How would Ofsted rate the Town Council?

Now the dust has settled on the recent Ofsted report in the infants school, and having suffered another dreadful meeting on Tuesday,I thought what if the Town Council faced a Ofsted style inspection how would it rate?


Well, at the risk of being reported to the standards board, I will attempt to give a flavour of the performance of the Town Council.

Shepton Town Council have 16 elected members 7 conservatives 4 independents 3 lib dems and 2 labour councillors.

In the next financial year the Town Council will spend £158,000 at a cost of £41.69 to a band d tax payer. The Cost of admin of the council is £54,339 or £16.38 . The cost of council property will cost £11256 or £3.39. Collett Park will cost the tax payer £41696 or £12.57. The Council also has partnership funds from CCTV, THi, CAB, TIC etc this costs £27919 or £8.41 . leaving £7800 in community grants plus miscellaneous items.

Community Leadership

You would assume that the Town Council would be the force for improvements in the Town, being it's civic leadership.

So whilst setting the Town Council's tax rate, you would of thought the Council might of been interested in what Sheptonians thought when raising the cash to fund various schemes.

The Town Council failed to do this, they never even contemplated doing so.

Again, when setting the council tax rate, you would of thought the Town Council would of been interested in what the key stakeholders in the town thought were key spending priorities, despite the regeneration holder (me) talking to those stakeholders and despite the community group accepting those proposals, the Conservative group and two uber conservative independents voted to sink these spending priorities.

The Town Council failed on working with key stakeholders.

So I can only report that the majority of councillors are not much interested in Sheptonians views or key stakeholders, in doing so they fail on community leadership.

Use of Public Money

When setting the Town Council budget and after consultation with the community, the Council should have key objectives, that the Council wants to achieve for the Town.

I believe they also have to evaluate of needs within Shepton, this evaluation will lead to spending commitments.

Clearly stating what the money is taken for and what it wants to deliver for the Town, so the community can judge if it is getting value for money. They should also test against other authorities and the market to evaluate the price of the services provided.

The Majority of the Council decides not to do this, hence they have no measure for value for money, on this bases they have failed in the use of public money.

Communicating with Shepton

The first sign of the lack of communicating with the community of this Conservative/Independent administration was to stopping the production of the council's newsletter.

The Council has a Website.

The Council is heavily dependent on the local news media for reporting local council business.

The Town Council could do much better with Communicating with the community.

Unlike Ofsted, only the community can demand a better, and the community can elect better local councillors, but if the community is happy with the Council then nothing will change.

Going on a dig

I attended the monthly meeting of Shepton 21 tonight.

The Shepton Horticultural Society will hold it's next meeting next Wednesday, with the guest speaker will be Guy Braga giving a talk on growing olives in Somerset.

Shepton 21 continues to look for a venue to hold a regular car boot sale.

Alan Stone told the meeting of a couple of interesting historical stories, the Shepton Local History Group are holding a Somerset film - mid Somerset show archive in the Academy on the 18 March, tickets are £5 and can be bought at the TIC 70 High Street. Secondly there is a new book, Fosseway - Britain and the Romans, with Peter Leach - archaeologists, who lead the dig at Fosse Lane, it's 96 pages, Alan says it's a good read, it costs £9.99 and again purchased at the TIC.

community matters

What a lovely half term, family visited, so I gave the blog a miss, but I back.

Jane Sharp from the Mendip Council's economic team came to the community working party, committee, she told us about the information boards to be bought and put around the Town Centre, the Town Council have previously offered advice, some clearly not taken, it seemed to be a confused picture, they are to be directional with lots of town trail stuff, they need to have a clear focus.

The Market re-relaunch to be now 14 May, I again asked about the focus of market, seems a little fuzzy, seems the District Council just want as many stalls as possible, rather than building a identity for the new market.

I'm afraid the divorce between reality and our elected representatives continues a pace, the offender this time is our County Councillor, she says it's imperative that a pedestrian crossing should be installed at the Infants school in Waterloo Road, you'll be pleased to know the leader of the County Council also agrees and you'll be even happier to know our MP also agrees, so you would think they would tell us the timetable for this becoming reality, but surprise surprise no! but it is imperative! The really funny/sad thing is they have no money to repair damage around the Victorian fountain costing very little. So the £100K plus for the crossing should be interesting.

More seasoned readers will remember the same Conservative Councillor promised a pedestrian crossing in Charlton Rd by Whitstone school, she promised this would be done in 90 days, this was 984 days ago!

The Conservatives are trying to sell 1200 parcels of land in Shepton Mallet, I would suggest no one stands still for too long on council owned land, you may be sold. But seriously the Town needs community amenity land, surely we can not annexe every piece of land to be owned by private individuals.

The Town Clock moved a step further to be electrified, the community working group recommended a contractor.

Getting more remote

I read that Mendip District Council have moved their/our Housing Benefit and Council Tax Queries function to Coventry 0845 300 3352, this is going to cause confusion for claimants, people who claim these benefits are on extremely low incomes, delay in paying usually leads to threatening letters from housing associations and private landlords.

It is my understanding these are cost saving measures.

