for a new communications role. Scrapping these unnecessary posts would save over £130,000.

The above items come to over £24m. We are still working on our proposals and we believe we can identify at least another £3m. It is not yet too late for the council to change its proposals; the final budget decision is not until 25 February, and the public consultation is open until 22 January. If it does not take up these opportunities to close the budget gap, we will have to assume that the cuts are purely ideological, something that would also reveal a lot about David Cameron’s plans for the country. Time will tell.

Brighton and Hove City Council – failing to deliver vital services

Posted on January 6th, 2010 by Nancy Platts

Britain’s population is ageing.  As a result the care that the Government provides for the elderly is going to become a more and more pressing issue as time passes. Even if it cannot be agreed on whether the Government should take on more responsibility for the provision of care, surely it should go without saying that cutting current levels of adult social care is a bad idea?

The Tories became the largest single party on the Brighton and Hove City Council in the local elections in 2007; before that the Labour Party had either been in overall control of the council or at least formed the executive. Since the Tories have been in control of the council the standard of adult social care has slipped according to several reports (see the CSCI reports from when Labour controlled the Council, compared to 2007-08).

The Council report on adult social care and health services notes that: “The outcome of these various judgements is that the Council has been judged to be 2 Star overall as against 3 Star in the previous two years”. In spite of this the Tories continue to slip the possibility of front line service cuts into reports.

Worse than the reports hinting at the Tories’ dark intentions is the most recent budget. This budget outlines cuts that have threatened 160 jobs: in all 51 jobs from the Adult Social Care and Health Department were singled out in the December Cabinet Paper leaving it the worst affected department so far (the full 160 jobs likely to be cut are identified on p.13).

When something as important as adult social care is getting worse you would not expect those in charge to make significant and damaging cuts to the Adult Social Care and Health department; yet here we have the Conservatives of Brighton and Hove City Council doing just this. Once again cuts hitting the most vulnerable in society in order to make savings that will benefit the richest most.

The Tory ‘ideological’ revolution: more spin, less swim

Posted on January 2nd, 2010 by Jeremy Cliffe

“Like any distinctively Conservative discourse, Cameron Conservatism is radically pragmatic rather than radically dogmatic” – Oliver Letwin, 2007

In May 2008 ‘Cameron Conservatives’ in Southampton ousted the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition on the city’s council. Alec Samuels became the new council leader, and in October that year outlined his party’s ‘Southampton Revolution’: “We do not in principle favour “free this and free that”, eg swimming or transport, school means or computers or whatever it is”, he wrote, adding: “For ideological reasons we are going for outsourcing, externalisation, privatisation, wherever possible and sensible” and “Unless we have a pressing need for retention, we are disposing of assets”. In line with David Cameron’s aspiration to unload service provision onto the voluntary sector, he defined charitable organisations as a low-cost alternative to the public sector: “but for [the voluntary sector] the local authority would have to provide the service, which would be not so good and more expensive”.

Samuels and his team wasted little time in rolling out their ‘ideological’ revolution. Within weeks of the election the new council was arguing that its “capacity to undertake effective media liaison is not seen as being adequately proactive […] This area needs to have priority attention”. The proposed solution: a £100,000 image consultant. The following year the council also created a new £85,000/year communications role.

Other areas, it seems, were not deemed worthy of such ‘priority attention’. The 2009/10 budget proposals comprised cuts to the council’s family crisis intervention service, its road safety camera scheme, maintenance support for the poor, elderly and disabled, home improvements for the vulnerable and disabled, city bus services, libraries, neighbourhood wardens and an advice centre.

The council has since attempted to sell off art from the popular City Art Gallery (an “unethical, undemocratic and ill-thought through” move criticised both by residents and the media), privatise leisure facilities and close three Family Centres and the two most cost-effective residential care homes in the city. The latter measure, entailing the loss of 80 beds and 70 jobs, came up against substantial opposition: 5,000 people signed a petition calling for the homes to remain open, yet the council described Labour proposals to retain or replace the homes as “unrealistic”.

