Council leader outlines coronavirus response

The leader of City of York Council has outlined a coronavirus response, including business support and an emergency fund.

  • Council leader makes statement to Executive detailing city’s response
  • Council commits to emergency fund to support local residents, business and communities
  • Huge effort to deliver support package to businesses – including updating 4000 business rates accounts by the end of the week

City of York Council has announced that it will create its own emergency fund to support local residents, business and communities in response to the outbreak of Coronavirus, whilst acting swiftly to make sure residents and businesses can access the Government’s support packages as swiftly as possible.

The Leader of the Council, Councillor Keith Aspden, announced the fund at today’s Executive meeting (Thursday 19 March 2020), adding that fund will focus support to York’s residents, businesses and communities over the coming weeks, on top of any measures announced by the Government. Full details of the fund will be announced next week.

Councillor Aspden reiterated that the Council is continuing to work with the NHS and partners to respond to the outbreak of Coronavirus and that the Council is focusing resources where they are needed to ensure most services can continue to be delivered, with priority given to frontline services that keep our city moving.

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Credit Union confirms that its Acomb branch has closed permanently

UPDATE: The Social First Credit Union is still accepting applications for new memberships. Call 03030 300010

The Acomb branch of the Community First Credit Union was closed late last year. The property on York Road is now on the market.

Property available to lease on York Road

The Union says that it still provide a basic service in the City each week. The published opening hours (which may change during the current health crisis) are:

  • Bell Farm Social Hall every Tuesday from 9am until 1pm and then 1:45pm until 4pm.
  • York West Council Offices every Thursday from 9am until 1pm and then 1:45pm until 4pm.
  • Westfield Children’s Centre every Friday 9am until 12 noon.

Members can call the Union on 03030300010 when they believe they would like to visit and will confirm if the member of staff will be at these properties.

Formerly known as the South Yorkshire Credit Union, the organisation expanded into York when the York and North Yorkshire Credit Union folded in 2012. At that time there were considerable losses for the local authorities involved.

A few years later, the arrival of the SY Credit Union, at premises in what is the poorest part of the City, was generally welcomed.

The York Council has made no statement about the reduced access arrangements although support services like these are likely to be particularly valued during the present health crisis.

York Council management restructuring plans revealed

Hard on the heels of the retirement of the Chief Executive, the York Council has revealed how it hopes to recoup the costs of the early retirement exercise.

The post of Director of Finance and Investment will be deleted. This was the post traditionally styled as the City Treasurer. More junior staff will absorb this work.

The present Director has been acting as Chief Executive for over 9 months now and he will continue in that role.

More consultation with stakeholders is promised before any new structure is implemented.

The restructuring will save about £86,000 a year in salary costs

Details of the plans can be found by clicking here

York Council Chief Executive’s retirement confirmed

Cost of pension contributions will be just over £400,000

Following the early retirement of Ms Mary Weastell, Cllr Keith Aspden, Leader of the Council commented:

Council statement

“Ms Weastell’s early retirement has given the City of York Council the opportunity to consider a restructure of the Council’s corporate management team. As part of this, we have been able to identify ways to save money through efficiencies and these proposals will ensure that costs can be met through existing budgets with no additional impact for the taxpayer.

“This will also ensure our senior team focus on the areas that are important to the city and that a consultation is able to be brought forward swiftly. Our ambitious council plan requires significant investment, and to achieve this it is right that we review the best way of delivering for the city to make the most of our available resources.”

Debbie Mitchell, Head of Finance, confirmed:

“As an open and transparent council, we want to share how much Ms Weastell has received as part of her early retirement.  There are strict rules in place that govern payments due to individuals and, in line with these statutory requirements; the council has incurred costs of c £404k.  The majority of this sum around £330k is statutory payments and pension strain costs to the authority that have to be paid. 

“The Council will commence consultation to make at least £81k of savings per annum with a paper published today to the Staffing Matters and Urgency Committee to begin that process.  Full details will be presented in the annual accounts as usual.”

Shocking list of empty Council owned properties in York

Thursday can’t come soon enough for York taxpayers. On that day the City’s planning committee will decide whether to allow the Ashbank former social services building on Shipton Road to be converted into residential accommodation.

Ashbank has now been empty for a shocking 7 years.

Together with the Guildhall, it is the Councils most underused asset.

The above list was produced in response to a Freedom of Information request. The rates column indicates what the Council might have received if the properties had been let. To this must be added either the proceeds of a sale or lease income.

Several other valuable properties including Oakhaven in Acomb and the prime Willow House site next to the bar walls have also now been unused for over 3 years.

There are ongoing maintenance and security costs at each site.

The list does not include several brownfield sites which are suitable for development. These include the land to the rear of Acomb Library which was purchased 12 years ago but remains unused (currently it is a building compound).

