‘Council transparency worse under this mayor’

Each Residents’ Parking Zone (RPZ) rolled out under the mayor has engendered a genuine dislike of the schemes from some residents within all communities and from across the entire city.

As the schemes were never included in the mayor’s manifesto and attempts to get him to address many of our concerns have been largely ignored, residents have had to resort to desperate questionable measures.

This has taken the form of anything from barricading a street and painting over yellow lines to vandalism of pay & display in the form of graffiti or physical damage.

One particular zone (Montpelier) was identified as having cost the council £30,000.

I was curious at this figure, having been informed by an officer that across all schemes the total cost as of January 2009 had been £39,000 (a figure they were reluctant to publish for fear of copycat behaviour).

I was also suspicious of the motive behind why one specific ward had been singled out and, accordingly, I was prompted to submit a question to the mayor at full council in September.

My question asked for a breakdown of vandalism costs by zone and a global cost for all damage across all zones.

A previous Freedom of Information (FOI) request putting the same question had resulted in the council informing me that it “did not hold that information”, so my concern centred around how the council was able to issue in a press release that Montpelier had directly cost the taxpayer £30,000.

The mayor’s response to this query at full council was: “The figure of £30,000 was a non-typical case; it referred to a spate of vandalism over a short period in a specific area. It was an estimate by officers.”

Would it be right therefore to conclude that an estimate in this case means “made-up”? It remains of concern to me that figures can be “estimated” with impunity without the presentation of actual or real costs.

Is this the promised “changing (of) the fortress culture of the former Council House to that of a people’s City Hall encouraging meaningful citizen participation” that the Mayor heralded in his manifesto?

The reality is the mayor is happy to vilify an entire city ward by “estimating” damage caused with no evidence to justify his accusations.

Furthermore, during his frustrated response the Mayor commented on the volume of FOI submissions to the council, stating “council taxpayers are paying a six figure sum as a result of the FOI process being misused by some”.

Putting aside the irrelevance of that comment in relation to the question asked, it would have been more meaningful had the mayor been able to give the actual figure to the taxpayer for FOI submissions rather than a spurious reference to a six-figure sum.

What was the intention and motive behind such a pointed remark? Again, the reality is that members of the public are having to resort to submitting FOIs because despite his constant proclamations that he is listening, the mayor shouts down anyone who disagrees with him and belittles their legitimate concerns as being “political”.

There was no fortress culture before the mayor was elected. There certainly is now as the response to an FOI from another taxpayer requesting the actual amount reveals:

“We consider the outstanding requests made to be vexatious and
unreasonable for the following reasons:
 
* The requests require a disproportionate amount of staff time to
be spent dealing with them.
* All outstanding requests centre around the Mayor and his office…. This indicates you are targeting the Mayor and his office beyond what could be
considered as reasonable.”

Such an emphatic refusal to answer the question only serves to court further suspicion as to the veracity of the mayor’s own suggestion that the figure for FOIs was a six-figure sum.

Additionally, to directly accuse the submitting resident of targeting the mayor in what “could be considered” an unreasonable way denotes an alarming shift away from transparency and accountability.

As the council leader and elected mayor for the city, why is the council seeking to avoid his office answering questions directed at him?

The mayor raised the issue of an amount being paid by the taxpayer but officers refuse to provide the actual figure.

What is the actual figure and how is it broken down? The Freedom of Information Act is a democratic engine that enables the taxpayer to hold to account public bodies. So why then does the mayor treat the act as a burden?

Such obfuscation prompted me to submit an FOI asking for the number of FOI submissions that the council had received since 2009.

The answer I received stated that the council apparently does not have the information pre-July 2012 and provided me with the following figures only:

Jul-Dec 2012 – 509
Jan-Dec 2013 – 1501
Jan-Dec 2014 – 1955
Jan-Sep 2015 – 1515

These figures clearly show the number of FOI submissions has risen steadily year on year and with that presumably the related costs.

What, however, are we to conclude from these increases in submissions? Has the democratic instrument that was intended by the act been misused?

No, it demonstrates that residents are not enjoying the “meaningful citizen participation” promised.

It demonstrates we are having to resort to seeking a greater understanding of how our council operates and spends our money or implements policy by having to submit more and more FOI’s to get the answers that should be available in the first place.

It demonstrates that council transparency and accountability is getting worse under this mayor.

At the end of the day, who has a more valid claim to being frustrated by FOIs; the mayor or the citizens of Bristol who are having to use this democratic tool to get answers to their concerns and questions?

Christian Martin is a former Lib Dem councillor for Clifton East.