Biggest risk to Council staff in York?

Aggression and verbal abuse!

A new Health and Safety report which is to be considered next week reveals that there have been 58 cases of verbal abuse or aggression towards York Council staff.

Health and Safety issues reported in York April – Sept 2019

They outnumber the total of all other risks combined which are listed in the report.

The results support other reports which suggest that aggression towards “blue light” services such as firefighters and ambulance workers has been on the increase recently.

A sad reflection on an increasingly divided and confrontational society.

More light shone by York Council on contracts

More details are being made available of a contract for the supply of furniture and “white goods” (e.g. fridges)  to Universal Credit claimants in York.  

It is part of the York Financial Assistance scheme, which is designed to help the poorest members of  our community cope with budgeting pressures.

The contract is expected to be worth over £250,000.

Once again the Executive member (Nigel Ayre) has agreed to consider this proposal at a public decision meeting which is being held on 16th December.  

Although the decision to seek tenders for this service isn’t particularly controversial, and any expenditure will be within budget allocations, the move to publish background papers will be welcomed by many taxpayers.

Hopefully other Executive Councillors will adopt a similar approach to transparency in the  future.

The cost of new contracts entered into by the York Council can be viewed on a national register via this link https://procontract.due-north.com/ContractsRegister/Index

York Community Furniture Store

The Community Furniture Store (CFS) is the current provider of household goods for the York Financial Assistance Scheme (YFAS). The scheme, which is funded by City of York Council, provides basic furnishing for people in need as a result of a urgent personal circumstances.

More details can be found by clicking here

The York CFS is located at the Raylor Centre in James Street. It also has branches in Selby and Scarborough.

Residents are urged to donate any unused items of furniture, which are in good condition, to the scheme. The CFS arranges to pick up the items.

Background information published by Council

20 months suspended jail sentence for £86,000 social care fraud

A York man has been given a 20 month suspended sentence for a case of fraud which deprived the public purse of over £86k, in the first social care fraud prosecution by Veritau and City of York Council

Neil Long (aged 54 of Leighton Croft, York) failed to inform City of York Council, who funded his mother’s social care, when his parents’ property was sold in 2014. The case was investigated by Veritau, City of York Council’s counter fraud provider, and successfully prosecuted by the council.

This is the first prosecution of a social care fraud by the council’s legal department and an area of development for the counter fraud team. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) found that in 2018/19 losses due to adult social care fraud cases nationally had risen by 104% from the previous year.

City of York Council received information that Mr Long, the financial representative for his mother, had sold his parents’ property in 2014 and received £198,000 that he had not declared despite receiving social care funding.

The investigation found that on two separate occasions during 2015, Mr Long informed the council that his parents were still joint owners of the property and that his father still lived there.

During this period, the council spent £86,000 on social care for Mr Long’s mother, which has now been collected in full, as a result of joint working between Veritau and financial investigators from City of York’s Trading Standards team.

Appearing at York Magistrates Court on Tuesday 8 October 2019, Mr Long plead guilty to two charges of fraud by false representation.

The case was referred to York Crown Court for sentencing on Wednesday 4 December 2019, where Mr Long was given a 20 month suspended sentence and 80 hours of unpaid work. He was also ordered to repay all council costs of over £1,100 and an £80 victim surcharge.

When sentencing, the judge stated that a significant factor in mitigation was the repayment of £86,000 that Mr Long made to the council.

Sharon Houlden, Corporate Director of Health, Housing and Adult Social Care at City of York Council, said: “Adult social care funds support many individuals within the city and fraud like this reduces our ability to help people and make meaningful differences in their lives. We work hard to protect public money and take all reports of fraud seriously.”

Any members of the public with information on fraudulent activity are encouraged to phone the anonymous fraud hotline on 0800 9179 247.

A 24 hour voicemail facility is available, or you can email counter.fraud@veritau.co.uk.

The York Council runs an ageing and polluting vehicle fleet

A couple of months ago the York Council was forced to reveal the age of the equipment in its 471 strong “fleet”.

The “fleet” contains a wide variety of machinery including chain saws, blowers and hedge cutters.

The actual number of vehicles is 267.

This includes schools (not academies), Dial & Ride who are owned by York Wheels and Travel Management vehicles.

Some were first registered as long ago as 2008. In effect this means that they predate the introduction of more stringent emission standards.

Of the vehicles listed the oldest was a 1996 John Deere tractor. There is also a 2003 Ford panel van still in service.