Residents and staff at the homes led the protests: 96-year old Les Proctor, a former Spitfire engineer, said “I just cannot think what’s going to happen. It’s too good a place to shut it down. I cannot fault it in any way.” Concerns were raised about the effect of all this on residents’ health, whilst the council also faced accusations of deliberately under-investing in the homes in order to justify their closure and of doing so in order to cash in on the value of the land. Nevertheless, in June 2009 the cabinet voted unanimously in favour of evicting the residents, claiming that the private sector could provide cheaper care (despite having had to suspend a private domiciliary care provider only months before).

This ideological commitment to private provision also cropped up with the issue of free swimming. In July 2008 the government made new funds available to help councils modernise pools and provide free swims for the under-16’s and over-60’s, all as part of a £140 million scheme to improve the health and wellbeing of these groups. Southampton was offered £56,199, but the council – opposed to “free this and free that” – not only rejected the money but also axed free swimming lessons for the under-12’s (a programme that had been introduced by the Lab-Lib administration). Under pressure from locals and an Olympic swimmer, however, it was later forced to perform a U-turn.

Is this apparently dogmatic Tory behaviour restricted to the ‘Southampton Revolution’? The statistics on national take-up of free swimming funds suggest not. Swindon’s ruling Tory councillors have only part-implemented the scheme and, in the words of Labour MP Anne Snelgrove, “seem to go to any length to avoid working with the Government”. Meanwhile Basildon’s Tory council entirely forewent the £47,714 it was offered, describing it as a ‘gimmick’.

In fact, as of December 2009, 49 of the 64 councils to have rejected the money are Conservative-controlled whilst all Labour-controlled councils have implemented the scheme. In April, May and June of 2009 it provided 4.5 million free swims via 253 different councils, a figure that (at an average of 17,800 swims/council) suggests that over the same period some 870,000 free swims fell victim to “radically pragmatic” Tory councils.

Nottinghamshire County Council: taking from the poor, giving to the rich

Posted on December 26th, 2009 by Jeremy Cliffe

According to the Conservatives’ 2009 report How Conservative Councils are helping in the recession, “David Cameron has made it clear that the Conservatives will bring a culture of thrift to government. But Conservative councils are already making a difference by instilling a culture of thrift in local government finance”. And on Nottinghamshire County Council, for example, Conservative council leader Kay Cutts claims that hers is a “no frills, bread-and-butter administration”.

Yet on winning control of the council from Labour in June 2009, Cutts promptly redecorated the ruling group’s offices at a cost to the taxpayer of £11,000 and increased the cabinet wage bill by £168,000. Other such steps included redesigning the council’s logo, removing stained glass windows depicting local industries, covering up a memorial to the Spanish Civil War dead and removing a memorial dedicated to the Child Migrants Trust because it was not sufficiently “positive”.

Cutts then ditched the council’s costed spending plans and proposed that council tax rates be frozen until at least 2013 whilst insisting that she would “make sure that [people] will be looked after”. The council’s 2010/11 budget proposals prescribed £31 million of cuts in services, including such ‘frills’ as welfare rights advice, care for the physically and mentally disabled, a community minibus scheme and waste recycling centres. It also plans to sell off all thirteen of its residential homes for the elderly, increase charges for home care and meals-on-wheels and cut funding for school buses, extra-curricular activities, sports and cultural centres, libraries and concessionary train and bus fares. UNISON has accused the council of exaggerating budgetary pressures in order to make the case for the cuts, which could involve around 1,400 redundancies. Meanwhile, the council’s own survey found that 67% of residents felt that the council had previously been spending the “right amount” or “not enough” on children’s social care. 73% felt this way about social care for the elderly, 73% about care for the physically disabled, 76% about support for schools and 80% about care for the mentally disabled.

Cutts has blamed the government for the need for savings (despite her £9 million rates freeze and a £8.5 million increase to the council’s 2010/11 grant from central government) and sent the council’s Chief Executive out to face protesters in order to avoid compromising her ‘neutrality’. Her decision to create a new council communications role at £71,000 per year has also attracted criticism, as has her refusal to meet with trade union representatives.

