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Manchester Governance and AGMA

504K views 4K replies 264 participants last post by  VDB 
#1 ·
How many seats does Greater Manchester have?

I know we've got the 4 "city of manchester" seats, but there are plenty of places in greater manchester that aren't included in this, like Stretford, Oldham, Rochdale etc.

How many seats do we have in total, and how does it compare with rival cities like Liverpool and Birmingham?
 
#1,624 ·
LNGCats said:
It'll make little difference I bet.

Early afternoon.

Would turn out for a greater Manchester mayor, with Boris scale powers get a higher turnout?

Probably, but nut sure by very much.
Only at the fringes, but if you're a member of a vulnerable or minority community a shifting of targets and priorities to more 'populist causes' could make a considerable difference to your community or quality of life.

More people would have voted for this if they'd held it on local election day.
 
#1,626 ·
LNGCats said:
If vulnerable people suffer due to a right winger being elected they only have themselves to blame as it was those areas with the lowest turnout.
By definition vulnerable and minority groups will struggle to produce a plurality in any election even if they all voted. But even if they don't vote, that doesn't mean that their concerns and protection shouldn't be important. Policing priorities should be determined by need, not majority preference, especially when on such a small turnout that majority is nothing of the sort.
 
#1,628 ·
LNGCats said:
Indeed, but if someone is elected who does not hold those values those who did not vote only have themselves to blame.
There's too different groups in that equation though; the vulnerable and the relatively tolerant majority whose votes for mainstream parties usually protect them. You're blaming the former for the inaction of the latter.

Even if all the former had voted they would not have a majority of votes. But they tend not to vote anyway for various reasons (language barriers, unstable accommodation, being under 18 ) that mean elected politicians don't take their interests into account.
 
#1,630 · (Edited)
Previous majority was just over 10,000 so the majority is down only slightly but the turnout more than halved despite it not being held during University holidays so more students were there to vote this time round. Does anaecdotally look like UKIP rather than the Lib Dems picked up the protest votes according to some interviews.

The one PCC district I didnt recieve last night.

Manchester 12.5%
 
#1,636 ·
I could get into a highly fruitless 30 page debate about why i dont have much sympathy for football supporters and their apparent @rsey behaviour, but I won't and don't you bite kid. But I am curious, does Commissar Lloyd a match goer then?

Nevertheless unintentionally or not Commissar Lloyd now becomes the "11th" council leader and in a sense the unofficial Mancunian Boris.

As part of the local Labourocracy establishment, I doubt he will struggle during his tenure and with either senior members of our Police force or the Ten Councils.

I doubt this post will survive for long, mainly due to public apathy and other posts will prove it redundant. But I hope for the sake of furthering our devolution, that it works well.
 
#1,638 ·
I'm more certain than before that we won't be seeing a county wide mayor anytime soon.

Look at how negative the media reaction has been towards the government for implementing a policy that led to such a low turnout.

Why bother with Mayors and risk a repeat? There is no huge public demand for them.

In fact, my preference for a cabinet, representing different parties across the ten boroughs has increased, essentially what we have today.

More powers are what are called for in my opinion, not a mayor.
 
#1,639 ·
I don't think Whitehall will grant further powers without direct accountability. To do so is to produce a powerful agency who without the lightening conductor of a local democratic mandate will have their mistakes blamed on central government. The choice will be more democracy and more powers or no more powers. The likelihood is that for the next few years it'll be no more powers.

The real **** up with the police commissioners was that a) no one understood what the role is b) the government refused to fund publicity for it c) they held the election in November rather than May when no one was voting for anything else. Looking at Bristol a mayoral position would get more voters anyway (approaching local government election levels) as its a role that's easier to understand.

I'm not convinced it's the best model for Manchester though.
 
#1,640 · (Edited)
A Praesidium Of the ten leaders of the County/City Region is what has been advocated by AGMA senior bods for some years now.

And in many respects this is how AGMA unofficially operates in a political sense. As a first step in creating an operating executive, then this is correct.

The transport plan forged after the C Charge referendum illustrates that, irrespective of location and party politics, the politic domain of GM can operate successful as a coherent united

However as I have said before it would be preferably that thus mechanism has direct accountability. Clear direct accountability with the citizenry.

