The attached press release is about the council denying the opportunity for over two thirds of the council to discuss the Housing Budget, which will be decided by 7 people on the cabinet today. This is a result of the ruling made by officers that we have been handling the process wrong for the last 11 years. It has only come to light in view of the legal research undertaken by officers after the two thirds decision went against the Mayor and her cabinet last March. It is a fundamental change that has not even been presented to Cabinet let alone the rest of the Councillors but is instigated by the council’s legal team. We have learnt to day that we will not be allowed to discuss the Council’s housing capital plan and again that will be decided along with the HRA tomorrow. As a Labour group we have challenged how many other councils in the country have adopted the same approach (executive led councils) and if the reason why it has happened is because we have not been following the legislation and so why have other councils not done the same as NTC, why have our officers not alerted other authorities. We have also asked what CIPFA got to say about this, as well as having met with external auditors last night

Press Release

Labour cry foul over new moves to exclude members

‘Plans to stop members raising concerns about unfair rent rise is the last straw’ – Jim Allan

A storm has broken out in Tyne and Wear’s only Tory council after Labour councillors voiced their concerns over new legal advice removing their opportunity to discuss the council’s Housing Budget and a predicted 5.7% rent rise.

Labour councillors have raised the matter with the council’s external auditor after a series of rulings from the council’s 22 strong legal team which have overturned previous legal opinion which had been followed for 11 years.

The Labour group which has 45 representatives on the council have claimed the council has excluded them from a string of key decisions including the decision to enter into a 10 year, £260m outsourcing contract and removed the existing rule which previously meant that an elected mayor needed to secure a third of council votes to pass their budget.

Now a ruling by the council’s legal team has meant Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians will not be able to even discuss the Housing Budget which is expected to set an inflation busting rise for council rents and has prompted calls to the Monitoring Officer to ‘think again’ .

Labour group leader Jim Allan said

‘We’re concerned that the Council is losing sight of the role of the elected member. There are too many occasions when the Mayor and her senior officers are seeking to make decisions without recourse to the rest of the council. Labour has 45 councillors on this council but we couldn’t stop or amend the Mayor’s last budget which has effectively doubled the council debt. The Mayor isn’t listening and the Council itself is helping her ignore warnings over policy blunders like her brown bin tax. We need to explore whether the council is acting in a lawful manner when excluding councillors because it’s certainly stopping us carrying out an effective role of representing our constituents’.

TORY MAYOR CLIMBS DOWN OVER NEW BROWN BIN TAX

FOR RELEASE FROM 12:01am 15 JANUARY

TORY MAYOR CLIMBS DOWN OVER NEW BROWN BIN TAX

Last night in North Tyneside, the Council’sTory cabinet performed a dramatic u-turn over plans to introduce a brown bin tax to pay for the collection of garden waste from homes across the borough.

Last autumn, North Tyneside residents received letters from the Council demanding £20 for every garden refuse bin for households to continue having their garden waste collected from March 2013. The scheme has already cost the Council over £25,000 in set-up costs and will now cost £47,000 to administer refunds to residents who have already paid the charge.

Councillor Norma Redfearn, Deputy Leader of the Labour Group and Labour’s candidate for elected Mayor in 2013, led a campaign against the new charge which culminated in a debate over a Labour motion to Council in the autumn. North Tyneside Labour Group asked Tory Mayor Linda Arkley to go away and think again about introducing the new charge. Norma Redfearn had pledged to scrap the charge if she was successful in the mayoral election in May.

Last night, Councillor Redfearn said, “Perhaps the Tory Mayor is, rather belatedly, trying to do something about her growing Council debt mountain but a stealth tax on garden rubbish was never a good way to do that. The main thing, however, is that, at last, sense has prevailed over this issue which should not have been mooted in the first place. No doubt residents will draw their own conclusions about what this has cost the Council and the inconvenience it has caused.”

ENDS

NOTES FOR EDITORS ON NEXT PAGE North Tyneside Labour Group

2

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. The costs quoted in this release are taken from the Cabinet meeting papers available on the North Tyneside Council website (see link).

http://www.northtyneside.gov.uk/browse-display.shtml?p_ID=541245&p_subjectCategory=41

2. The covering email for this release also attaches a photograph. The residents pictured in the photograph with Norma are Mr and Mrs Thompson of Cliftonville Gardens, Whitley Bay. They registered their objection to the introduction of the brown bin tax with their local Labour councillor and Norma Redfearn and have signed an appropriate release form for use of this photograph.

3. Whilst North Tyneside Council has a Tory Mayor elected in 2009, the political composition of the Council is now: Labour 43; Conservative 12; LibDem 5. (In 2009 it was: Labour 21; Conservative 31; LibDem 8.)

4. Councillor Norma Redfearn is the Labour Party candidate for Mayor of North Tyneside in the 2013 election. You can follow Norma’s campaign on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/normaformayor .

CONTACT FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information on this press release please contact:

Councillor Norma Redfearn

Mobile Telephone: 07759 699 707

eMail: norma4mayor@gmail.com

or

Tony Stephenson

North Tyneside Labour Group Media Unit

Mobile telephone: 07759 660 121

eMail: Labour.NTyneside@yahoo.com

Promoted by North Tyneside Labour, all at 7 Palmersville, Newcastle NE12 9HN