The fleet also includes some 12-year-old Citroen passenger cars.

One low emission car – a 2018 Toyota hybrid – was sold off recently.

Some refuse collection vehicles are 10 years old. This probably helps to explain the unreliability of some bin emptying services during the summer months.

Some of the vehicle fleet is leased. Much of it has, however, been directly purchased by the Council.

The Council was challenged earlier in the summer about their plans to more to a low or ultra-low emissions fleet.  At that time, the Council had no low emission vehicles. 242 of its fleet were diesel with 194 predating the latest Euro 6 emissions standards.

The Council says that new vehicles should be arriving shortly for the Building Services vans and highways fleet. There has been no public committee review of the Councils fleet management policy.

The Council also says,

 “Currently there are no manufacturers in the HGV sector leading on alternative fuels but with government backing hopefully this will change. In the next 2 years we will hopefully have all HGV’s to euro 6 standard as a minimum. The next time we replace these vehicles hopefully there will be an alternative to diesel for HGV’s”.

The Council is hoping to borrow and assess electric vans, 70 of which have recently been procured by the Leeds Council.

The Council hasn’t yet signed on to the “clean van commitment”.  https://www.globalactionplan.org.uk/clean-air/clean-van-commitment

It is however promoting a clean bus commitment.

“We are taking forward a comprehensive programme to reduce emission levels from buses in York. City of York Council is introducing a non-statutory Clean Air Zone in January 2020. This requires all buses using or crossing York’s Inner ring road more than 5 times per day to achieve Euro 6 emissions compliance. We are also introducing a local Traffic Regulation Condition to impose a 2-minute maximum on idling at bus stops”.

The Council has yet to consider the introduction of a “School streets” exclusion zone anywhere in York. The zones ban motor vehicle use near schools.

We think that, having established a “climate committee”, that body should have addressed the issue of the Councils own outdated commercial vehicle fleet by now.

Who can you trust?

One of the strange aspects of the current General Election campaign has been the almost total lack of analysis about the local impact of key government policies.

Those who were most vocal about BREXIT, climate change, the NHS and poverty have struggled to put their case into a local context.

 The once powerful and independent print media in York have lamely given candidates a few hundred words to put across – what turned out to be – largely anodyne “policies”.

Gone is the local forensic analysis of candidate’s qualities. Local political differences go largely unreported. In depth factual analysis is limited.

The Press is reduced to commenting on the number of leaflets being delivered by candidates, a fake issue created by politicians too lazy to deliver their own messages.

The print media decline is largely, of course, down to a decline in the resources available to local newspapers. The Yorkshire Post is an exception, but it covers a large and diverse area.

Many have switched to unregulated social media channels for information. Even there we recently saw one party try to pass itself of as a (entirely bugus) “fact checker” while others bombard the internet with fake news. Extremists have subtlety sought to take over local organisations to use them as a front for their views.

Anti BREXI groups have been infilrated as have so called “independent” tactical voting web sites.

Part of the problem may relate to the timing of the election. Mid-winter is not an ideal time to go canvassing.

But the candidates must also take some of the blame.

 In York Central several appear to be auditioning for a part in the next Harry Potter film.

The one featuring a “cloak of invisibility”.

York Council marketing restaurant unit at Guildhall

The Council have let a contract worth £16,000 to “market” the restaurant unit which it hopes to construct at the Guildhall.

The contract has been awarded to Reesdenton Ltd

Delays in deciding the future of the Guildhall have left the building in poor condition

The Council had earlier in the year let a £15.4 million contract for building works at the Guildhall  with  VINCI CONSTRUCTION UK LTD.

A new restaurant has recently been announced which will use the adjacent old Post Office building on Lendal. Jamie Oliver’s nearby restaurant has already closed

The total £20 million Guildhall redevelopment scheme has been criticised by residents who are concerned about the long term burden likely to be placed on taxpayers.

Delays in deciding the future of the building have resulted in escalating renovation costs.

£630 for fly-tipping furniture in car park

A York woman has been ordered to pay £630 for repeatedly fly-tipping, despite receiving waste disposal advice from City of York Council.

York Magistrates heard on Tuesday (3 December 2019) that Sharn Ogden (aged 27 of Martins Court, York) was seen disposing of a table and chairs in the car park of Martins Court on 29 July 2019.

City of York Council enforcement officers made multiple attempts to contact Ms Ogden, which she failed to respond to. On 13 August 2019, Ms Ogden admitted to leaving the waste and said she would take the items to the Household Waste and Recycling Centre. However when officers returned to Martins Court on 13 October 2019, the items had not been removed.