Many years ago the Council used to have a Policy and Resources committee. One of its tasks was to challenge and optimise the use of the Councils portfolio. Sadly it was replaced by a “scrutiny” committee which rarely expresses any interest in the efficiency of the Councils processes.

Six monthly capital programme reports to the Councils Executive often fail to provide an update on long term unused assets. When they do get a mention it is restricted to a couple of anodyne sentences.

It is not just commercial properties that are a cause for concern.

The Councils housing department still often has a 10% vacancy rate on its garage blocks. There are waiting lists for garages in most parts of the City. Some of the garages are located in the City Centre where demand is high.

January 2020

The housing department has been told to advertise all vacancies in order to maximise income. They have failed to do so.

They don’t even make full use of free social media channels.

The result is that the Council loses thousands of pounds of income each month while on street parking spaces becomes unnecessarily congested.

Theatre Royal £500,000 Council grant decision next week – still few details available

The York Council is expected next week to confirm an additional grant of £1/2 million to the Theatre Royal.

The plan – which will be classified as “capital expenditure” and will increase the Councils already large capital debt – was revealed during the recent budget debate.

The report to the decision meeting which take place on 16th March is unsatisfactory in several respects. It fails to include essential information about the Theatres financial performance.

As a minimum the 2018/19 outturn, the 2019/20 and the (draft) 2020/21 budget should be made public. At the moment taxpayers have no idea whether the Theatre is profitable or not (probably not!).

There is no detail of the Theatres medium term business plans. There is no comment from the York Councillors (Crawshaw, Daubeney, Mason) who are supposed to look after the Council and residents’ financial interests on the Theatre Board

In 2015 the Council decided to sell the Theatre Royal building to the York Conservation Trust for £1. The Trust is a benign body which agree to make a major investment in essential repairs. The Council said that it planned to stop its annual support grant to the Theatre but instead agreed to make a contribution of £770,000 towards a £4.1 million restoration project. This project was intended to make the Theatre self-supporting.  The Council’s responsible executive member told the York Press in February 2016 “This funding agreement will strengthen York Theatre Royal’s sustainability for the future”

Theatre Royal refurbishment 2016

The refurbishment overran its timescale and the Theatre was effectively closed for nearly a year.

The most worrying aspect of the new deal is the decision to borrow money to fund it. The Council report says that the £500,000 borrowing will cost taxpayers “£35,000 a year” in interest charges and principal repayments. Only if the Council borrows the money over a 20 year term. Some of the proposed expenditure (IT, box office software) will be on items with an expected lifetime of less than 7 years. Borrowing money over a period longer than the life of an asset would be financial madness.

A more realistic borrowing time-frame would be 10 years, meaning taxpayers would be committed to ongoing payments of around £65,000 a year. 

NB The Council aggregates all its borrowing requirements and currently enjoys interest payments on its borrowings of less than 5%

Then there is the question of whether more investment will be sought in 4 years time?

The Council should not agree the expenditure without publishing a lot more information about the financial trajectory for the Theatre.

In the event of it ceasing trading, most of the taxpayer investment would be unrecoverable.

The demise of the Rose Theatre last year has already left the York taxpayer with a £40,000 plus bill.

It could be viewed by the Council as a timely warning about the need for prudent and well informed decisions.

The good and the bad of decision making at the York Council

The present administration at the York Council was elected on a raft of manifesto promises which included a commitment to improved street level public service standards as well as to more open decision making.

They rightly aimed to achieve this by delegating more decisions so that they could be taken at community level.

In practice ward Councillors were given more neighbourhood responsibilities supported by an enhanced budget.

Additional funding was made available for general improvements. The Housing Estate improvement budget processes were also changed in an attempt to give those areas that did not have a residents association a share of the available resources.

Although progress in delivering schemes which were identified in the summer has been painfully slow, at least some attempt has been made to provide more transparency. The latest list of approved schemes can be downloaded (link). It lacks update information on implementation progress but it is better than was provided by the last Council.

Decisions are now being publicised on a regular basis. The latest was agreed at the end of February (click)

Latest approvals

Its a great shame though that that the new delegated budget – totalling £1 million – and intended for highway, cycle and footpaths improvements has not produced any tangible results. The condition of several local highways is now very poor, yet the budget remains unused.

The Council today published what purported to be a delegated decision (which has apparently been approved by a senior manager) detailing  how the budget will be used. However anyone viewing the Council web site would still be unable to see a list of the roads which might benefit. It simply says that the schemes  are located in the Fulford and Derwent Wards.

There are poorly maintained road surfaces across the City

This really isn’t good enough.

Road requiring attention were identified by local residents over 6 months ago.   That is long enough to allow for resurfacing to be arranged. 

We are now within 3 weeks of the end of the financial year.

