York Council set to increase charges by 3 times inflation rate from Jan 1st

Labour have published a list of the increases in charges that they intend to make from the end of the month.

Bulky waste removal charges increase to £40.

Most are around 5% (compared to the current inflation rate of 1.3%)

But there are some huge increases included.

The Burton Stone Community Centre hire charges are set to increase by 25% (main Hall). There will be a suspicion that this increase is a further attempt to drive out users who have already petitioned against the Councils plans for the centre.

Bulky household waste collection charges will get a 9% hike. It will cost £40 to get rid of up to 10 bulky items. Again this may be connected with Labours plans to charge for green bin emptying and to reduce the frequency of bin collections.

A full list can be seen by clicking here. No consultations on the proposals have taken place and the Council’s papers don’t include any indication of the number of users which each service has.

The council claims that the price increase will raise additional income of £146k in 2015/16. This is mainly from Bereavement Services (£88k) and Registrars (£25k).

Labour will consider further increases in prices in January when car parking, care services and planning charges will be amongst those under consideration.

Increased charges. Click for full list

York Council accounts still not certified

The Councils Auditors have still not certified completion of the York Councils accounts for 2013/14.

The accounts attracted alot of comment when the auditors came to the conclusion “that the Council had proper arrangements in place to secure economy, efficiency and effectiveness in its use of resources, except for weaknesses in budgetary control and financial management in Adult Social Care services”

While taxpayers have been told that action is being taken on that issue, it now emerges that Mazars cannot close the file on last year’s activities because of an outstanding objection from a taxpayer about the Lendal Bridge fine issue.

The concern may be addressed if the Council agrees – as expected – a general refund of fines collected on Lendal Bridge when it meets on 11^th December 2014.

In the meantime a report from Mazars is due to be considered by the Councils audit committee on 10^th December

Foreign trip curbs to be introduced by York Council

Opposition Councillors move to reduce travel costs as taxpayers complain

The concerns expressed by many York residents, about the amount being spent on foreign visits and travel by both Councillors and officials, are to come under the microscope.

The move comes after Labour lost overall control of the Council.

In the main the initiative is aimed at the payment of travel expenses incurred directly by the York Council but it has been suggested that this will be extended to cover other organisations that the Council has representation on and, in particular, those that receive significant Council grant funding.

Any new process will not put an outright ban on travel.

Rather a case for foreign travel will have to be considered by a public session of the all party Urgency committee (which meets each week). The expectation is that the aims of any travel will have to be identified and, later, that a note will be published indicating what was achieved by the trip.

The move is part of a raft of changes being proposed by opposition Councillors which could transform the way that the York Council does its business.

They aim is to make the Council more open and more sensitive to local residents views.

A key feature would be an end to “behind closed doors” decision making meetings.

The costs of foreign – and indeed UK – travel, have been a cause of criticism ever since Labour took control of the Council in 2011.

Previous stories – Click link to access

Cabinet approves £25,000 jaunt to Cannes

Labour Councillor’s Strasbourg trips

Shamed Labour Councillors publish expenses claims

York MPs travel expenses

York Councillors travel expenses exposeds

Foreign travel fails to broaden Social Services report

Labour Cabinet runs up £4000 travel bill.

More about foreign trips

York Council spent £5747 on trip to Cannes

Day out in Scotland

Day out in London

Loss on Huntington Stadium concert confirmed as £187,000

Event only took £12,000 in ticket sales

The York Council has finally revealed that it lost an astonishing £187,000 on the concert that it staged at the Huntington Stadium on 4^th July.

It spent £82,000 on artists fees and £94,000 on “infrastructure costs”

An “event management fee” of £18,000 was also spent

The Council went to extraordinary lengths to try to hide the scale of the failure with several Freedom of Information requests knocked back on largely spurious grounds and others still outstanding

With Labour now having lost their majority, officials have been ordered to reveal the full figures.

The mistakes will lead to renewed calls for the Cllr Crisp – who is responsible for Leisure activities – to resign.

She had been awarded a “medal” for her work on the event.

The costs given to leading Councillors were:

“Grand Departy” costs click to enlarge

NB. The Labour Cabinet on 1^st October 2013 set a budget for the Tour de France of £1,664k, to cover the cost of the event, funded from a variety of sources.

