Say no to ‘No’

It’s high time we got negative about negativity. Look around. The world is full of things that should never have happened. They were ‘impossible’, ‘impractical’ or ‘unaffordable’. What does it take to turn ‘no’ into ‘yes’? Curiosity, an open mind, a willingness to take risks – and confidence in one’s own ability to achieve the outcome.

I believe it is the last quality that is now in short supply – especially amongst those who work for our public authorities, driven to defensiveness by years of reorganisation, games of political football and ‘targets’.

Road rage
Bourne Valley residents have told Wiltshire County Council and Wiltshire Police they won’t take no for an answer when it comes to traffic management in their villages. At the meeting I called last month we all knew that the 250 people had 250 horror stories and 250 solutions. We agreed to skip most of them and listen instead to the only people with the authority to make a difference. The only people who could tell the people with authority how to use it – the two local Councillors – had a rough ride.

So, the Police explained how they have to ration the use of speed traps and fixed cameras – which brought the inevitable response, ‘So four people must be killed before you’ll do anything’. Then County Council staff explained that until the A350 to the west and the A34 to the east have been upgraded, they would only undertake minor maintenance, not major improvements. And even though the Bourne Valley is ‘not a freight route in the Regional Spatial Strategy’ they would not take down the offending brown ‘lorry route’ signs at each end of the valley. No, they did not know when or why they had been put up – and no, they could not explain why they could not be taken down right now.

Reality check
Within a few days of the meeting I had discussed it with the Police and the County Council. The Leader of Wiltshire County Council has promised me they will work on the points raised at the public meeting and will arrange a further meeting. Our senior Police Officer in Salisbury is in no doubt about the strength of public feeling about police enforcement of traffic law in the valley – and elsewhere such as the A30 to Dinton and on through Ludwell.

Meanwhile, with Salisbury District Council apparently a dead duck, staff morale is very low because of uncertainty about their own future and because of the style of the new administration (the Leader criticised his own senior officers in the national local government journal). Yet it is on these dedicated public servants that we depend for vital services that affect every one of us – from refuse to parking and housing to pavements as well as a host of services that most of us take for granted but on which some in our community rely utterly.

General malaise
Talking recently to the local Police Federation and to the trade union Unison, it is clear their members feel very unloved. I have visited armed forces families in their sub-standard housing and spoken to long-serving military personnel who are leaving earlier than planned because ‘this is not the service I joined’. I’ve been fighting for several years to keep our local tax office (HMRC) in Salisbury. It is still with us – just – but the staff have closure hanging over them. Our ambulance service reorganisation has put huge pressure on the very men and women who will save our lives. So it goes on.

All this has to stop. We have to turn it around – and we can. What went wrong? Well, I was heavily involved in what was known as local authority ‘compulsory competitive tendering’ – breaking up the cosy deals then done in local councils. Resistance gave way to common sense and it works. But we did not then go on to say almost every ‘output’ would be measured, set a target and monitored and failure would result in Big Brother in Whitehall cutting the grant for non-compliance.

A decade of this Government breaking promises (many unachievable) and imposing targets so that they know the price of everything and the value of nothing has led to a demoralised public service unwilling to use their professional judgment , unwilling to take risks, and prone to say ‘No’.

Onwards and upwards
Now that this Government has run away from the General Election they suggested should happen, we will have to wait longer for a change at the top. But we do have a golden opportunity to change things locally. If the plans for a new unitary authority go ahead, the new Wiltshire Council should take the opportunity to tear up the dull and damaging script that dictates how the people they employ to serve the community perform their duties. Out should go negativity and in should come creativity and respect for the good people who choose to work in our public services.

Robert Key MP