Guildhall refurbishment runs into difficulties

A report to a meeting taking place next week highlights several issues which could delay the refurbishment of the Guildhall.

The Guildhall project has a chequered history with plans for the use of the building conceived 10 years ago beset by delays, indecision and escalating costs. Even after the Council made the controversial (and expensive) decision to re purpose the use of the Listed building as a “business club” & restaurant, the first building contract had to be abandoned.

More recently, new contractors have been working on site. They have been using the river for access. Perhaps not surprisingly the recent floods have impeded operations but worryingly the report reveals several other issues which have caused delays.

The report concludes that overall the project is now regarded as “at risk”.

The biggest risk to taxpayers remains the end use of the site. The Council is borrowing heavily to fund the project and any delay could affect its – already marginal – viability. There is a real danger that the Guildhall project will go the way of the Community Stadium for which there is still no agreed opening date (it was to have been completed last summer).

It is further evidence that the York Council has exceeded its contract management capability.

Hopefully they will now pull back from taking on  any further projects (like Castle/Piccadilly) and concentrate available resources on finishing what they have already started.

150 York pubs set to get business rates discount

The York Council is planning to reduce the Business Rates burden on 1650 retail outlets and pubs in the City.

It means for smaller businesses, occupying premises with a rateable value of less than £51,000, tax bills could be halved. As well as the basic discount, pubs will get an extra £1000 off their bills if their premises have a Rateable Value of less than £100,000.

The Council says that properties that will benefit from the relief will be occupied hereditaments with a rateable value of less than £51,000 that are wholly or mainly being used as shops, restaurants, cafes, drinking establishments, cinemas and live music venues.

A report to a meeting taking place on 9th March lists dozens of examples of the type of business which could benefit

The proposal is likely to be good news for those businesses that publicly criticised the Council for what they claimed was a lack of response to their problems during the recent floods.

It is thought that the move could also encourage new businesses to occupy empty properties in the City.

The report says, “As with the previous schemes businesses often fail to apply so the council will automatically award the discount to all the properties that can be identified as meeting the criteria. It will be the responsibility of the business to complete and return state aid forms or risk the award being rescinded”.

There is no cost to the council in providing either discount which will be fully reimbursed by Central Government through the “rates retention system”. The scheme will apply for 2020/21 only unless the government renews the funding support next year

Council Budget passed

The York Council approved the LibDem/Green budget last night

In an unconnected development, the Council is today inviting residents to sign up for FREE suicide prevention training workshops in the City

People are being encouraged to sign up for free suicide prevention training workshops in York next month as part of the #TalkSuicide campaign from local NHS and council organisations.

The Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership is hosting two workshops in York on Tuesday, 10th March 2020 at Mariott Room, York Library, Library Square, York YO1 7DS – and members of the public are invited to attend to learn life-saving skills.

These one-hour workshops, which will run between 9.30am-10.30am and 11am-12pm, are free to attend but it is essential to register beforehand. You can register at bit.ly/talksuicideyork.

There were 6,507 registered suicides in the UK in 2018 – which amounts to one death by suicide every 80 minutes. Yorkshire and Humber had some of the highest rates of suicide in England in 2018.

The suicide prevention workshops will be group training sessions, including interactive video-based training from the Zero Suicide Alliance and discussion with people who work in suicide prevention within our local community. Free refreshments will be available.

Completing the training at the workshop will help you to:

  • Identify the signs of when someone might be suffering from suicidal thoughts.
  • Feel comfortable speaking out about suicide in a supportive manner. 
  • Signpost anyone suffering from suicidal thoughts to the correct services and support. 

The workshops are part of the Partnership’s #TalkSuicide campaign, which aims to reduce the stigma around talking about suicide by raising awareness about suicide in our communities and encouraging our people to complete suicide prevention training.

Jo Kent, Suicide Prevention Lead for the Humber, Coast and Vale Health and Care Partnership, said: “Every death by suicide is a tragedy and in Humber, Coast and Vale we are working collaboratively with the NHS, councils, voluntary organisations and other groups to prevent suicides from happening in our communities.

“The suicide prevention training is integral to this work as those who complete the training can make a real difference in their communities, simply by being better placed to identify those people who might be suicidal, and knowing what to say to them and signposting them to the most appropriate services.

“We want to train as many people as possible in our communities so if you can spare an hour on the morning of Tuesday, 10th March please register for one of the free suicide prevention training workshops taking place in York – the skills you learn could help you save someone’s life in the future.”

Can’t attend either of the York workshops? Workshops are also being held in Scarborough, Beverley, Hull, Scunthorpe and Grimsby during March. Visit talksuicide.co.uk to find out when these workshops are taking place.

You can also complete the training on the talksuicide.co.uk website, where you can also find out more about the #TalkSuicide campaign.