Peter Kenyon

Why I joined Labour: the other side of the coin

I have just renewed my Labour Party membership online. It has taken the Labour Party's systems three months to catch up with my decision to cancel my direct debit. As my avid reader(s) know, I have a thing about accountability. Budgets and management accounts are essential in any organisation for all elected management committee/board members however it is incorporated. I could have resigned in the light of my experiences during my two-year term on the Labour Party's national executive committee (NEC). Instead I have chosen to stay and fight the cause of democratic socialism from inside.

My latest opportunity for gesture politics was to cancel my DD. Eventually a flag appeared on my Membersnet personal details inviting me to renew. An invitation I readily accepted, as having passed my 65th birthday I am entitled to pay at the reduced unwaged rate. It is a pity that the tables for membership rates have not been updated in line with current Conference agreed rates. But where there is a will there's a way. I just ticked 'Other' and manually inserted the current unwaged rate.

Then I was offered an opportunity to tell why I have joined the Labour Party. No warm words from me. So don't expect to see the following entry on the Labour home page. Rather crossly, I stated:

Been a member since 1978. Cancelled DD as do not trust Party with my money. One term on the NEC was sufficient. Having reached retirement age have reduced my membership status to unwaged.

There was no Print Page option so I cannot prove I have 'renewed'.  I will just have to keep a careful watch on my Credit Card account payments. 

As for the 'saving' on my membership, that will be going to my local branch to fund our next local election campaign. Here I have the satisfaction of knowing that the Treasurer has already produced the accounts for 2011, and they were presented to the branch last month, subject to audit. Audited accounts are expected to be available at the next branch meeting tomorrow.

Jack - Labour Party masseur proffers fluffy towel

Creative accounting has been taken into a new dimension by Labour Party outgoing Treasurer, Jack Dromey. Delegates to Annual Conference voted just before lunch today on a Rule change which requires every constituency and branch labour party "to transfer the beneficial ownership of their respective freehold and leasehold properties legal title........to and for the benefit of The Labour Party......."

Questions were asked. Reassurances were given. Jack offered a "cast-iron guarantee". Quite correct. Cast iron's defining characteristic is: it is brittle.

Moving the Rule Change, Cath Speight, a past NEC chair and representative in the Trade Union section from Unite the Union, played the masseur's assistant assured conference there had been a proper consultation. And indeed there had been between end July and mid-September, when few CLPs meet, if you call that proper. NEC members were told last week some 60 replies had been received. But there was no written report. So no opportunity for other NEC members to look at the responses alongside the recommendation, which I call sequestration.

If implemented, the consequence will be to add assets to the Labour Party's balance sheet. It currently shows liabilities far in excess of current assets. So bravo, Jack, masseur extraordinaire. That should drape a towel over the naked financial irresponsibility which took the Labour Party to the brink of bankruptcy after the 2005 General Election. And who was Treasurer at that time? In his own defence, Jack insisted that there had been "complete concealment". Well, I'm sorry. As anyone who has ever put in place financial governance arrangements for a multi-million pound organisation, and I have, when elected Treasurer he simply never paid attention to the necessary detail in the first place.

I sincerely hope his successor as Treasurer, Diana Holland, doesn't make the same mistake, however fluffy Jack's towel looks.

Is the Labour Party a going concern post-2010 General Election?

This is the question anyone is entitled to ask. It is one that every Labour Party leadership wannabe should be addressing. As an elected member of the Labour Party National Executive Committee, I was issued with a gagging order last year not to do so. Arguably, it sums up in a proverbial 'nut shell' what is wrong with the Labour Party's current governance arrangements.

A key feature of New Labour was to belittle due process. Today, how many Labour Party meetings feature a regular Treasurer's report with accounts? Certainly, not Labour's so-called ruling National Executive Committee. An instant audit of constituency and branch labour party meetings would be very revealing. My own branch and CLP treasurers provide a monthly update usually in writing if there are any significant changes. I think most members appreciate their willingness to be open and accountable. Annual accounts are audited and the auditor(s) make themselves available at the AGM. When there is slippage there is catchup.

Somewhere in the dim and distant past I took a different path from the sofa politicians of New Labour. Maybe it was helping in the local Co-op shop as a young lad in Lancashire. Perhaps it was reporting quoted company results for Reuters. Then there was a fraud by a local scout troop leader that resulted in my son and his fellow Scouts being cheated of an overseas camping trip, (The offender was eventually given a custodial sentence for breach of trust.) Whatever, I came to expect that in any voluntary association, or incorporated body I was involved in that the highest standards of financial reporting would be aspired to.

So what about those five Labour leadership wannabes? Four of them have been members of the Cabinet - governing the country, imposing targets, demanding accountability of others. Do any of them have a sense of irony?

