Strayside Sunday: Harrogate Borough Council believes itself above scrutiny

Last updated May 15, 2021

Strayside Sunday is our monthly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party.

This week a Stray Ferret in-depth investigation revealed that our beloved Borough Council cloaks itself in secrecy. It’s long been suspected that when big or controversial issues are at hand, the Knapping Mounties use enough so-called “pink papers” (the bureaucratic standing instrument that allows ‘commercially sensitive’ information to be withheld) to avoid telling us about the decisions they make. Decisions that involve the spending of taxpayer money. Decisions about issues such as the financial affairs of the Harrogate Convention Centre, the sole source awarding of the £165k contract to create the new Visit Harrogate website, the long-delayed repairs to The Stray following the UTC World Cycling Championships, or the commercialisation of our leisure facilities.

In shocking fact, it turns out that HBC is in a pink paper league of its own. The Stray Ferret’s research has shown that the council has on 222 occasions, deemed their deliberations and decisions too sensitive for the simple likes of you and me. By way of like-for-like comparison – Conservative council’s serving populations of roughly the same size, with leader and cabinet systems – South Kesteven utilises the second largest number of pink papers. At 79, the Lincolnshire council uses 3 times fewer pink papers than our lot. Clearly, they don’t have much going on in Hampshire because Test Valley Council only saw fit to use pink papers on 9 occasions.

As ever, when challenged, the Leader, Richard Cooper refused to comment, leaving it instead to his long-suffering media team. Apparently, Harrogate Council is an irony free zone. For there, buried in the middle of a long-winded press statement, an exposition on the grand ambitions and fevered activities of this crack squad, is a right corker. “We pride ourselves on being an open and transparent council.” For pure bathos this is up there with Tony Blair’s “a day like today is not a day for soundbites (..) but I do feel the hand of history on my shoulder.” I would much rather that HBC be an open and transparent council, rather than pride itself on that which is patently untrue. Still, you know what they say, pride comes before the fall.

For the sake of balance, I should report that in their statement the council reminded us that they are ambitious, that they have several multi-million-pound projects under way for our benefit. They want the district to be known as the best place to work, live and visit. I, on the other hand, would like Harrogate to be the best place to work, live and visit, but that’s by the by. If indeed the council has more than the average number of commercial contracts being tendered then, surely, that is an argument for more transparency not less. The facts suggest that HBC believes itself above public scrutiny. What matters here is behaviour and Harrogate’s near one party state acts with impunity and, by papering the district pink, makes a mockery of our local democracy.

One further point. MP Andrew Jones has, as ever, refused to comment about the situation. Mr. Jones gives a free pass to those with whom he has a close working relationship (this column has, on more than one occasion, made mention of the fact that his constituency office is staffed by several Councillors, including Richard Cooper). It does not reflect well on the honourable member.

I confidently predict that none of this will lead to much trouble for the Conservatives, at least in the short term. Since my column last month, the blue team nationally has (rightly) benefitted from a vaccination bounce in the polls (at time of writing they enjoy a 15-point lead by some estimates), won the Bilton ward by-election, won Hartlepool for the first time in the constituency’s history at a by-election, and retained the West Midlands and Tees Valley ‘Big City’ Mayoralties. Emboldened, Boris gave Her Majesty a Queen’s Speech stuffed full of the “levelling up” spending measures our wider region needs so badly.

All this gave the PM political cover to announce a full-scale government inquiry, with subpoena powers, into his handling of the Covid-19 crisis. His calculus being that the findings from the report (Chumocracy, Test and Trace, assorted U-turns) won’t be presented until after the next General Election. Memories are short and BoJo is betting the house on consolidating his electoral position in the working-class constituencies of what is swiftly becoming Conservative England.

From Jim Hacker, the Minister for Administrative Affairs, to Richard Cooper’s Pink Papers, to Boris Johnson’s untruths and bombast, we Brits can’t seem to get too exercised about the lengths to which our pols go to obscure what they do in our name. I’m reminded of the well know English revolutionary battle cry.

“What do we want? Gradual change.”

“When do we want it? In due course.”

That’s my Strayside Sunday.