Tory referendum cost spin

It seems the cost of the referendum keeps on increasing; first the Council cost it at £250,000 and now it goes up to £382,000.

Of course it is always difficult to isolate the costs of a referendum when combined and the government does have measures to mitigate for referendums when shared with the local election.

It is disengenious however to compare a government referendum with that of a local ballot which is not binding and could be conducted in a different way.

The increase in cost is also all a bit co-incidental given the number seems to increase in proportion to the vocal opposition expressed by DRINK and pro-airport campaigners. A cynic would say the Tories are running scared of a clear movement of people who believe the public should have a say; these calls incidently will only increase with time.

I am particularly interested to read Cllr O'Brien's response tonight on talking waste of money.

Lets just put aside the multiple millions of pounds in waste that him and his cabinet colleagues have over-spent on a glut of programmes and projects; or indeed money they are spending on behalf of other organisations they have no authority over. Lecturing people over value-for-money from a party that has lost grip of the finances is a bit rich.

Lets also put to one-side the abject denial of Conservative Councillors who ran a failed campaign last year and were totally caught up in their own local hype. Remember had our Tory MPs and Councillor's had an iota of grip we would not have had an airport proposal near Medway in the first place. As a result of Tory failure, Cameron has u-turned, so adding £50,000 to the cost of now opposing the airport.

Thirdly; if we do accept the Council figures then someone in the Council got it wrong by £132,000 the first time they 'spun' the claim of £250,000. Either way for the Council to get something £132,000 incorrect is what it is, and proves my first point well.

It is also rich for a Conservative Party; that preaches about localism and empowering people but only it seems for issues they care about. Openly calling for an EU vote by many, and indeed the squandering of money on a Police Commissioner. I bet not one Tory has thought how much that sum of money could pay for Police; but then their votes are totally fine, anyone elses a cost. What utter tripe.

Now lets challenge the assertions; the Tories are now claiming that it could be illegal to hold an election at the same time as a referendum.

Advice that has never been given by Council in public or indeed at the time the airport referendum was proposed at full council

As far as I can tell there is no reason why a ballot on an airport can not be held on the same day as any other ballot. If Tories have legal guidance proving the point; publish it.

Referendums have become a regular feature of the local government scene in the past two decades, principally owing to the number of mayoral referendums which have been held. Other (advisory) polls have been instigated by local authorities including four on levels of council tax and a number in connection with proposals for local government reorganisation.

The Labour Government said in its 1998 local government white paper, Modern local government...in touch with the people, that it wished to see

“...consultation and participation embedded into the culture of all councils. The Government believes that councils should see and use referendums as an important tool to give local people a bigger say. The policy was introduced so that local people on such issues as major local developments or matters of particular local controversy."

Section 116 of the Local Government Act 2003 provides a specific power for principal local authorities to hold polls in order to ascertain views on any matter relating to:

(1) their services, or

(2) expenditure on those services, or

(3) their power to promote well-being in their areas.

The act gives power for Councils to hold the referendums how they choose as far as I can translate.

So lets look at the cost argument

Despite the Council briefing £250,000 cost I have finally received the above calculation putting the cost at £382,000

However a ballot at the same time as the Police Commissioner would nulify all of these costs because they would already be spent. Therefore the only additional cost would that of the ballot papers themselves and the additional time for counting.

Of course on ballots such as this we do not as I understand need to print off the full 100% because local ballots do not fall in the same rules; we could assume a turn-out of less then 66%. The ballot papers would be extremely simple; as such if we accept the above costings come out at say £5,500.

The only other cost as I can tell that would not be duplicated is for staffing time to count. Once again; assuming a simple yes/no vote this can be done at speed because the level of spoilt ballots and 'vote split' is nullified. I believe a seperate team at the Council could count ballots at speed. Assuming a cost of £4,500 which would cover for counting staff for designated period. All other staffing costs shared.

Of course if you used one ballot box splitting the vote and other costs would arise but this does not come out at anywhere near the £382,000 figure.

Lets be frank and honest with the public. Sharing a ballot would be better value-for-money, it would be common-sense