Area Forums

These are articles and letters from the Bolton News about the proposed alterations to the Area Forum system.

The whole thing is in abeyance at the moment but there are indications of how it will pan out later in the year.

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Council considers change for forums

Monday 6th June 2011

The way area forums work could change under new plans being considered by Bolton Council.

Two local authority teams — Neighbourhood Management and Area Working — are set to merge and could see the forums run differently.

None of the 18 forums have been given budgets so far this financial year while the council considers the plans.

Last week, area co-ordinator Idris Jeewa told the Great Lever Area Forum: “The forum does not have its budget yet for this year as Area Working and Neighbourhood Management are going to be amalgamated.”

He said there would be a review by the council between June and September. The Area Working team and the Neighbourhood Management team are both part of the chief executive’s department.

There will be a consultation before the plans are approved.

The proposed merger is part of the council’s cost-cutting drive.

Mr Jeewa told the meeting he did not know what form the new forums would take or whether there would be any changes at all.

Area forums were introduced in 2000, when there were initially six forums in the borough.

This increased to nine in 2004 under the Liberal Democrats, and to 18 in 2008.
The forums meet four times a year.

Power to hand out cash to local voluntary groups was taken away from forums earlier this year.

Previously, £45,000 of funding was available for small grants via the forums. Now small grant applications must be made to Bolton CVS, which has a £160,000 fund to help groups.

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Alan Calvert wrote

Talks on future of local forums

Monday 20th June 2011

Bolton Council puts some effort in to staging area forums throughout the town.
They are an opportunity for members of the public to have their say about local issues.

Whether anything much happens as a result is sometimes debateable, but the meetings can be a worthwhile communications exercise.

We now learn that two local authority teams — Neighbourhood Management and Area Working — are set to merge and there could be changes in the way the forums are run.

A review lasts until September and there is to be some of that familiar consultation.

It seems inevitable that costs will be reduced during this exercise, but I hope the forums — established in 2000 — continue to exist in some form or another.

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Tory chief hits out at changes to ward funds




Sunday 24th July 2011

Changes to the way funding is allocated to every ward in the borough has been criticised as “unbalanced, unfair and unacceptable” by the town’s most senior Conservative.

The budget for devolved funding has been slashed from almost £1.4 million to £842,000, with greater emphasis on funding being targeted at areas of higher deprivation.

But Cllr John Walsh says the figures are unbalanced, with four wards being allocated more than half the total budget.

He said: “Labour’s proposals for 2011/2012 are unbalanced with over half the total tar- geted allocations ear- marked for just four wards, Rumworth, Farnworth, Halliwell and Great Lever, while seven wards in total will get less than a quarter of the highest.

“Labour base the allocations on figures for deprivation which are years old and flawed. The present proposals will be seen as totally unfair and unaccept- able to the vast majori- ty of people across Bolton.”

Cllr Nick Peel, a member of the Executive, hit back at Cllr Walsh.

He said: “It was actually his Government who scrapped the area based grants.”
As part of the same drive to save money, Town Hall chiefs have also announced 21 posts are to go in the chief executive’s department.

A reorganisation of the way Bolton Council engages with local communities has been agreed by deputy council leader Cllr Linda Thomas.

Among the jobs top go will be the number of area managers, which is being cut from five to three while the number of area co-ordinators is being cut by the same amount.

Responsibility for area working is being shared with Bolton At Home, the organisation which took over the ownership of Bolton’s 18,500 council houses earlier this year, while the number of area forum meetings for each ward is being cut from four per year to three per year.

Cllr Thomas insisted residents will still be able to have their voices heard.

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Forums should not lose out to areas of ‘high deprivation’

Thursday 28th July 2011

I am dismayed to hear of the proposed tinkering with the Area Forum system.
Constitutionally, these forums are committees of the council and perhaps the only place where ward councillors and the council can be publicly held to account by voters and be encouraged or embarrassed into acting on local issues.

I appreciate the council has financial difficulties and although it may be that the council views the forums merely as platforms for the views of assorted nutters, moaners and whingers, any reduction in their frequency or emasculation in any other way would be a further dilution of local democracy.

As Conservative leader Cllr John Walsh points out, once again we see that monies, once available equally to all the forums for spending at the behest of the ward councillors, are now to be skewed in favour of the wards of “high deprivation” — this based on figures at least 10 years old.

It’s time this mantra of “areas of high deprivation” was knocked on the head. The majority of people in these areas are no more deprived than I am — in fact, a lot of them are a lot less deprived.

There are health issues, but this is due to the fact that members of the ethnic minority communities are traditionally prone to different kinds of health problems, as minimal internet research can show.

These are matters for the NHS and no excuse for Labour councillors to pour more of our council tax into their favoured areas. There should be a rule that a proportion of the council tax paid by each ward should be returned to that ward for spending on projects decided by the ward councillors.

Finally, what has happened to the £50,000 District Centre Improvement Fund that Little Lever was supposed to get this year?

I think we ought to be told.

Paul Richardson Ripon Close Little Lever

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Methinks we haven't heard the last of this