Hello and Goodbye
JLGC says goodbye and hello to a number of staff this April in the annual “jinji idou” personnel change common throughout Japan’s public and private sector. Deputy Director Toshihide Ohno returns to a position in Aichi Prefecture after two years in the UK, while Rika Kuwata returns to Tokushima Prefecture after two years in London to take a position working at the prefectural office for international affairs and strategy. We thank them for their work in London and look forward to working with their local authorities in the future.
Policy and Research Manager Irmelind Kirchner leaves JLGC after over 10 years working at the office in London, to return to her home country of Germany. Irmelind not only spent time on the JET Programme as Coordinator for International Relations in Yamaguchi Prefecture, but also worked at JLGC’s head office CLAIR in Tokyo as a Programme Coordinator for two years, before joining the team in London in 2002. We wish her the best of luck in her new career in Germany and thank her for contribution to the work of CLAIR over the years.
JLGC has welcomed three new Japanese staff from April; Deputy Director Kanato Hiramatsu from Aichi Prefecture, Assistant Directors Tatsuya Oba, from Shizuoka Prefecture, and Yuki Oe from Wakayama Prefecture. We are also joined by a new member of local staff, Dr Hannah Waterson, who will be working in a translation and research role from April 2013.
JLGC study visit to Sevenoaks District Council
JLGC Staff were able to visit to our partners at Sevenoaks District Council in Kent to see how district councils in the UK work with community groups and parish councils within the area on issues such as redevelopment, planning issues within the region and the staffing of the various events put on as part of the various partnerships. One particular focus of the visit for the group from JLGC was to look at the role of the elected councillors in addressing the concerns of local citizens and the role of community democracy.
A major theme of the visit was looking at the “Big Community Fund” and the district council’s efforts to support community oriented activities and how they cooperate with parishes and town councils. JLGC staff were surprised that elected councillors are involved in this process much more than in Japan. In Sevenoaks, the councillors’ role there was also an example of how the district council understands community needs and support community activities, also of interest to the group. They were also able to see the cooperation between Kent Police and the District Council on community safety, specifically the speed watch project which is unique to the area and offers training to community group members on how to use speed guns to measure cars breaking the speeding limit. Speed guns are then loaned out to members of the community to patrol the streets and check for cars breaking the speed limit. While the volunteers are unable to enforce penalties for breaking the speed limit, they are able to pass car registration numbers to the police, who then contact the car owner and give a warning. This was a particularly interesting example for Japanese local authorities of working with a police force.
JLGC would like to thank Council Leader Cllr Peter Fleming and Head of Community Development Lesley Bowles for hosting the group for the day, and for taking the time out of their busy schedules to show our staff the current issues facing local councils in UK, especially projects they are working in the midst of the economic restrictions UK local government is currently going through.
Bristol Mayor’s Visit
JLGC staff, including Director Hanyu, attended this year’s Mayor’s Conference in Bristol, held as part of Bristol Festival for Ideas. The event originated as a debate around the idea of having an elected mayor for Bristol ahead of the May 2012 referendum – now the elected mayor has been a reality since November, the conference was held around the theme of ‘What is local government for?’ As the theme suggests, facing the impact of significant cuts made the city council’s budget as a result of UK government spending policy, the mayor George Ferguson is now examining the role and purpose of the council as a whole, asking the question ‘What is it for?’
The event sought to provide intellectual and external stimulation for the hard task of governing England’s sixth largest city. The scene was set with a presentation by Professor Robin Hambleton of the University of the West of England, who diagnosed the condition of English local autonomy following decades of what he termed “centralisation on steroids”, alluding to best practice from overseas. Hambleton, a professor of city leadership, has worked with JLGC on a number of occasions, chairing our Japan Day Seminar and analysing city leadership on intercultural cities in Japan. Alexandra Jones, chief executive of the Centre for Cities think tank assessed the economic factors facing England’s cities and the urban-led policy response required to promote jobs and growth in the UK. We were also fortunate enough to hear directly from cities minister Greg Clark MP, who outlined the government’s ‘place-centred’ approach to economic growth, and former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, who gave a robust analysis of central-local relations and how cities can demand more autonomy. Heseltine, the coalition’s regional growth adviser, argued that leadership, drive and delivery were key to the task of securing the necessary tools and levers for city leaders to be able to bring their places back to growth.
The Mayor of Liverpool and Newcastle Council Leader were also on hand to respond to the day’s debate, given frank accounts of their own dealings with government as the cities agenda continues apace. The Bristol mayor later outlined his own approach of zero-based budgeting, examining every single service and function the council performs and assessing if it could be provided another way or needs to be provided at all. He was firm that ‘politics as usual’, or the salami-slicing of the City Hall budget, was not an option and that ultimately past approaches along these lines had short-changed citizens and led to the budgetary chaos the council now found itself in. As a result of the event, JLGC were able to engage and make contacts with city leaders and leading academics.
Japanese wolf hunt in London
Assembly members from Higashi Yoshino Village in Nara Prefecture travelled from Japan to London on a search for the last known “nihon ookami” Japanese wolf or Honshu wolf, eventually tracked down to the Natural History Museum. Honshu wolves were abundant in Japan until 1732 when rabies was introduced to the island. It was rabies, deforestation of the wolf’s habitat, and conflict with humans that led to their extinction. The last specimen was officially killed in 1905 in Nara prefecture. Although there have been many sightings claimed since then, none of them have been verified. There are five known mounted specimens: three in Japan, one in the Netherlands, and the last officially killed specimen belonging to the British Museum and kept at the Natural History Museum.
The wolf is the symbol of the Higashi Yoshino Village, and local councillors were thrilled to have the chance to see the wolf and be given a talk by Richard Sabin, Head of Vertebrate Zoology Group, Department of Life Sciences on how the specimen is looked after and its history. JLGC would like to give thanks to Mr Sabin for his time and help with tracking down the last Japanese wolf for the group from Higashi Yoshino Village.