As a broad principle I support the idea that all senior public officials should be elected by the people and thus be accountable to them. But I think Police Commissars in the fashion they have been created will be counter productive. Maybe not in Mancunia, but I can imagine in some sleepy middle English shire where the savages of the right will be unleashed on the rising surf of apathy and bigotry.
 
#1,642 ·
Strong voice yes, but don't equate that with a Mayor Retro.

I am sure you'd agree the priority is the powers available, the cohesiveness and accountability of the mechanisms of power and then the actual players tasked with civil responsibility.

I am favourable to a division of powers for the imagined future City Region authority. An executive council directly elected that would in turn elect it's own leader. (for old style local authenticity called it the Chancellor) and a separate directly elected legislative council to oversee the former.
 
#1,645 ·
Greater Manchester's £20m deal with Japan could cut domestic fuel bills
Deborah Linton
December 01,

Town hall chiefs are to push ahead with two major projects aimed at bringing down fuel bills for Greater Manchester residents.

Leaders across the region will sign a £20m deal with the Japanese government next week which will allow houses to generate their own electricity.

It could lead to heat pumps and smart grid technology – which converts excess heat into fuel and allows households to pump leftover energy back into the grid – installed in thousands of homes.

An initial trial of 300 council houses in an unspecified area, which has the backing of the UK government, is likely to launch in 2014. It is the first time the project – backed by Japanese government agency, Nedo - has been trialled in domestic properties in Britain.

And the Greater Manchester Combined Authority - which represents the region's town halls – has also agreed plans to offer ‘green’ home improvement loans to residents under a government eco-scheme.

Under the coalition’s Green Deal, householders can access loans which will paid back through savings made on their energy bills.

Council bosses in Greater Manchester say it could help 15,000 of the region’s poorest households make their homes warmer over the next three years.

The loans could also generate jobs for local workers and generate £100m for the local economy.
 
#1,648 ·
There are actually two separate issues here that I was referring to, the first one was Joint LA procurement should save millions IF it's done professionally, The joint procurement clubs are a simple example of how volume saves cash, of course as in Belgium and other countries these schemes are nothing to do with LA's but developed using the Internet as a means of mass local communication.
 
#1,649 ·
AGMA has been working on that council joint procurement for a couple of years, more than a dozen different strands of procurement been set up with a couple of councils taking the lead in programs designed that the other councils can join once established for example in schools administration (Wigan/Salford), legal services, maintenence, accounting, stationery and office equipment procurement, etc... Theyve also set up a system to allow for centralised contract tenders listing.
 
#1,653 ·
The Telegraph


London is the world's greatest city: now the rest of the country must emulate its success

The success of London, not just with the Olympics and Paralympics but as a vibrant world city, must be a lesson to the rest of Britain, write Greg Clark and Michael Heseltine.


