Strange case of the missing £18,000 report

Occasionally Freedom of Information (FOI) requests throw up some interesting answers.

That’s one of the reasons why we believe that the increasing numbers of QUANGOS in York should voluntarily accept and respond to FOI requests. After all, most depend heavily – some exclusively – on funding from taxpayers. The Council’s Executive had an opportunity, when discussing governance of these bodies yesterday, to increase transparency. Unfortunately it failed to take the necessary action.

The York Council should itself set an example in providing information in a candid and comprehensive way.

One resident asked recently for a copy of a report commissioned by the Councils Chief Executive from PWC (Consultants). The objective of the exercise was to improve the Council’s efficiency.

The consultancy cost taxpayers £18,000.

The Council claims that it has not kept a copy of the report (received just 12 months ago!) and goes on to say that,

This work was commissioned by the then Chief Executive of the Council, who left the authority in July 2015. The interim Chief Executive who was in post from July 2015 determined that this particular work would not be taken forward and therefore no further discussion or action has taken place on this matter.

The Council says that it doesn’t know whether any Councillors saw the report.

This seems, on the face of it, to be a very cavalier approach to the use of taxpayers money.

The Council’s Leadership, and incoming Chief Executive, should make sure that the report – even if unsuitable for implementation – is made publicly available.

York Council still in a muddle over local QUANGOs

The York Council’s Executive is to consider its relationship with agent bodies and companies tomorrow.

The move comes in the wake of criticism of several bodies not least York City Trading where audits revealed that inappropriate payments had been made. Other problems arose in relations with the York Museums Trust over charging arrangements and Make it York where apparently unilateral decisions angered residents

The organisations concerned depend on Council taxpayers for a lot of their income

One common criticism was a lack of transparency shown by the organisations (they are not subject to Freedom of Information legislation).

Concerns were also expressed that performance indicators – where published – were inappropriate or “soft”.

Campaign against secrecy started 5 years ago

The expectation was the new Council would shake up the bodies and inject more democratic accountability.

Instead a disappointing report concentrates only on governance issues. Steps are being taken to separate executive and customer functions but little else. We will still have a bureaucratic muddle with little consistency and no new commitment to openness.

If approved without change, the Council will stand accused of ignoring many of the concerns expressed by taxpayers over the last five of years.

Important decisions affecting the City will continue to be taken “Behind Closed Doors”

York Council has paid out £8.2 million in redundancy costs since 2011

546 staff made redundant – 41 sign “compromise agreements”

A Freedom of Information response has revealed the costs of cutting staffing levels at the York Council.

FOI response Redundancies table 2

The figures don’t include teaching staff.

In total 546 have left the Council with average pay-outs of around £15,000 each. Over 80% of the redundancies were voluntary.

The figures reveal that the largest number of redundancies occurred in 2011/12 when 212 left the Council. This has fallen gradually each year to a figure of 66 during the last financial year.

A total of £8.2 million has been paid out of which £4,554,000 was the cost of statutory payments, £3,339,000 early retirement costs and £352,000 pay in lieu of notice.

Only three former staff were subsequently re-employed directly by the Council.

The authority says, though, that they don’t record whether any of their agency or contract staff have previously been employed by the Council.

Individual redundancy proposals are reported to a small group of Councillors who meet each week in a “behind closed doors” decision session.

The Council has specifically said in its response that it “has made no enhanced redundancy or pension payments”.

Compromise agreements

The Council has also confirmed that 41 “compromise” agreements have been signed with staff. Usually these involve some sort of compensatory pay.

A compromise agreement is a legally binding agreement made either during or following the termination of employment. It is recognised by statute and is the only way an employee can validly “contract out” of their employment law rights. It usually provides for a severance payment, in return for which former employees agree not to pursue any claim or grievance to an Employment Tribunal.

A leading law firm says that the major reasons for using the compromise agreement (other than to settle an existing claim) are to “remove an employee on the grounds of poor performance or misconduct, to avoid legal challenge in redundancy situations and to make it easier to remove senior staff without embarrassment”.

The Council has so far failed to explain what the reasons were for the compromise agreements that it has been party too.

While such agreements usually involve a confidentiality clause, there is no reason why the main reasons for the high level of use of the system in York cannot be made public.

We’ll press the Council to provide taxpayers with more information about this policy.

York Council moves to legitimise Local Plan decision date

The latest Forward Plan -which indicates when key decisions are scheduled to be taken by the York Council – has been amended to include consideration of a new Draft Local Plan.

The Council has said that it will consider which sites will be allocated for new housing when its Executive meets on 30th June.

Residents were mystified when, last week, Councillors said discussion of the changes was imminent. No item had been placed on the Forward Plan and the Executive’s own agenda – which outlines the issues that will be considered at its subsequent two meetings – was also silent on the issue.

The Council has still not said when its Local Plan Working Group will meet. The all party group has not met since 30th November 2015. It would normally meet to discuss any draft proposals before forwarding them to the Executive for approval.

We understand that Council officials are briefing the owners of major sites in the City this month. They are being told what to expect when the Draft Plan is released next month.

Eyes will be on major sites like Clifton Gate (between Clifton Moor and Skelton) and Whinthorpe (Between Elvington and the A64) both of which have traditionally formed part of York’s Green Belt. If either (or both) were to be slated for development then huge amounts would need to be spend on infrastructure improvements. The former would require a dualled A1237, while the later would require a new access corridor because of existing transport congestion in the area. The source and scale of the funding required must be made clear in any Council decision.

It is little short of outrageous that vested interests will find out the fate of projects worth tens of millions of pounds before ordinary residents and taxpayers are even told when they will be able to first see the proposals.