Now to the substance of whether the Labour Party is a going concern. I have been informed that the 2009 accounts have been signed off. It is regrettable that there was no NEC meeting beforehand with the Auditor(s) both elected and appointed present to answer questions. So the answer to the question is I don't know. I could speculate. But I won't. I just want to see the figures with my own eyes and have an opportunity to question the auditor(s) myself. I belief that some of the 16,464 members who voted for me to represent them on the NEC expect no less.

Which Labour Leadership wannabe will speak out against these 'New Labour' practices, and defend my rights?  Which  will support the call for a proper Annual General Meeting at Conference? We need to know if we are to learn from the past and create a sound foundation for the future.

Labour NEC agenda: missing items - membership

In addition to the scandal of not providing regular management accounts to all Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) members is the small matter of no membership reports either. I was reminded of this yesterday reading reports of Labour benefactor and former minister Lord Sainsbury's new venture, the Institute of Government.

Sainsbury interviewed by the Times newspaper recalls the daily monitoring of trading figures in retailing:

“In the family supermarket business, every morning you had the previous day’s trade figures, how well you were doing compared with the previous week and the same week last year. Everyone knew exactly what they had to deliver."

There is no reason why the NEC should not have regular membership figures, except that the powers that be do not think membership is critical to the Labour Party's core business. This may help explain why Labour is now languishing at pitifully low levels in the opinion polls after a battering in the Euro/council elections in June. Membership recruitment and retention, together with ensuring members have a say in policy are essential to any Labour electoral recovery plan. That's what I shall be proposing when the NEC next meets on Tuesday 21 July.

Pesky Labour Party expectations: accounts with an auditor

Unaccustomed as I am to causing public mischief, the treatment of the Labour Party accounts needs closer examination. In my experience, albeit only after 63 years on the planet mainly under English law, the members of any organisation, incorporated or unincorporated are entitled to a copy of the Annual Accounts. Often unincorporated bodies present their accounts to members with the auditor present. (I wouldn't claim this happens universally. But I would insist it is good practice.)

There is a notorious example of audited accounts being presented without the auditor present when the 'clean bill of health' was forged. Hence the practice of having an auditor present to 'account' for the veracity of the ....accounts.

And when does this happen in the proceedings of the Labour Party? Well, it's a relevant question. At least it is in my mind. Whether it is a good one depends on whether you are a pupil of good governance or ...beholden to an expectation too far.

Labour Party accounts - members will have to wait

City of London Labour Party met last night for its monthly meeting of debate and campaign planning. As usual there was an item on the Agenda for National Labour Party business. My comrades were shocked to hear me report that the General Secretary, Ray Collins had effectively rejected our request for earlier publication of the Statement of Accounts. There is no obligation on the GS to arrange early publication. The Rule Book Chapter 1, Clause VIII. G says one of the jobs of the NEC is::

to present to the regular annual meeting of party conference a report covering the work and progress of the party during its period of office, together with a report on the work of the NEC committees, a financial statement and duly audited accounts. This report, financial statement and accounts shall be sent to CLPs and affiliated organisations at least two clear weeks before the opening of party conference

That means forget about them until mid-September. But a Labour law to clean up British politics, the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act passed in 2000, yes that's nine years ago, requires political parties with a turnover in excess of £250k/annum to file a Statement of Accounts within 7 days of 30 June in the year following the accounting period in question.

I think members should get them at the same time, so does my branch and so does my CLP which has a Rule change resolution down for the 2009 Conference. Devotees of this blog will perhaps recall comments at around this time last year from 'tory boys never grow up' questioning whether my assertion that there was no reason why members could not receive them at the same time as the Electoral Commission, ie now. I thought (mistakenly) that  a little quiet diplomacy on the NEC with the GS might result in my wish being fulfilled despite 'tory boys never grow up' strident assertions. It will come as no surprise that my optimism was (as is often the case) premature. But I have not given up, I have gone back to the GS querying whom he took advice from in coming to his decision not to publish immediately.

Openness and accountability underpins how most of us decide to spend our time and money, often in ways we are not even conscious of at any particular moment. Labour Party membership, commercial income and donation trends, whether small, high value, corporate or trade union will all be affected by how well the NEC is seen managing the Party's affairs. I'm not suggesting anything material is being hidden in the 2008 Accounts. Though, bearing in mind it is only just over 18 months since over £20 million of hidden unsecured loans were discovered dating back to the Blair era as Leader, one can't be too careful.

Labour's NEC - a broken reed?

Today, the Guardian published a letter I wrote last week in response to a Comment piece on the Labour Party by Simon Jenkins in which among other things Jenkins described its National Executive Committee as 'a broken reed'. 