Since 2016, Ms Ogden has received several home visits from enforcement officers regarding waste issues in the area, six letters advising her how to present her waste correctly and two fly-tipping warnings.

Ms Ogden continued to present her waste unlawfully, has been charged for the removal of items and had now been prosecuted.

She attended court and pleaded guilty to one offence of fly-tipping. She was fined £312 by York Magistrates (3 December 2019) and ordered to pay costs of £286 and a surcharge of £32.

Tom Brittain Assistant Director for Housing and Community Safety at City of York Council, said: “We offer plentiful advice to residents on how to dispose of waste lawfully and safely and, as this and other cases show, we will take action when people fly-tip.

“It is important that rubbish is put out for collection as directed by the council. If you are unsure of your collection days, you can check at www.york.gov.uk/RefuseLookup or by calling us on 01904 551550.

“Residents can also take waste to our household waste recycling centres – see www.york.gov.uk/wasteandrecycling – or arrange for the council to collect it via www.york.gov.uk/BulkyWaste.”

Theft from vehicles exploiting key-less entry loop hole

The media are reporting today that a York Councillor’s car has fallen victim to a crime which may have exploited the vulnerabilities of “keyless” entry.

The incident, which took place “on street” in the Albemarle Road area of York, resulted in theft from the boot of the car.

Faraday pouch

You can find some advice on avoiding this type of theft via this link with more here

Essentially car owners are being recommended to store their car keys in a “Faraday Bag” which effectively blocks radio signals. One example is the “Defender” which can be found by clicking here

No doubt North Yorkshire police will be issuing more advice on what may be a growing issue.

Details of York Council football club loan published

A response to a Freedom of Information request has finally forced the Council to reveal the terms of its £350,000 loan to York City FC agreed in 2014. 

The loan was secured by a legal charge on the Bootham Crescent ground.

The loan involved annual repayments of £35,000.  

The balance of the loan is payable immediately if the Club sell Bootham Crescent. It is understood that a house builder still has an option to purchase the site when the football and rugby clubs move to the new LNER stadium in 2020.

In addition the Football Club has agreed to pay £2 million towards the cost of building the new stadium.

There is a legal charge on the club’s assets to cover this liability.

The Council continue to refuse to publish the valuations that they have undertaken on Bootham Crescent.

They also refuse to say how much rent they expect to receive from the football club at Monks Cross (the stadium part of the development is expected to cost around £16 million of the total £47 million cost of the whole development).

The council has confirmed that, once all processes have been complete, it intends to release the lease agreement with York City into the public domain.

Young volunteers deck the halls at Glen Lodge

An award-winning partnership between youth homeless charity SASH and the council have helped older residents deck the halls at Glen Lodge.

Glen Lodge

The Enable team was at the council-run Heworth independent living scheme on 28 November, when they provided and hung the Christmas decorations. This is the third session which Enable has completed at Glen Lodge this year: in the spring they redecorated a tenant’s flat and gave an area of the communal garden a makeover in the summer.

While carrying out the garden project the older tenants told the young volunteers how much they all loved Christmas, but getting the decorations up was a massive task. Following this the young people asked if they could help, Christmas decorations were sourced by the council and the team trimmed Christmas trees, played seasonal music and got into the festive mood with residents and staff.

This month’s makeover is the latest of 27 different projects carried out by the Enable team which consists of young people and colleagues from the youth homeless charity SASH, and City of York Council housing experts. The scheme was developed to improve the lives of younger and older people in York and in 2018 it won the Best Community Project at the York Community Pride Awards.

Over the past five years, young volunteers have given their time to help older people in York who struggle with jobs around the home and garden. In return they have learned new skills which will come in handy when they live in a place of their own.

Gary Hogg, SASH active project coordinator, said: “Enable’s projects have made a real and lasting difference to the lives of older people in York. The young people have made friends, spend time with older people, learned new skills and, perhaps most importantly, have seen first-hand just how much difference they can make to the lives of others.

“With this project, not only have they got Glen Lodge looking a treat for the festive season, but they’ve shared mince pies and some Christmas cheer with the tenants.”

Tom Brittain, assistant director of housing and community safety at City of York Council, said: “Our Enable project aims to give younger people a meaningful experience with home maintenance to help ensure that any tenancy they take on is a lasting success.

“We also want older people to benefit from their skills and enjoy their company. Thank you to everyone involved.”