As the Paralympics begin, London’s status as the world’s greatest city is now burnished with the golden glow of a fantastically successful Olympic Games. The best that our capital has to offer – from the historic grandeur of Horseguards and Tower Bridge to the thrilling modernity of the Olympic stadium and the Shard – has been beamed to every nation across the globe.
Even better, visitors from every nation – whether competitors, spectators, tourists or business people – are coming to London to see for themselves. The warmest of welcomes has been extended by a confident, multicultural city – with the meticulously organised and brilliantly delivered contribution of paid Olympic staff, the armed forces and volunteers alike winning international admiration.
London’s triumph should be a clarion call to the other great cities of our country. London must not be to the rest of Britain what Hong Kong was (and in some respects still is) to China – an exotic exception to the way things are done on the mainland. Rather, we should extend what has worked in London to the rest of the country. Our aim must be for us to be a nation of cities possessed of London’s confidence and élan. There is no reason why this should be beyond us.
Unlike many of their global competitors, our other great cities are already household names around the world thanks to their historical, industrial, cultural and sporting achievement. To take this inheritance forward into an even greater future, the following will be required:
First, leadership. London would never have been awarded the Olympics without the whole city, led by the Mayor, looking outwards to seize opportunities. If they are to prosper, our great cities need to elect leaders whose ambitions aren’t limited to running the local council, but who are willing to take a commanding role on the national and international stage, personally pursuing investment in their cities and marshalling the local change needed to secure that investment.
Second, unity. London works because on the most important matters it can speak with a single voice, from the outer suburbs to the inner core. Many, if not most, of our principal cities are balkanised by boundaries which carve up the true city into smaller municipalities. The result is too often a loss of city-wide perspective. London, through its mayoralty, and Greater Manchester, by boldly forming a combined authority, are able to command the attention due to a great city.
Third, infrastructure. A modern city of international appeal has to be an attractive place to live and work. Critical to that is being able to get to and around the city easily. While everyone likes to grumble about London transport, the fact is that the capital has experienced a steady improvement in infrastructure in recent years. For instance, it’s hard to see how the Olympics could have been won without the Jubilee Line extension that made Stratford so much more accessible. Then there’s the Channel Tunnel rail link, which has made London about as close in travel time to Paris and Brussels as it is to Leeds and Liverpool. Together with Oyster cards, Boris bikes, new buses, the East London Line extension and the Croydon Tramlink it is now easier to get into and around London than it has been for decades – Crossrail and the Thameslink upgrade will make it easier still.
Fourth, pace. London gets things done. In less than seven years the Olympic Park – practically a new borough – went from idea to completion. The congestion charge was proposed and implemented in less than three years. Now Boris is proposing cycle ways in the sky – a network of raised paths criss-crossing the city. Don’t bet against them being up and running before the sceptics have drawn breath. Yet how many straightforward enhancements to motorway junctions or other highway improvements drag on for years in the rest of the country? Often it is the dead hand of Whitehall and its agencies that slow things to a painful crawl. Let the cities themselves drive the pace, working with the government to plan their own destinies, short-circuiting the usual bureaucracy.
Which leads to the fifth lesson: active and empowering government. When he was a minister, one of the authors of this article promised to intervene “before breakfast, before lunch, before tea and before dinner”. We need to do so again. Sometimes only the government can tear away a barrier to local initiative or bang the relevant heads together. For the Olympics, a range of ministers including the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Transport Secretary as well as the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary were active in person, working with Sebastian Coe and Boris Johnson to make things happen. We are determined to make this the permanent way of working across the country. There’s no excuse for ministers not to roll up their sleeves and take personal responsibility for getting significant things done in particular places. Issuing general policy is not enough.
Finally, a long term view. No city can have a confident future if future generations are not able to be part of its success. Successful global cities are associated with educational excellence. For years London was synonymous with dire state schools, prompting those who could to flee beyond the city limits. But that picture is being transformed. As a hotbed of innovation in education – requiring most of the qualities set out above – London’s schools now outstrip the rest of the country. It is our other big cities, where the schools revolution has often yet to be ignited with the same enthusiasm, that risk being left behind.
When Hong Kong was handed over to the Chinese in 1997, it was agreed that it would be different to every other city in China. In practice, China had already determined that its largest cities were – economically at least - going to catch up with Hong Kong rather than look respectfully on. In Britain today, it is time for us to become a nation defined by many great cities not just one.
Rt Hon Greg Clark MP
Rt Hon Lord Heseltine CH
Greg Clark is Minister for Decentralisation and Cities; Lord Heseltine is a former deputy prime minister
 
#1,655 ·
http://www.agma.gov.uk/cms_media/files/12_business_rates_pooling.pdf

GMCA 9 districts excluding Wigan look to be moving forward with a plan to pool business rates. Under the system proportional business rates are handed over to Government and they either top up or take more from Councils which have a disproportinate amount of rate income, in GM thats mainly Trafford (low population, lots of business based there) and to a much lesser degree Stockport, all the other councils recieve top up to their business rates from central Government. The scheme to allow councils to pool rates set up by Government means that the balance for the participating councils as a group rather than individually is used which would mean where there was a surplus in one council they wouldnt have to hand it over to Government if by pooling it there wasnt a net surplus, the area recieves the top up grant calculated for the whole area if below the business rates cap and of course if the area as a whole was above then that amount has to be handed to central Government for redistribution to other councils. The limitation on the scheme is it caps the grants to authorities with low business rate reciepts at 7.5% and Wigan (high population, low business) will be recieving more than that so it doesnt make sense to take part as that money from Government would be lost if it joined the pool.
 
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