I challenged his analysis, writing:

The Labour party's shortcomings are governance failures. Just like those that took Britain to war in Iraq, and led to the near collapse of the banking system and the MPs' allowances scandal. The result has been alien policies, membership and local council representation cut by over 50%, and massive debts.

Save the Labour Party's call for an extra NEC meeting has been rejected by the powers that the on the grounds that it was not possible to arrange. That's a problem with a body that only meets every two months and is never given any meaningful management information either about its finances, membership or organisational capacity. What's the point?

I'm still waiting for confirmation that the Statement of Accounts for 2008 has been sent to the Electoral Commission, and that it will also be sent to members this month for consideration at July meetings. I hope that our Auditors have given an unqualified opinion as to the state of the Party's finances. But it can only be a hope, as I have never seen any information as a member of the NEC that would assure me that they will. With affiliated trade unions, the Party's financial mainstay, threatening to reduce funding or in extreme cases, such as the Communications Workers' Union, disaffiliate, there must be questions about going-concern. Yesterday's announcement by m'Lord Mandleson cancelling the part-privatisation of the Post Office at least removes one potential threat to the Labour Party's finances, for the time being. In any normal organisation, the NEC would have had an opportunity to consider the draft accounts with the Auditor present. My request for such a meeting before 30 June has been ignored.

Underlying these concerns, which I will readily admit are a minority interest, are worries that 'the powers that be' in the Labour Party think they are law unto themselves, just like Members of Parliament, and bankers. It is time this view was challenged more loudly, and very publicly, if 'the powers that be' hope to win back the trust of party members and the electorate.

Labour Party cites pending changes in law for bank account ruling

If I were the chief executive of either the Co-operative or Unity Trust Bank, I'm not sure I would appreciate reasons currently being advanced by the Labour Party to justify an instruction to its branches, constituency parties and other units to bank exclusively with these two institutions. Some 70% of the bodies involved already do. So what's the problem?

It is claimed in a letter to those involved that changes in regulations arising from the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and those proposed in the Political Parties and Elections Bill currently before Parliament justify the instruction. I have been refused a copy of the internal NEC Business Board report so I feel free to pose questions publicly.

The reason advanced is the standardisation of accounts. I've been a branch and CLP Treasurer since the PPERA 2000 came into force and I can't remember any occasion needing help from the Co-op bank compiling accounts, or being offered such a service, if I needed one. So I asked HO if they could supply examples.

The only ones cited were questions regarding access to accounts where signatories have moved away, died or are in dispute with the local party.

This looks as though HO is paving the way for imposing a centralised treasury/banking function on the dwindling membership - and driving another nail in the coffin of a mass-membership party. Or is that a non-sequitur, just like the reason advanced by the powers that be for compulsory banking with the Coop and UTB?

Memo to Co-op and UTB, don't claim you weren't warned.

New Year preparations - Labour Party branch AGMs

One way of working off the mince pies post-Christmas for me has been preparing for local Labour Party branch Annual General Meetings. My predecessor as secretary for the Cities of London and Westminster Constituency Labour Party, Jason Thomas Williams left an excellent set of ideas in his files to assist his counterparts at the branch level. It includes times, deadlines, posts to be filled to share out the work,'job descriptions' and a set of the standing orders to help ensure the business is conducted systematically - or at least that's the theory. I have just amended them for 2009 and despatched them to my counterparts and the chairs of branches, including a reminder to branches to prepare audited accounts if they are raising/spending and holding money.

It became fashionable under our previous Labour Party leader to scorn these routines. Checks and balances are a vital part of our society, not just our democracy. Having seen the banking system come close to collapse worldwide, my wish for 2009 is that our new Labour Party leader will make clear his appreciation of the role of branch officers, including those who account for the money. We need lots more people in local communities who understand the importance of these functions. Many used to gain their apprenticeships as chairs, secretaries, organisers and treasurers in trade union and Labour Party branches.

Let's consign sofa government to the dustbin of history in 2009.

Labour makes £7.5m in 2007; unsecured loans £15m

At last - a month late. The audited version was approved by the NEC on 25 June 2008. As the Electoral Commission advice last week clarified there is no reason in law why the Party could not have published them immediately for the benefit of its members.

One paragraph in the Independent Auditors' Report is of particular note:

"This report is made solely to the members of the Labour Party in accordance with the Party's rules and Section 41 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 200. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the members those matters we are required to state to them in an auditor's report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the members, for our audit worl, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed."

Next question if it is made for the members, what steps has the NEC agreed to make sure it is available to all members?

I look forward to the usual torrent of abuse for daring to hold the NEC to account for its stewardship of the Party between conferences.