The outturn shows that the final cost of the event totalled £1,827k. In addition there was an up front payment of a “hosting fee”.

Links (click)

Cllr Keith Aspden, Lib Dem Group Leader commented:

“There are serious questions to be asked as to how the council lost money on the Tour De France. The botched camping plans and the last-minute decision to hold a concert at Huntington Stadium have lost taxpayers £33,000 and £187,000 respectively.

“The Liberal Democrats argued all along that Labour needed to produce a proper public business case backed-up with detailed financial plans for these events. Instead Labour shrouded the plans in secrecy and took decisions behind-closed-doors without proper public involvement or opposition councillor scrutiny.

“Given this, it is unsurprising that these council organised events have lost money and will now worryingly hit the communities and neighbourhoods budget by £60,000.

“Despite the mistakes made by the Labour run council, I am pleased that overall the Tour De France has had a positive impact on York businesses and the wider Yorkshire economy.”

Labour planning new household waste site charges

Reliable sources in West Offices have confirmed that Labour intend to impose new charges – for non recyclable rubbish -taken to sites like Hazel Court.

Bed dumped in field off Askham Lane

At the moment residents can take items to the “tip” free of charge.

The proposed charge – unlikely to be admitted by Labour until the Westfield by election is out of the way – follow on from the closure of the Beckfield Lane household waste recycling site and an 13% increase in the cost of having up to 10 bulky items removed by the Council.

Bulky waste removal now costs £36.75p

Second green waste bins are now charged for and Labour are understood to be on the on the brink of introducing charges for emptying all green bins

The consequences of these misguided polices are clear to see with fly tipping an increasing problem across the City (see photo)

£3.9 million Social Care budget problem forces major rethink in York

“the service was not responding quickly enough or effectively enough to the challenges it faced” – Auditors

The Council has now published an outline of how it intends to recover from the Social Care budget deficit discovered by Auditors.

The Auditors identified a budget pressure of £2.5 on this year’s budget together with outstanding actions needed to secure budgeted savings of £1.4 million.

In a separate report the Auditors they say

“Our view is that financial management and commissioning in the adult social care service needs to improve and this service has not responded quickly and effectively enough to the challenges that it faces.

If the underlying financial pressures are not robustly addressed and actions to secure significant future base budget reductions are not effective, there is a risk that the Council will not be in a position to deliver the best possible value for money in adult social care services.

Of critical importance to the delivery of sustained improvement is a review of existing contracts and a new commissioning approach that secures the required services at an affordable price”.

The crisis had led to the demotion of the Cabinet member, who had responsibility for the department, earlier in the year with several senior staff following her out of the door last month.

A summary of the action that the Council intends to take can be read here

10 substantial issues, raised by the Auditors, are addressed. They include:

Producing a clear and unambiguous budget for the current year which eliminates overspends
Improved accountability for senior officials
More delegation of responsibility
Improvements in the budget build process for next and subsequent years
A clear savings plan
Improved management information systems and IT

Council Leader with Cllr Simpson Laing (right) a few weeks before she was sacked from her Social care post

Challenged on the problems at the last Council meeting, the Leader declined to say why he had not taken action last year to address the emerging issues.

Council officials had earlier declined to say why one of the savings projects – the opening of a new “super care village” at Lowfields – was running 3 years behind schedule.

Big York Council Departmental overspends in 2013/14

Council took £1.8 million in spy camera fines which may have to be refunded

Social care budgets were over spent by £1.3 million last year with Environmental Services (mainly waste collection) clocking up a £443,000 and Children’s Services/Education a £309,000 loss.

Overall York Council Departments spent £1.7 million more than had been budgeted.

The budget broke even only because of a £2 million surplus on “centrally administered” budgets.

The figures are revealed in a report to be considered by the Councils “Cabinet” tomorrow (Tuesday)

As previously reported, the biggest problems arise in Social Care where the Council reveals overspends on community support (£236k) due to a higher number of customers than forecast, a continued increase above forecast level in the number of customers taking up Direct Payments (£129k), increased use of external placements for emergency and short term breaks (£252k) and a higher than budgeted number of customers in residential nursing placements (£718k).

The Councils financial position was saved only because it continued to enjoy the benefits of low interest rates on its borrowing (equivalent to a £990,000 budget saving).

It achieved only 73% of its planned capital investment programme storing up a massive £83 million backlog in work which it says it will try to address during the current financial year.

