Lib Dems call for ‘Grand Départy’ Inquiry as minutes of safety committee raise further concerns

Liberal Democrat councillors are calling for an inquiry into the ‘Grand Departy’ music concert as part of a cross-party scrutiny review.

Meanwhile the minutes of two meetings of the Councils Safety Advisory Group have confirmed that there was internal concern about the organisational arrangements for the concert.

Safety committee meeting July 2014 Click to read original minutes

Safety committee meeting July 2014 Click to read original minutes

The minutes suggest that, had the target audience numbers actually attended, then safety concerns could have been high.

The minutes of the meetings can be read by clicking the links below.

Safety Advisory Committee 30th June 2014 (pre concert)

Safety Advisory Group 23rd July 2014 (post concert)

 Cllr Ian Cuthbertson, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Leisure, Culture and Tourism, has submitted an official request for a scrutiny review into the “planning, promotion and delivery” of council organised events for the Tour De France.

Last week it was revealed that City of York Council overspent its budget for the Tour by £60,000 with the ‘Events and Festivals’ programme losing taxpayers £252,000.

 The poorly received ‘Grand Departy’ music concert at Huntington Stadium was the single biggest loss. The event cost £206,000 to stage but disappointing ticket sales meant only £19,000 in revenue was brought in, producing an overall loss of £187,000.

 Cllr Cuthbertsoncommented:

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Pressure for inquiry into “Grand Departy” £187,000 flop grows

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Councillors are being pressured to hold a scrutiny inquiry into the Huntington Stadium concert – held on 4th July – which looks likely to cost York taxpayers £187,000.

The event was tagged onto the Tour De France but major questions remain unanswered about how –and why – the concert came to be added to a sports event programme.

Bills now available for scrutiny on the Council web site suggest that an event management company, based near Blackpool, was given the contract to organise the event.

Any inquiry is likely to look carefully at the tender arrangements and content of the event contracts.

Private meeting notes will be scrutinised with one key question being why no decision to cancel was taken, with tickets sales in the low hundreds, only a couple of weeks before the event was due to be staged?

When originally launched, the York Council had talked of “10,000“ attending the concert.

Some tickets were heavily discounted. Councillors are likely to ask for details of any free tickets given away by organisers and Council officials.

The review might also look at the arrangements for buying and selling merchandise, while the £33,000 loss on “camping” arrangements may also be probed.

Any involvement by York in the proposed “Tour de Yorkshire”” is likely to be dependant on satisfactory answers being provided at a “Grand Departy” inquiry.

The Tour de Yorkshire is due to take place just 4 days before Council elections are held in the City

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 4th 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

“Grand Departy” costs click to enlarge

NB. The Labour Cabinet on 1st 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.”

Guildhall future still in doubt as Labour cancel key meeting

Labour Councillors have cancelled a meeting of the “Cabinet” scheduled to take place on 4th November.

York Guildhall

York Guildhall

The move came without any explanation.

The meeting had been expected to consider the future of the Guildhall – scheduled by Labour to become a controversial “digital arts and media centre”.

With the balance on the Council having changed, the project – which was originally to have been determined in June – may never now get the “go ahead”.

York residents petition

York residents petition

Both LibDem and Tory Councillors have been very critical of the Labour leadership (see petition right collected in 2012) for leaving the building largely empty and for failing to recognise the role that both the Guildhall and Mansion House should continue to have in the civic life of the City.

The Cabinet meeting was also expected to receive a report on the final costs of the Tour de France events with most eyes still on the reported six figure costs of the “Grand Departy” held at the Huntington Stadium in July.

The Council have already delayed answering a Freedom of Information request on the issue – somewhat disingenuously claiming that they had not yet assembled all the bills for the event.

The FOI request has now been re-submitted.

Grand Departy costs – York Council says it won’t release details until after the Westfield by election poll has taken place

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Three months after a party took place at the Huntington Stadium, the Council still claims that it does know how much income it received from ticket sales.

The budget costs of the 5 hour event were revealed as £228,000 in a response to a Freedom of Information request in August.

It beggars belief that the Council does not yet know how much the event cost and what bill Council Taxpayers will have to pick up.

In an internal review, of responses to an FOI request from former Council Leader Steve Galloway, the Council has admitted irregularities with officials apparently having incorrectly quoted national legislation to justify a cover up.

They have also apologized for delays in dealing with correspondence.

But they now say that a report will only be made to the Council’s Cabinet on the details of the flop in November; 2 months after it was originally scheduled.

A question on ticket sales has been put on the agenda for the Council meeting taking place on 9th October by Cllr Nigel Ayre.

This is the kind of obstructive secrecy that will be swept away if Labour lose their majority after the by election poll which takes place on 16th October.

The Council’s email to Steve Galloway says;
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York party bill could cost taxpayers over £100,000

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

The York Council is resisting attempts to discover the true cost of the Tour de France party (“Departy”) that it held at the Huntington Stadium.

It has invoked a littler known clause in the Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation which allows it to withhold information if a report on the issue is due to be considered by a Council committee.

It invoked the same legislation a couple of years ago to delay the publication of bus service reliability statistics in the City (although the subsequently report, when it did appear 6 months later, actually gave very little new information on the issue).

The Council has, however, confirmed that the budget for the event was a whopping £220,000 and that they hoped to generate income of £260,000.

It appears that the income figures were based on selling around 10,000 tickets at a face value of £25.

The Council have refused to say how much income was generated for ticket sales although this figure must be known by now. The responsible Councillor (Crisp) also refused to answer questions posed at the last Council meeting about the event.

In the end only a thousand or so spectators turned up, hence the concern that taxpayers will have a large bill to pick up.

There was no public discussion of the advisability of holding such an event or of the risks that taxpayers might face.

If the promised report is not published on 1st September then the matter can be referred to the Information Commissioner. The Commissioner has been ruling against the York Council on an increasing number of occasions during the last couple of years and some enforcement action may now be in prospect.

Interestingly there is no entry on the Councils forward plan covering a review of the Departy or indeed any other aspect of the Tour de France programme

NB. A FOI request about library services in York was recently refused on the grounds that the service is now run by an independent company. Other services like the Museums Trust have also been taken out of the reach of FOI requests over the years with several other partnership bodies in a grey area.

We believe that any body which relies for a significant part of its income from the York Council taxpayer, should voluntarily apply FOI protocols to the information that it holds.

York “Grand Departy” budget was £228,000.

A response to a Freedom of Information request has revealed that the budgeted costs of putting on the Grand Departy concert at the Huntington Stadium on July 4th was £228,000.

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

The Council have so far refused to say how much the concert actually cost or what income was received.

Further FOI requests have been submitted but it seems that the Council – which must know by now how much the event cost – are going to hold out until the end of September before providing details.

The Concert was advertised as having a capacity of 10,000 but only a thousand or so turned up with many of the £25 tickets having to be heavily discounted.

It looks like the Council will say all decisions were taken on the delegated authority of one of its Directors although the FOI response does confirm that Cabinet members were fully informed  about the events progress at each stage.

Don’t know Councillor blames Director for “Grand Departy” flop

Cllr Crisp is trying to blame a senior York Council official for the “Grand Departy” failure.

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Sparse crowd for Grand Departy

Despite featuring heavily in the pre publicity for the event – when it was assumed that it would be a success – Cllr Crisp now says the decision to hold the concert was taken under delegated powers  by the Director of Communities and Neighbourhoods.

At the last Council meeting the Councillor also said that she didn’t know how much the concert had cost.  

However the figures will emerge through a Freedom of Information request unless the Council publishes them voluntarily.