The media, trade unions and opposition politicians have noted that the burden of the cuts is concentrated on the most vulnerable: the poor, elderly and disabled. The BBC’s Politics Show reported that 90-year-old Irene D’Arcy, who “needs help with washing and getting out of bed” will have to pay over 35% more for essential home help. This, the BBC reports, would “amount to more than her pension and she simply cannot afford it”.

Meanwhile, 78-year old Noreen Swepston will have to find the money for taxis if, as planned, the community transport service is axed: “For someone like me [the service] is invaluable. […] It’s the social side – the aspect of socialising with other people means a lot to me. I’ve got to do something to relieve the monotony of talking to myself.” UNISON has argued that the increases in transport, meals and daycare charges will mean that “some older people could easily be paying £5 per day more in charges”. By contrast, the wealthiest (Band H) ratepayers will enjoy a tax cut of £1.85 per week. The Conservatives’  ’culture of thrift’, it seems, hits some people harder than others.

“Failure of leadership, culture and governance” at Surrey County Council

Posted on December 26th, 2009 by Jeremy Cliffe

“I want the Conservative Party to learn from what local Conservative councils are doing right now” George Osborne said in September 2009. Surrey County Council (SCC) seems to agree: its Conservative leader recently said that he wanted “David Cameron to be coming to us for advice”.

It wouldn’t be the first time. David Cameron was in Surrey in May 2006, inspecting the council’s new ‘Pegasus’ school bus scheme. He told ITN that “Here in Surrey the council has actually spent five million pounds of its own money […] to expand these school buses and it’s cut the number of cars at the school gate in the morning by twenty percent. […] It’s a really exciting agenda and one that I am determined the Conservative government is going to pursue.”

The council, however, seems less determined: three years later, the very school where Cameron launched Pegasus found itself fighting the scheme’s termination. Having considered four possible options for its future, the Conservative council opted for “maximum savings at the earliest possible date”: ending the service in July 2010 and selling the twenty-two buses at a loss of £1.7 million. This was a controversial decision, it being noted that “withdrawing Ride Pegasus would affect access to learning for those students not statutorily-entitled to transport” and that, as the council’s cabinet member for transport conceded “there is no doubt that this is a very popular service”. By the date of the council’s decision 1,500 signatures had been gathered in opposition to Pegasus’s discontinuation.

The move came shortly after the council had allocated a 2009/10 budget of £147,000 (the cost of roughly two months of Pegasus operations) to preparations for the 2012 Olympics, employing a 2012 ‘Coordinator’ at £46,000 per year. No part of the games will take place in Surrey. SCC has also been criticised for taking Ofsted to court to overturn a one star rating it gave the council. The unsuccessful appeal, opposed by all non-Conservative councillors, cost £10,000 in legal fees and almost £5,000 in costs paid to Ofsted. In particular, Ofsted had criticised SCC’s children’s services, concluding that “The contribution of local services to improving outcomes for children and young people at risk, or requiring safeguarding, is inadequate.”

All this begs the question of whether or not the council is serving the county well. Its former interim CEO Michael Frater does not seem to think so. In his July 2009 handover report he accused the council (on which the leading Conservative group holds 56 of 80 seats) of a “failure of leadership, culture and governance”, describing a “macho” culture of “blame and bullying” and a “breakdown in trust”.  The council, he said, was “very internally focused, obsessed with itself, with its own processes and bureaucracy”.

“A complication to this attitude is an implicit, and often explicit, attitude by some Members that could be summarised as ‘private sector good – public sector, bad’” Frater wrote, also criticising a “highly centralised model of control” which “has encouraged micromanagement and ‘control freakery’”.

He argued that “The most striking aspect of the management style in Surrey is how bureaucratic it has become as a result of an obsession with the control of inputs and resources […] which is then mistaken for a focus on efficiency. This is perhaps inevitable given the lack of a clear vision and strategy […]”

Frater’s comments were supported by Surrey County UNISON, which congratulated him for speaking out and described his report as “entirely accurate”.

All eleven of Surrey’s MPs are Conservatives, four of which (Chris Grayling, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Philip Hammond) are in Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet.  David Cameron and George Osborne surely have plenty to learn from their colleagues in Surrey, but precisely what is a matter for debate.