Is it time to scrap the Hampshire Senate?

Playing up to his image as the Emperor of Hampshire, the county council leader made the unfortunate reference as he addressed his fellow “senators” about the future of his controversial group.

Unfortunate because he was not quoting the words of a heroic emperor, but William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the tragic Danish prince who feigns madness. And madness is an appropriate word to describe the scenes at Winchester Guildhall on Thursday afternoon, when the Senate met for the sixth time.

The room was filled with some of the most important and powerful people in Hampshire, including the leaders of almost every council, plus the county’s most senior military commander and top police officer.

Along with representatives of the fire, health, voluntary and business sectors, these are the people hand-picked by Councillor Thornber to be “senators” – but the purpose of their existence is more mystifying than ever.

The Senate was last night branded expensive and ineffective and there were calls from one of its own members for the group to be disbanded.

Councillor Keith House, the Liberal Democrat leader of Eastleigh Borough Council, described the group as “undemocratic” and said it had achieved little in the 18 months since its launch.

“There is no constitution, no rules, no membership arrangement and no standing orders.

The body doesn’t actually exist, it is a virtual organisation – a figment of Ken Thornber’s imagination,” Cllr House said.

The leader of Portsmouth City Council last night said he’d rejected an invitation to join the Senate because he felt the body would be of no benefit to the people of Portsmouth.

And the chairman of the Hampshire Police Authority, Councillor Jacqui Rayment, was angered after Cllr Thornber attempted to have her replaced on the Senate by the chief constable Alex Marshall.

“From a police authority point of view it is important that we are at the table. But it has got to be a good use of everybody’s time, with some real outcomes at the end of it and I’m not sure to date that the Senate has delivered that,” the Southampton Labour councillor said.

Other members privately expressed concern that the purpose for which the Senate was first set up – to improve partnership sharing and to help councils achieve targets set by Government – had been swept aside to pursue another agenda.

It has been suggested the Senate should replace the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Local Government Association (HIOWLA), a legitimate body with joint committee status, that has an elected chairman and a constitution. For the past decade it has met on several occasions each year to encourage cooperation between councils and to promote their shared interests.

This is in contrast to the two-hour meeting of the Senate on Thursday, which one senator described as a “navel-gazing” session and another branded a “public relations disaster”.

Only one piece of positive action was taken – to draw up a paper on the Licensing Act. That was despite the senators having before them an 18-page report that detailed the issues the people of Hampshire believe they should address.

The report was the result of a conference held last month at a four-star hotel, where 220 delegates told the Senate what challenges the county faced. Cllr Thornber said it had been a “productive day” that highlighted topics such as the skills gap and fuel poverty.

Yet when he asked his senators for their thoughts on how the issues should be tackled, he was met with a wall of silence.

It would have been laughable if not for the fact that Cllr Thornber wants his group, which is dominated by fellow male Conservative councillors, to become more powerful, expensive and secretive.

They have proposed hiring a public relations firm to carry out an internal publicity campaign to “educate staff” on the role of the Senate and to pay a professional lobbyist to make the Senate “the voice of Hampshire in Westminster”.

The plans were thought up earlier this month at an “away day” for Senate members that was held behind closed doors at the Aldershot Army garrison. Yet when the Senate met in public to take these proposals forward, none of them were discussed in any detail at all.

Instead, they squabbled about whether they could send their deputies to meetings if they were unable to attend and whether the council leaders could bring along their chief executives.

Indeed, the only item to be settled was to ban the public and press from two of the Senate’s six yearly meetings. Apparently important “operational”

matters can only be discussed in private.

Another crucial matter up for discussion was whether HIOWLA – which represents every council, including Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight – should be “wound up” as the Senate was essentially “duplicating” its responsibilities. It would mean subscriptions that are paid by every council in the region to run HIOWLA would be diverted to the Senate to fund new full-time staff.

Which begs the question if there was already a group in existence, paid for by the taxpayer, that brings together every single council in the region – why was the Senate ever needed?

Quite what the partnership officer from Oxfordshire County Council, who observed Thursday’s Senate meeting, will report back to her bosses is anyone’s guess. Although she might have one piece of advice: whatever you do, don’t name it the Oxfordshire Senate.

‘The vast majority of members believe the Senate is effective...’

Councillor Ken Thornber, selfanointed chairman of the Hampshire Senate, last night responded to a series of questions from the Daily Echo.

■ The Senate has been described by one of its members as ineffective and undemocratic.

What is your response? The Senate was set up to replace the Local Area Agreement Board, on which only two district council leaders served.

The Senate ensures that the leaders of the 11 democratically elected borough and district councils now have a full say in setting and delivering joint priorities and targets, alongside the heads of other key delivery agencies.

The vast majority of members believe the Senate is effective and this view was confirmed by the many people who attended the partnership conference.

■ What has the Senate achieved since it was launched? Thanks to partnership working made possible through the Senate, the body has already achieved considerable success against its key targets of cutting alcohol-related crime, reducing antisocial behaviour, improving road safety and reducing road casualties.

It is also enabling Hampshire County Council to begin work on a project that aims to deliver hundreds of high-quality affordable homes across the county.

In addition, it is thanks to the Senate that a number of initiatives to help businesses through the recession have got off the ground, such as support packages to retrain redundant shop workers and the creation of 900 new jobs for young people in the county who have been out of work for more than a year.

■ Why do you want to merge HIOWLA with the Senate? Part of the Senate’s remit is to look at where efficiencies can be made. Many members of the Senate who also sit on HIOWLA believe that the time has come for HIOWLA to be merged with the Senate.

■ If the two groups are duplicating responsibilities, then why was the Senate ever formed? No response.

■ What was the purpose of the Senate annual conference, if no action is going to be taken by the Senate to address the issues raised, such as fuel poverty and the skills gap? The work of the Senate does not start or finish at the meetings. The members of the Senate will all be further considering the issues raised at the conference and what actions can be taken individually, by groups of senate members or as a collective. Any actions will be discussed at future meetings.