I was pleased to see the results of my contribution to urban wildlife on Saturday, since two years ago I put some frogspawn in a freshly dug pond at the bottom of the garden (well I say garden, in truth its more of a ‘butterfly sanctuary by neglect’) however, this weekend the frogs returned to start the cycle all over again. Definitely deserving of some sort of Bill Oddie award for that one!

First generation

New additions

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Later in the morning the weather was really damp and drizzle, ideal for moving the asparagus crowns and building them a proper bed. I grew some crowns from seed the year before last, which should have been moved last spring. It didn’t quite happen like that though since they just got overgrown and neglected due to time spent working on the general election. If you ever wondered where asparagus spears come from, well they come from one of these, which is an ‘asparagus crown’ before it goes into a permanent bed. Interesting crop Asparagus, you can harvest the same plant for about 30 years, it takes ages to get the first harvest but after that it just keeps on with just a small amount of weeding and compost top dressing.

Asparagus crown

I've got our regular Monday morning media meeting starting at 8.15, followed by a pre-meeting for Cabinet.

Tomorrow nights Cabinet meeting is the last one of the municipal year and covers the subjects set out below. There is some really good news in there concerning the Lottery Fund grant for St Leonards Gardens, which looks like it could bring significant improvements to a really valuable leisure resource for Central St Leonards.

CABINET

A sad day for all fans of No 10s best know former civil servant.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4823834.stm

Thanks to Andrew Brown, who has just pointed out David Milliband now has his blog up and running. Top marks for the first minister to have a go:

David Milliband

On Tuesday night I MC’d the first of four 'area conferences' introducing how all the public service providers  (such as health, police, county council, borough council) will deliver public services on an area base in the future. There was a  good turnout for a windy and rainy Monday night, the presence of real people being being swelled by a good turnout of undercover candidates for the next local elections.

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Anyway, we were able to explain what area co-ordination was, the area to be covered, how it will work and most importantly, why resident involvement is key to its future success.

If you didn’t make it to the event or the information displays before hand, there are still three more events focussing on the other areas of the town, which will be of a broadly similar format.

Future Consultation Events

I'm off to the smoke today for the Local Government Information Unit management  assembly.

Already pointed out in other places, but you should never let a good story go unrepeated.

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Timesonline

If its anything like other political blogs I would be surprised if it raised concerns from colleagues, it may even encourage some of them to brush up on their own keyboard skills :-)  Far more likely is that The Times is embellishing a snippet, in the same way I add 'interesting tales from the allotment' to this blog (simple photos and comments to add extra interest)

For that reason, I very much hope a future Milliblog wanders far and wide and doesn't stick to the departmental point.  It would help with  both the hit rate and the sticky factor, since bloggers are an eclectic bunch and will want something  just a little bit different for all those clicks and drags they put in.

The Labour Party regional conference took place in Eastbourne this weekend.

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By attending on both days I had a good opportunity to contribute to consultation covering a range of policy areas. Speaking personally, I really appreciate opportunities to influence future policy through a deliberative process, it feels far better than trying to make all change happen through the traditional filleting by resolution and amendment.

Of course there are some drawbacks, such as tracking the impact that individual contributions have, but that’s not a dilemma exclusive to Labour Party consultation. I think most consultation exercises could do with being clearer about what difference can and can’t happen as a result of them, how thats going to be determined and also getting back to people about the specific changes that contributions have or haven't triggered.

As far as the Labour Party is concerned, I think its really important we champion the case for fully resourced consultation for a whole host of reasons.

Its still a tricky thing to do well though, because while consultation isn't a ballot, it still needs to show how some ideas will have more traction than others on the basis of merit (and the merit of them still has to be decided somehow and somewhere !)