Power to the Politicians
I signed a very worthy petition today. If you have any interest in safeguarding the future of schools in Lambeth, then I suggest you do the same:
“We the undersigned petition the council to lobby the Education Secretary, Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, to immediately restore the funding for Lambeth’s secondary school rebuilding programme, as previously promised by the Government.”
[Declaration of interest - I work in one of the schools that has had the funding withdrawn by the nasty ConDem cuts.]
Of course online petitions are all powerful, especially so in local government circles following the creation of the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009.
This piece of legislation, brought in by the fag end of the New Labour administration, compels local authorities to take online petitions seriously. And rightly so - if you can be arsed to fill in an online form, then your opinion must matter.
Lambeth Life even led with this issue last month, proudly declaring this brave new leap into democracy with a Power to the People front-page headline.
Hurrah!
As has already been pointed out, the Power to the People piece was not only a very clumsy PR attempt by our friends from @LambethLabour to bundle the legislation in with #lambethcoop, but the number required to actually make the mechanics of local government sit up and listen are quite alarming:
“Governing arrangements for calling a senior officer to account at an overview and scrutiny meeting open to the public – if requested and at least 1,500 signatures.”
“Governing arrangements for full Council debates – if requested and at least 3000 signatures.”
The petition put out by @LambethLabour on the council’s website currently has eight signatures at the time of publishing this post. Clearly some way to go before Full Council will actually get round to debating the issue.
Of course it would be highly inappropriate for poxy party political points to be gained by springing this issue on the agenda at the Full Council meeting next week. Only another 2,992 signatures required, and there will be democratic justification for forcing a debate, as is the case with any petition put forward by the citizens people.
Just sayin’ like.
23/07/2010 at 11:50 pm Permalink
There is a protest against the cuts this Monday night at the Town Hall, so who ever is organising the petition should be able to obtain a few signatures there including raising it with some of the local unions who can circulate among there members.
Last Monday there were about 80 people protesting about cuts to children services with many going into the meeting. The NUT, Unison and GMB have produced a very good joint eight-page newsletter against the various cuts and it would be excellent if we could get a joint community/unions campaign off the ground in the borough.
So whoever is organising the petition come along Monday night.