The government gave the City an extra £732,000 to reduce the Rate burden on small businesses although there has been a slow take up on this important concession.

The position is also masked by £1.765 million in fines income received from spy camera use in the Lendal Bridge and Coppergate.

The Council has now admitted that the trials cost a whopping £718,000 to implement. £1.047 million has been put in a reserve account which will presumably be used to refund fines imposed unlawfully.

The balance would have to come from Council taxpayers (the equivalent of a 1% rise in Council Tax levels).

The spy cameras on Lendal Bridge have been removed while those on Coppergate were switched off on 1^st April.

The housing revenue account (Council house rents income) showed a £12.1 million surplus at the end of the year.

The report to the Cabinet pointedly fails to contain performance data on the quality of public services being provided to York residents.

NB As at April 1^st 2014, 6717 York Council Taxpayers had arrears of £ 4,769,989.36

York Social Services – auditors critical comments published

Following yesterdays revelations, that senior officials have left York Social Services Department, an Auditors report has provided further information on the background to the developing crisis.

Auditors Mazars, in a report to the Councils Audit and Governance committee next week, include the following paragraph

Risks in relation to Adult Social Care services

Description of the risksAdult social care is identified as one of the highest priorities within the Council’s service transformation programme. During the audit, we have become concerned at the lack of progress in making improvements to budget management and other aspects of adult social care services.

The development of the Better Care Fund provides a major challenge but also a significant opportunity for the Council and CCG to work together to increase investment in much needed intermediate and preventative care.

We are concerned that the lack of progress in delivering service improvement, together with the challenges of the Better Care Fund and the new Care Act, mean that the Council is at risk of failing to deliver good value for money in adult social care services and the best outcomes for local people.

They go on to say “We are working closely with officers to understand the barriers to progress and how they can best be addressed. The Chief Executive has recognised that insufficient progress has been made and has instituted an accelerated recovery and improvement process, working closely with the Director of Health and Wellbeing. We continue to review the Council’s arrangements to secure VFM in its use of resources. This has included reviewing the Council’s key plans and the delivery of those plans, and its financial arrangements, as well as considering the data in VFM profiles”.

Social care costs account for the major part of Council budget expenditure.

If good value for money is not being achieved – and it appears that it isn’t with an overspend last year and a similar situation developing this year – then the whole Council budget is in jeopardy.

That could have a knock on effect on the quality of a wide range of public services provided in the City and on the level of Council Tax which will be levied in future years.

No doubt the Audit Committee will be requiring the attendance of the Cabinet members (Simpson Laing & Cunningham Cross), who have presided over this crisis, to attend their meeting and account for their actions.

In its Tax demand – sent ot all households in the City in March – the Council said

“The city’s demand for adult social care services is increasing at such a rate that by 2019/20 adult care costs are expected to account for 50 per cent of the council’s net budget. The council is investing a further £2.5m for adult care services in 2014/15, to ensure York’s most vulnerable residents are taken care of.

In 2014/15 the council will pay for approximately half the adult care cost increases through an increase in Council Tax, of 1.9 per cent, an average of 37 pence per household, per week”.

A full and frank explanation is now required from the Council Leadership

NB. The Council is being criticised in todays media for paying an interim Director £700 a day.

The Council has yet to reveal the costs of the two temporary appointments that it has made to cover the staff who have left the Social Services Department (or the costs of any severance package agreed for those leaving)

Highways getting worse in York

A meeting next week will hear the – not unsurprising – news that the majority of York’s highways and footpaths are declining in standard.

11% of unclassified roads (the vast majority of the City’s network) are now in urgent need of repair.

click to enlarge

Only on its classified network does the City compare well to some other Yorkshire authorities.

As reported recently (see right) the Council has belatedly realised the implications of the work backlog which started to build in 2012 when the Council imposed a 37% cut in maintenance budgets.

It is estimated that there is now a £32 million back log in work.

Worn highway surface Hamilton Drive West

The Council is now saying that it will reveal in April an additional list of streets that it hopes to resurface in the run up to next years local elections.

A list of the roads and paths currently on the list to be resurfaced before March 2015 can be found here

NB. In Westfield, the footpaths in parts of Green Lane, Wetherby Road and Cornlands Road are due to be resurfaced.