Hello York…. Hello… Hello… anyone there?

Occasionally projects kick off in York which seem like quite a good idea until enthusiasm gradually wanes.

Campaign against secrecy started 5 years ago

One example is/was York TV. Announced in 2014 the service was supposed to be on air in the spring of 2015. A competition was run in June 2014 to find a name for the station which rather alarmingly seemed to result in a parody of the film title “Good Morning Vietnam”.

Then, despite concerns about the funding sources for the initiative, everything went quiet. The TV station didn’t launch and all that is available is a web site which is very thin on content and an accommodation address and telephone number at the University’s Ron Cook centre.

The York Council – which claimed to be a “partner” in the project – has made no statement on the progress being made. Another partner was “One&Other TV” The founder of independent York publisher One&Other Stuart Goulden had left that company in early 2014 “in order to focus on launching York’s local TV station”.

The Council’s Chief Executive had appeared in a promotional video for “One and Another”

In a separate development, a Freedom of Information request has now revealed that several contracts were allocated to a public relations company in 2014 which were not subject to proper procurement procedures. Council regulations require competitive quotes to be obtained before contracts are allocated..

In total almost £200,000 appears to have been mis-spent.

It took the Council a very long time to produce the answers to what were perfectly legitimate questions posed by a concerned local resident.

It was as recently as 6^th June 2016 that the Council finally provide a comprehensive response detailing the work that they had paid the PR company to undertake

On 6^th July the Council admitted that procurement rules had not been followed when letting the contracts. While they rightly said that action had been taken to tighten up procedures, they remained tight lipped on how the maladministration had occurred in the first place.

The Council has now been asked to publish details of all invoices submitted in connection with the PR work in question.

It is unclear whether the Councils auditors will take formal action or whether a reference will be made to the Local Government Ombudsman on a maladministration charge.

The new information does confirm what most people already knew. By 2014 governance processes at the York Council had broken down.

All decisions on the contracts were taken at behind closed doors meetings. The Council claims that Councillors were not informed about what was being done.

Guildhall project cost shoots up by 21% to £11.9 million

Council will borrow over £10,000,000

York Guildhall

The York Council has now admitted that the project to create a business club and restaurant at the Guildhall will cost £780,000 a year in interest charges.

It says it can only recoup £500,000 a year from rentals, leaving taxpayers to pick up an annual bill for £430,000.

Part of the huge escalation in costs results from the deterioration in the condition of the historic building since it was abandoned by the then Labour led authority nearly four years ago.

They had no idea what to do with the empty building so embarked on an expensive and time consuming international design competition in 2012.

The new coalition run Council had the option to take decisive action over a year ago but dithered. They had been strident, while in opposition, in criticising Labour’s £9.2 million plans for the building .

Originally, it had been intended to put the modern part of the complex on the open market with the intention of using the income to sustain the Listed building. The Council would have continued to use the historic part of the building.

The only justification for the project now seems to be a speculated increase in GVA (Gross Value Add) to the local economy of £66m. However, this would have occurred anyway with a private sector driven alternative.

The Council has already spent £750,000 on the project.

Potential support from regional organisations and the Heritage Lottery Fund has not materialised.

The Council now doesn’t expect the building to open before late 2018.

So why would seemingly intelligent representatives do a U turn on such risky venture?

Well it takes courage – and experience – to challenge Council officials and consultants. They have a vested interest in projects appearing to be a “success”. They will provide elected members with information which suits their version of events. They will not volunteer other choices (like testing the market with other use options).

A similar situation has occurred with the Stadium project.

We doubt if the Council’s Executive will step back from the brink at this stage

If they do so, they will be accused of wasting £750k of taxpayer’s money.

If they don’t, then costs will continue to escalate and taxpayers – and other public service standards – will suffer.

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.

Council house account makes huge £4.3 million surplus in York

The Housing Revenue Account was budgeted to make a surplus of £2,624k in 2015/16.

A report to a meeting taking place today says the estimates were badly wrong

“There has been an overspend of £639k on repairs and maintenance, mainly due to the use of sub-contractors for high value repairs to resolve damp issues at a number of properties.

Mixed views from tenants on housing services in York

This was offset by a number of underspends in

general maintenance (£72k),
the painting programme (£150k)
decoration allowances (£49k) plus
£178k on utilities,
£436k from delays in capital schemes that are funded from revenue,
£248k lower than budgeted cost of capital,
£107k of additional interest income and
£257k from lower than budgeted levels of arrears and bad debts.

This resulted in an overall surplus of £4,344k and therefore an underspend of £1,720k”.

Tenants area likely to be unhappy.

There have been complaints about poor maintenance standards on some amenity and garage areas while requests for improved car parking provision on many estates are taking an excessive time to process.

The Council needs to tackle these issues quickly now that it has the funds available

Garage areas are neglected in many estates

11% increase in crime in York

“Hate crime” figures up from 108 in 2014/15 to 141 in 2015/16

Performance figures released by the Council confirm that there has been a significant increase in crime levels in the City.

Crime levels up. “Hate” crime increasing

During 2015/16, there were a reported 12,018 crimes for the York area, a total of 1,211 more than those reported during 2014/15.

Increases have been seen in violent crime, criminal damage and the burglary of non-dwelling properties.

Detailed crime figures reveal that the number of complaints about “hate” crimes (such as racially motivated abuse) were on the increase even before the recent referendum result served to highlight the issue even more.

Residents will have to search if they want to find KPI data for public services.

The figures are not being reported to the Executive meeting taking place tomorrow.

However, they are available by clicking here.

Unfortunately many of the tables do not include comprehensive target information and most of the customer satisfaction measures haven’t been updated since 2013.

