It’s Haringey Full Council again (this is when there’s a full meeting of the council, which all councillors attend – rather than just a particular committee meeting).

The budget is the big thing for the night. But before the budget – a presentation from local residents opposed to Labour’s proposed closure of Red Gables, which provides services for special needs children and is very popular with people who use it.

Of course, Labour denies any plans to do any such thing even though it is in their papers. And, strangely enough, the Labour Exec member and the Director of Social Services dived in a pincer movement on the poor deputation as soon as they sat down. Suddenly – remarkably even – there were instantaneous offers to consult with them. But there hadn’t been a dicky-bird up to that point.

Then the budget. In 2002 Labour promised at the elections that the days of big Council Tax rises were over. But in the four years since we will have ended up with an increase of 38% in Council Tax bills (Band D figures) – and not much to show for it quite frankly.

It’ll be even worse when the Government’s revaluation of property tax bands kicks in – and hits vast swathes of house owners in Haringey.

At the end of the night, Labour votes through its budget.

Hear back from the chap running an online transport survey (see 27 January entry).

He has already had over 350 surveys completed online. Excellent news – and I hope more people will take part at http://www.benchpoint.com/parking.

My campaign manager also points me at another site – for disgruntled Labour voters. I see they’re urging people to vote Lib Dem in Hornsey and Wood Green – hurrah!

A TV company have brought a double-decker bus to City Hall as a backdrop to an interview with me about Routemasters, fare evasion and bus driver behaviour. I had thought it was a news interview (which generally ends up as a nano-second sound bite) but this went on for about 15 minutes – at which point I discovered it was a real programme going out next month. Thought it odd to be given proper time to discuss these issues!

The nano-second version of my views:

Routemasters – gorgeous but can’t live in what we call a civilised society if we use buses that people with disabilities cannot use.

Fare evasion – Mayor has got to crack down on it. No use raising fares on everything if GBP85 million is leaking away in favour of the dishonest.

And bus driver behaviour: bless all the good ones – and curses on the ones who drive too fast, stop too abruptly, don’t pull into the curb, don’t put down the ramp even when working and use mobile phones. Long-running campaign of mine – now coming into the GLA’s Transport Committee as we’ve commissioned LTUC to do some work on this.

Race Equalities meeting at Haringey Council. This is the first meeting of this body since I was appointed to it – despite being ten months through the year. I made enquiries some months ago as to why there were no meetings for so long – and was told nothing formally as usual.

Informally – I was given to understand that there hadn’t been meetings as Labour wanted to avoid them. Anyway, at the meeting the Labour Executive Member for Regeneration was unable to be there. So the Chair simply said to the attendees (representatives of Haringey’s many communities) that they should send in questions which would be answered.

One of the representatives objected saying that as this was the only place they ever got such a line-up of Council Executive members to discuss these issues in public, it was outrageous that no-one – not Labour member nor officer – was at hand to answer questions, particularly as there had not been a meeting for about 10 months.

Hear! Hear! My point exactly. So I raised it – thus bringing down the wrath of Labour members and Chair who said that as the community reps had meetings with them privately if they needed to I should basically mind my own business! Perish the thought of having some openness and democratic accountability! Roll on 2006 I say. (Next local elections).

An email comes in from a witness who has asked the scrutiny officers at the Assembly to fund his on-line parking enforcement survey. Apparently they refused – which is right – we are not funders. However, he has set up this survey anyway – so I hope that people will log on and fill it in.

The Parking Scrutiny has got the biggest response ever to any scrutiny of the Assembly and it would indeed be very helpful to have people complete this survey and for it to be submitted as evidence to my committee. The survey is at http://www.benchpoint.com/parking

It’s the first of our budget debates today at the GLA. The process is: Ken presents his budget, we ask him lots of questions, then each of the five parties can put forward an amendment to the Mayor’s budget. Then they are voted down as each party usually only supports their own amendment.

Then the parties see if they can get a two-thirds majority and agree on a form of words to amend the budget. Then that is debated and voted on. And thus it was. Except Labour didn’t put forward an amendment because the Mayor is now back in the fold and they’re keener on supporting him than (the proper GLA role of) scrutinising his plans.

