Interview with Leader of Rochdale Council, Councillor Alan Taylor

Leader of Rochdale Council, Councillor Alan Taylor

In the first of a series of interviews with the Leader of Rochdale Council, Councillor Alan Taylor has given his thoughts on some of the major news stories of the past week. He spoke to Rochdale Online reporter Jan Harwood about a range of topics, including his reaction to the debate following the release of the councillors' allowances and his views on the new school site at Springhill, both of which have been hot topics on the Rochdale Online message board.

The Liberal Democrats have been persistently criticised by the leaders of the other two parties, Allen Brett of Labour and Ashley Dearnley of the Conservatives, over the newly created role of People’s Champion. The criticism continued when recently the news broke that the application process for the post had reached the screening stage.

Councillor Taylor has responded by saying: quot;The leaders of the other two parties don't want to know about a People's Champion, they just do not understand what a People's Champion can do, and the mere fact that over a hundred people have applied for the job from across Britain, both inside and outside local government, shows that other people share our view; that it is a giant leap forward.

"The post will be the first of its kind in Britain and, apart from the fact that it can deal with people's complaints against Rochdale Council - in a much better way than a local government ombudsman can - part of this person's job is to look at the way the Council deals with complaints and to suggest to different departments how they can improve their complaints procedure so that when people initially approach the Council they get a better answer and feel that their complaint is being dealt with. If that approach is does not satisfy the complainant that is when it will be referred to People's Champion."

"The other two parties just haven't bothered to consider what is being suggested and it is not an answer that there are sixty councillors who are People's Champions because this is doing so much more that Councillors could not do."

Councillor Taylor's view: quot;It might seem ridiculous that the Council has a turnover of over pound;300 million and I am the Leader of the Council and I get pound;7000 basic allowance, pound;27,000 in total, and Roger Ellis, who gets five times that, cannot do a lot of things without my consent. This is unbelievable!

"The whole thing about local government is that its a democracy and having councillors elected for a period of years, all coming up for election more or less the same time, I don't think is a step forward, I think it's a step back. The whole point about local government is we are, even more than government, responsible for the local people because every year a third of the council is up for re-election.

"I don't want being a councillor to be a job, that's getting away from why we have councillors. If you are doing that it could be said that you are just appointing twenty more officers to run the council and our job is to keep control of the officers, to challenge it on behalf of the public.

"To answer the question, I'm not in favour.

"To me, the Cabinet have got too much power. It was supposed to make councils more efficient but I'll go back to the point that the difference about local government is its a democracy and people can input into and change the decisions and one thing that we Liberal Democrats are doing is making it easier for councillors who aren't members of the Cabinet to scrutinise the council, so we're giving a lot more power to the two scrutiny committees.

"Last week the Cabinet made the decision to build a new school on the Springhill site rather than the Balderstone site so I am going with the council officer to the scrutiny committee meeting to explain to them why we took that decision, and we've got to give these committees more power. I want them to be like a House Commons Select Committee; they ought to be able to summon people to give evidence in front of them, which is the way it should be. The Cabinet should not be able to just go away and do what it wants without scrutiny."

Asked about the reasons behind the decision to close Balderstone and Springhill Schools and develop a new school on the Springhill site, Councillor Taylor said: quot;There are too many places basically; the school population is going down, moreover, we have the opportunity with pound;150 million from the government to improve secondary provision now and the way it has been projected in Rochdale, we've got one too many schools. Falinge Park School will be rebuilt but in the south of the borough there are schools on two sites and the figures for pupil projections could not justify two schools.

"Looking at the Springhill site and the Balderstone site the first impression of Springhill is that it is land-locked, you can't expand it, and Balderstone seems to have a lot of space, so I think most of our initial reaction was that Balderstone must be the preferred site because you can do so much more with it.

"We picked up all the points that the teachers and staff at Balderstone and Springhill have made but I must emphasise this was not a beauty contest between the schools. It is not a victory for Springhill School because we are closing Springhill School.

"It's been a very difficult decision to make. We have asked all of the questions that we were asked to ask. I wanted more than a report from the education people because there was going to be a site, having picked one that was not going to have a school on it. I wanted the people that dealt with regeneration to tell us what their views were. One of the arguments was that one site had better leisure provision than the other site so I wanted the Leisure Trust to tell us what their view was. Every one of them came back and said that Springhill site is a better option than Balderstone.

"I took Irene Davidson, the Cabinet member for Children, Schools and amp; Families, on Tuesday 12 June to Springhill to physically see the buildings to be reminded that there's nothing better than actually being there, and it convinced us both completely that the Springhill site was the option that we ought to go for because, although the report says a 60% new build at Springhill, when you see what is proposed, we are really getting a completely rebuilt school.

"Although it said that it would cost pound;2.5 million more to improve Balderstone that is only improving Balderstone. To get Balderstone to the standard of the school that would be provided at Springhill would cost pound;10 million.

"I am Leader of the Council for Rochdale, Pennines, Middleton and Heywood and if that sort of money was spent in the Rochdale Township, that money is not available for Building Schools for the Future in Heywood and Middleton so that's another reason why that is not acceptable.

"I'm convinced now that the option of Springhill, and what can be done there, is certainly the way forward for a better education for the children of the future."