York Council underspent its budget by £876,000 (1%) last year

Floods cost City £3.3 million

Despite big overspends on Children’s Services (foster care, adoption and pay) higher than expected refuse collection costs and lower parking income (£233,000) the potential deficit was offset by savings on debt charges as a result of capital investment projects slipping.

Floods cost City £3.3 million

A report to tomorrows Council Executive meeting reveals that the controversial decision to collect “co-mingled” recycling had added £200,000 to processing costs. Last year the Council claimed that dumping recycling materials into one lorry compartment would not affect budgets. It now says the additional processing cost is £70/tonne

Central government is bearing most of the costs of the floods although the Council has allocated £50,000 to be spent by “Make it York” on a publicity campaign while the costs of the post flood public inquiry are set at another £50,000.

The report also revealed that the Council still has £676,000 in the account set up to repay those wrongly fined for using Lendal Bridge and Coppergate during the ill-fated “spy camera” trial.

Council set to make £600,000 “profit” from unlawful fines levied on Lendal Bridge

£1,226m was been reclaimed by drivers before the deadline for applications passed. It remains to be seen what the Council will do with this money (although it must be spent on transport related projects)

The Executive is planning to put some of the surplus into a recycling fund, some into a scheme to appoint visitor welcome staff (“ambassadors”), some into support work to help low achievers at school and some into holding additional “job fairs”.

The rest will be put into reserves.

It is surprising that the continuing problems with street public services (blocked drains, weed chocked gullies, overgrown trees/hedges, potholed roads and footpaths) are not being addressed by using some of the surplus.

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”

Shock as Guildhall repair bill tops £2.5 million

As we forecast over three years ago the empty Guildhall is decaying and needs prompt repairs and an early start on renovation works.

York Guildhall

The then Labour controlled Council had abandoned the buildings when they moved to West Offices. Incredibly no thought had been given to the future of the Grade 1 Listed building. The original intention – discussed in 2009 – had been for the Council to continue to occupy the historic part of the building (Guildhall, Council Chamber and some offices) while deriving an income from selling or leasing the modern annexes – which might have been redeveloped as residential accommodation.

This income would have paid for the upkeep of the historic buildings.

After much prevarication, the Council opted in 2013 for a £9 million scheme to provide a “digital media centre” at the complex.

The newly elected administration in 2015 had the opportunity to test the market at a time when residential land prices in the City centre were rocketing. Inexplicably they chose to add £7 million to the Council debt burden as they opted to build a “serviced offices” complex. …..And this at a time when workshops were vacant at suburban locations while all over the City commercial and office space was being converted into residential units (because of lack of demand)

Now a report to a Council meeting says that more money will be needed.

Part of the problem is that the empty buildings have deteriorated. The report says,

the existing condition of the Guildhall complex is poor. Historic England have advised that the complex could soon be considered at risk were no future use to be identified. The 2013 condition survey identified £2m (exclusive of fees) of necessary works to bring the complex up to a satisfactory standard – of which £1m were priority urgent works. With fees and inflation factors this equates to approx. £2.5m of works necessary to sustain the complex

In addition, the report says,

additional repair and remedial works are likely to be necessary to bring the complex back into use specifically relating to the structural movement in several locations across the complex, almost certainly linked to the ground conditions at this riverside location. …. On-going structural monitoring will also be used to gather further evidence of the movement occurring at various locations across the building complex (south range / Guildhall south wall / Victorian offices / north annex tower).

The latest design involves the provision of a larger restaurant. How many more restaurants the City Centre can accommodate may be an interesting question.

No provision is made for residential use despite continuing evidence of burgeoning demand.

The Council’s Executive will have to decide in July whether this expensive and out of control plan goes the way of the Community Stadium with more and more taxpayer’s money being thrown at a poorly specified and “ever changing” project

What seems increasingly clear is that York’s taxpayers cannot afford such a risky project which still looks to be three years away from completion.

Time for an urgent re-think.

Revised Guildhall project layout plans

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 Economic Development strategy report – the unanswered questions

A new economic strategy report is being discussed later this week. It is something of a curate’s egg of a document ranging from an awkward preamble about which of two scenarios we may see over the next 20 years (neither as it happens) followed by a series of rather familiar statements many of which have previously been trailed by the discredited “Big City” lobby.

Sadly, it is another document which is City Centre focused with little comment on the suburbs or indeed most of the existing major employers (retail, tourism, social care, education)

The strategy is right in several areas.

York does need a higher proportion of well paid jobs. It needs “ambassadors” to promote what the City has to offer to the business world. It would be good news if more – well qualified and entrepreneurial – students from local Universities remained in the City after graduation.

It is also time that progress was made on the York Central development (albeit not at the expense of local taxpayers).

A useful analysis of the present York economy is included.

The report is short on the consequences of what is a, faintly disguised, “Big City “ mind-set. It says nothing about the assumptions made on the numbers of replacement and the number of additional jobs that need to be generated in the City.

These are the numbers that drive the Local Plan land allocations, not least in satisfying any demand for additional housing, as well as the impact that growth will have on transport and other infrastructure.

The report strategy is over reliant on borrowing money for investment (by the Council) which, it claims, would be repaid from the additional Business Rates generated by the new developments. This strategy conveniently forgets that successive governments have tinkered with the proportion of Business Rates that they allow local authorities to retain. There is no reason to assume that there would be a consistent approach over the next 20 years.

Local taxpayers could be left with an impossible debt burden (currently already circa £300 million)

It seems irresponsible to agree a new economic strategy just days before a new Draft Local Plan is due to be published.

Both complement each other and should be considered together.

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