All the parties supported the Metropolitan Police budget in full. Everyone clearly recognises that we need to roll out Safer Neighbourhoods and get police on the beat, ring-fenced in every neighbourhood. This year a further five areas per borough will be delivered.

However the Mayor’s demand for more cash for transport doesn’t stand up in the detail.

We break for lunch – during which Ken corners me to ask why on earth I want to go to Parliament because it’s so awful and I am having a good time at the Assembly. I understand what he is getting at (he didn’t have a very good time there I know) but I explain that taking a Labour borough like Haringey and bringing Liberal Democracy there is a worthwhile challenge – and that Parliament will open up a whole new set of challenges. Ken is – whatever our differences – still a proper human being. And that side of him I can relate to.

As predicted – all the amendments fall and then Lib Dems, UKIP, Tories and Greens hash out a joint amendment which calls for a lowering of the precept (the bit the Mayor takes from our Council Tax bills) but also manages to put more money into road safety and environmental issues. This may not sound like much – but it is passed by the critical two-thirds majority and makes history as this is the first time the Assembly has used its power to thwart the Mayor’s cash grab.

The process will continue – and the Mayor now has to come back to the Assembly on 14th February with a rearranged budget. If our two-thirds majority holds (and I have no doubt that the Mayor will be desperately trying to buy the Greens off with bribes) then the Mayor will be forced to lower the precept.

Of course, Ken being Ken is furious, and immediately launches into the media (aka Evening Standard) to declare that if he doesn’t get exactly the precept he wants he will have to raise tube fares.

Nonsense! We will simply be removing padding from the transport budget. What the Mayor really means is that his costs on the tube are escalating because negotiations with the tube unions have delivered everything the unions want but at a cost – which he now has to find money for. Any rise in tube fares will be about his failure to negotiate a balanced deal.

I am invited to address the AGM of the London Transport Users Committee together with Bob Kiley.

That morning a piece had appeared in The Times saying that Kiley, fully supported by Mayor Ken, wants to extend congestion charging to hotspots right across London. The charge would be electronically managed by ‘tag and beacon’ so that the driver with a tag in their car would automatically be debited as the car passed a beacon. What’s more the article also states that they are thinking of this for the congested North and South Circulars.

Now, the Liberal Democrats have been advocating for some time that instead of the westward extension to the central congestion charging zone, the Mayor needs to target congestion – much of which exists outside the central area.

When the GLA’s Transport Committee (which I chair) did some polling in six boroughs outside of the centre, including Haringey, we found that peoples’ tolerance to a charge went up in direct correlation to their experience of congestion on their particular daily journeys. Congestion in their view wasn’t about large areas but about particular roads or town centres at particular times of the day. So – our recommendations were that any extension of the charge should be by electronic technology and target such hot spots and times.

So – given the opportunity to challenge Bob – I did so – not only on the veracity of the report, but also to make clear that any suggestion of effectively tolling the North Circular was ludicrous and would send vehicles rat-running through residential roads like there was no tomorrow. Muswell Hill and Bounds Green are deluged with rat-running as it is.

Bob was backtracking fast and saying he was just raising the debate. I said that was a good thing to be doing as everyone in London knew that congestion was worse outside zone 1, but put a few riders on the whole issue.

Firstly – any decision on where needed sorting out should be the decision of the borough itself with the consent of local people. Boroughs must be king in this.

Secondly – that the provision of buses into the central zone that made the first congestion charge possible meant that there would have to be an equivalent spend on public transport in any area into which a charge was being introduced – otherwise if no extra public transport alternatives were provided it would simply be a levy on car usage.

Thirdly – that any measure that were brought in must be predicated on the basis that they were entirely about reducing congestion and nothing to do with revenue raising per se.

So – we shall see. I then got to address LTUC as Chair of Transport to tell them what the Assembly expected and hoped for from them as an organisation. Seemed to go down well. I must say, having listened to them questioning Kiley, they seem a very bright bunch and I do have great hopes for them being effective champions for the public.