York Council responds to vested interest criticism

The Council has published details of an interim scheme which it believes will prevent a repetition of the recent scandal over unlawful payments to officials. Top-secret-stamp-006

Ironically the proposal was agreed in another “behind closed doors” decision session earlier today. The background papers were only made public after the decision had been made.

It has published a new code which can be read by clicking here

click to read

The form that senior officials will have to keep up to date – and publish publicly – can be found by clicking here .

The Code list sevral areas where a potential conflict of interest may occur

The following is a list of situations that may result in a conflict of interests for a member of staff:

A planning application or appeal in which the address concerned is the employee’s residence or a neighbouring address;
Ownership of land that is subject to a Council decision;
School admissions appeals involving a friend or relative;
A contract between the Council and another organisation in which the employee has a personal or financial interest(including council-owned or other related parties to the council). Any pay received from related parties must be declared;
Processing of Council Tax payments/refunds where the employee is the landlord of the properties concerned;
Benefits applications/appeals in which the claimant is a friend/relative or neighbour;
Processing of home or residential care cases where the customer is a friend or relative;
An audit of an establishment in which the employee has a personal interest (e.g. Elderly Persons’ Home where a relative is a member of staff).

Further refinements to the rules are promised at a later date.

£100,000 travel contract let by York Council in behind closed doors decision

Air travel included.

The York Council has appointed a new travel agent. They have gained a contract expected to be worth around £100,000 a year. They will deal with the Councils rail, hotel and “air” travel requirements.

Last year the Council spent £124,194 on this type of travel.

The decision was taken earlier in the week by a Council official at a behind closed doors meeting. No prior notice of the meeting was provided and the decision is not subject to “call in”.

Curiously the decision notice is listed as being taken on “4^th May 2016” which isn’t until next Wednesday.

Travel procurement

City of York Trading

We revealed last September that secret payments had been made to various Directors at the City of York Trading company.

This is the Council owned company which “sells” surplus resources mainly to Council Departments and schools. It was an invention of the last Labour administration and replaced an internal system where, potentially redundant, surplus staff were used to back-fill vacancies.

The Council tonight will consider tonight an auditor’s report into discrepancies with the payments.

Effectively the report simply confirms what most residents had worked out. That, by 2014, the governance systems of the York Council had broken down.

No officer or Councillor has accepted responsibility for the irregularities which seem to have arisen over a misjudged attempt by the Council Leadership to buy the loyalty of senior officials.

The new regime – elected last May – was very slow to recognise the inadequacies of its relationships with its QUANGO partners. It even made the mistake of endorsing a new one (Made in York) without setting up adequate performance monitoring arrangements.

Now the agenda for a York City Trading shareholders meeting has been published.

Unfortunately all the information reports are marked as “confidential” and are not available to taxpayers

So it seems little has changed!

Behind closed doors decision confirms York role in “Rail North Ltd”

Devolution of rail franchising on agenda

Papers published today reveal that York decided to join Rail North Ltd (RNL) and the Association of Rail North Partner Authorities on 30^th November.

Rail North is the name of an interim organisation that was established with the aim of promoting the devolution of rail franchising from Whitehall to the North of England. It is grouping of all 30 local transport authorities in the North of England.

Details of the terms that would apply to York’s continuing participation in the project have been revealed in a comprehensive report.

The decision was made by the Councils Chief Executive.

click to enlarge

The voting power that the City would have in the conglomerate (54 votes out of 1003) are revealed (see left).

The City would pick up the same proportion of the costs. No indications are given in the papers of the scale of any such liability.

In the short term they are described as “nominal”.

The new franchises for the Northern and TransPennine services were announced a couple of weeks ago.

The new Council seems to be doing little better than its predecessor on transparency issues.

There is really no reason why the relevant reports like these could not be published before meetings actually took place.

Other recent behind closed doors decisions include:

A full list of York Council decisions can be found by clicking here

Behind closed doors

York City Trading

Following on from our story about the remuneration of the Directors of Quangos in York, a Tory Councillor has announced in the media that any such payments, made to Council officials who run the City of York Trading, will cease. That is the right decision, but is has apparently been made without other members of the so called shareholders committee having had a meeting to discuss the issue.

The Executive meeting last week also singularly failed to specify under what circumstances, if any, Directors of publicly owned companies would receive remuneration.

It points to endemic failings in governance processes at the York Council.

The Council should agree to put details of the meetings of all shareholder committees (which are supposed to look after the public interest) in their calendar of meetings while publishing agendas, supporting papers and meeting minutes promptly.

They should also retrospectively publish the minutes of all shareholders meetings which previously have been held in private (which might help to lift the veil on why three Labour Councillors agreed to the financial inducements in the first place).

Make it York

Another concern is the method of operation of another shareholders committee which seeks to govern the work of Make it York – another wholly council owned Quango.

After pressure, that committee agreed on 6^th July to meet in public and publish agendas and meeting minutes. Now, only 5 working days before their meeting is scheduled to take place on 5^th October, the agenda and supporting papers don’t even appear on the Council’s web site.

It was only after a Freedom of Information request had been lodged, that residents even got to know that the meeting was planned!

Neither of the shareholders committees are identified in the formal list of Council committees

The secret life of decisions part 2

The Council continues to decide issues without publishing agendas in advance of meetings, We have condemned this practice in the past although – because the decisions area generally minor – our view is that papers should be published in advance to allow written representations to be made by residents.

Examples of recent behind closed doors decisions include (click to view details):

Tower Street – Changes to parking restrictions
Boxing Day park and Ride arrangements
Changes to Monkgate parking arrangements
Newborough Street parking

More behind closed doors decisions

The York Council is continuing its policy of printing agendas and reports for officer decision meetings after they have taken place.

This robs interested residents of the opportunity to make representations.

Two recent examples have been

There is no reason why advanced notice of issues like these should not be given