As I reported earlier in the week, I had a meeting to discuss sporting facilities in the town, the leisure officer advised that the Mendips sports directory is online on their website, so when I searched the site, the search engine took me to a page with sports directory and no download, after many minutes of frustration I gave up, what a hopeless useless website.

Earlier, I have written of Mendip Council reducing their cutting of amenity grass to 10 cuts a year, then we have the Audit Commission says the District are slow in processing planning applications, and not doing enough help businesses in the recent recession.

Every week, or so it seems, Mendip Council performance is poor, it's information to the public is weak, the question I have, When is the District Council going to recognise they need to improve?

All things education

Everyone is no doubt aware of the disappointing headlines in the Shepton Mallet Journal concerning the recent OFSTED report conducted at Infant School in Waterloo Road.

It is somewhat ironic that today I attended a meeting to select candidates for interview for the new Headteacher at Whitstone School. The previous Headteacher at Whitstone was an excellent leader of the school, so it is imperative we selected an exceptional replacement.

As readers of this site will remember, I had the greatest pleasure in addressing the most successful year group in Whistone's history last November at their presentation evening, these young people started school when I first became a governor at the Infants School. So being able to celebrate with them was special.

It is clearly very difficult to comment on the Infants School Ofsted report as I have no contact with the school, having finished my governorship seven years ago.

It goes without saying that education achievement play a critical role in shaping the life chances of our young people, it is the single most important element that allows social mobility and allows greater life choices.

More generally education relates to people intellectual, emotional and moral development, which has implications for all aspects of life, from a sense of self and relationships within families to community and to a sense of civil society.

For these reasons it is critical that the current problems at the Infant School are resolved.

It is absolutely imperative that high quality leadership is in place, with personalised learning plans for every student that challenges and stimulates, that records each child's achievement. With everyone celebrating every child's achievement openly.

Clearly the school does many things well and are rated as 'good', the Safeguarding of children is rated good with children feeling safe within the school as is the Special Educational Needs. The teaching assistants are credited with working exceptionally hard to allow pupils to learn.

I would hate to think that any section of our community is stigmatised by the reporting of the Ofsted report, for me every child matters, where ever they live, who ever there parents are.

I have for some time believed that Shepton would be better served if we had a Primary School, this to replace the two Infant Schools and the Junior School.

In terms of budgets, if the same amount was spent as is today, more money could be redirected to children's education. This would be allowed by reducing the three headteachers and there deputies to be replaced by a smaller management team, that would attract a high quality headteacher as the salary and post would more attractive.

Sports Ground

Last evening after six months of trying I managed to get Mendip's leisure officer to a meeting with the Cricket Club and Town and District councillors, to discuss the provision of a new cricket ground.

The Shepton Mallet Cricket Club (SMCC)play at Whitstone School, however, this has a small square, small boundaries, little opportunity to develop cricket in the town and many difficulties associated with managing a club at the same time as school use. Shepton Mallet Cricket Club are grateful for the schools support.

The District Council officer offered good contact details for SMCC, it was made clear that the club needed to construct a development plan, the club thought this agreeable, but felt there was a need for councils to give a committment for help.

The discussion widened to sports provision in the Town and the SMCC thought it may be acceptable to share a facility.

I offered to arrange a conference of local sports (shepton mallet), without raising expectations but to learn, and assess the need for future sports infastracture and capacity building to develop sports in Shepton.

This will help everyone to understand the need for extra provision and how sports clubs and local authorities can work together to make a wish become a reality.

It is incredible the lack of information local councils hold on the Towns sports clubs, so the first step is to gather information and contact details of individual sports clubs. So I would be grateful if you could post any Shepton sports club details on the comment section of this website.

Planning news

Tonight's planning committee had a couple of issues that may of be of interest;

• The Shepton Mallet Conservative Club want to insert a new shop front in Paul's Street to create a new entrence to the club, replace the flat roof with a pitched roof, and form accommodation in the roof space. The new shop front is similar to the ones installed in Town Street albeit with more styling. The snooker tables are to be placed in roof space, with committee rooms for meetings. The Conservative club also want a banner outside. The proposal seemed reasonable to me, but I asked that the banner should be removed as there are no such banners in Paul's Street or Commercial Road.
• We Discussed the footpath diversion in the field below Princes Lodge, the Town Council objected to this diversion on the 9 December 2009, but this was informal consultation, so tonight we had the formal consultation, the Town Council reaffirmed their decision. The rights of way officer attended and confirmed the procedure for closure/diversion of footpaths.

1. The landowner would approach Mendip whom manage this service for Somerset County Council.
2. The Council would offer advice to the landowner.
3. If the Council was happy that the proposed diversion of the footpath was acceptable, they would then conduct a consultation with the public.
4. Notices will then be erected along the diverted footpath.
5. The Council will negotiate with any objectors, but if resolution of the public complaint cannot be resolved the matter will be resolved by a planning officer.

Anyone who wants to make an observation on the diversion of the footpath by princes lodge has until the 19 February 2010, to Rights of Way officer, Mendip Council, Shepton Mallet.