The TaxPayers' Alliance - West Midlands

AWM unsure whether £300k Cannes trip was worth it

Advantage West Midlands usually use any opportunity to blast out “return on investment” figures with regards to their spending, but today’s Birmingham Mail reports that quango bosses a little shyer about how much their massive £300,000 MIPIM spend brought in.

Mick Laverty, chief executive of AWM, was being questioned by government officials who were also interested to learn more about The Public gallery in West Bromwich, which is amongst the quango’s “investments”.

About the MIPIM property event – usually an opportunity for UK quangos and local authorities to jet to Cannes in the South of France and peacock, throwing parties and hosting dinners at our expense – Laverty said: “It’s very difficult to track exactly what’s happened.”, which obviously fills us all with hope when the man’s in charge of a £330m budget of public cash.

It’s just astonishing that our public bodies justify the MIPIM junket by vehemently protesting that it is value for money, and a prime opportunity to ‘attract inward investment’, and yet here one of the biggest spenders has all but forgotten these cast-iron benefits now they haven’t come to fruition, and seeks to play down the whole event. We’re told that the benefits are ‘qualitative’, but not what they are, and so they seek to pull the wool as usual.

In a transparent system anyone would be able to directly trace the benefits of spending £300,000 on a property fair, and if there weren’t any (which appears to be the case), then the public body would be under pressure not to fritter so much cash in future. Simple. As it stands, these executives will desperately try to disguise bad decisions, hide waste and deliver foggy rhetoric when it comes to extrapolating results – ultimately prioritising the safety of their own hides over the proper use of public funds.

The Public watch: No.4

There’s never much time between revelations, but even Sylvia King who conceived The Public nightmare is shocked this week, as one exec whom she and Sandwell Council would gladly off-load a decent amount of the flak on walks away with £211,000 redundancy (Express & Star).

Sally Luton, currently chief executive of Arts Council England: West Midlands, has fallen victim to restructuring and will consequently pocket this money and make her escape in June 2010, but many have accused Luton and the Arts Council of keeping a low profile with regards to the part they played in this disastrous gallery project.

New Sandwell Council leader Darren Cooper laments, “Sandwell Council has had to drag the Arts Council out of this mess”, and worth noting his acknowledgement that the situation is a mess and his assertion that they’re somehow out of it.

Not in the opinion of art critic Rupert Christiansen who wrote in the Daily Telegraph yesterday that the building was a “monstrous black shed”, further commenting:

“Staff are enthusiastic and motivated and everyone is trying their damnedest to bring this abortion to life. But why has their never been an investigation into this fiasco?”

Why indeed, and yet many shudder at the prospect of throwing yet more public cash at this ‘community arts’ catastrophe.

King and Sandwell Council have every right to feel bitter that Sally Luton has wriggled out from under the shadow of The Public relatively unscathed and inappropriately well compensated, but then those of us who have been following the scandal will really have to try hard to feel stunned or aghast after so many years of similar stories and the ongoing total lack of accountability.

Stoke to slash £1.06-per-mile allowance to the 40p recommended rate

Rather surprisingly there’s something to congratulate Stoke-On-Trent Council on this week as they attempt to claw back £790,000 of taxpayers’ money per year by doing away with one of their favoured perks (The Sentinel).

Until now, due to their lump sum payment, essential car users at the authority have been able to claim as much as £1.06 per mile as an allowance, with casual car users making a decent 56p per mile to boot, meaning the council paid out no less than 1.9million in mileage claims in just 12 months for 3.1 million miles.

As many people will be aware, this sort of payment is substantially higher than the HMRC recommended 40p per mile, an amount that car users often find pretty lucrative itself - but finance chiefs at the council have warned that the costly system in place is "being used as a perk by council managers to recruit and retain key staff”.

Expenses being used as a bonus to top up earnings? Whoever heard of that…??

Cutting out this little practice is such a quick, easy way of nipping profligate in the bud and saving the authority a fairly decent amount of money on an annual basis! So when do these revisions begin you might ask? Well that’s completely up in the air at the moment as plans to implement these cutbacks in the New Year have been halted by the chief executive to allow time to negotiate with the unions who presumably drive tanks to work as they claim the 40p rate wouldn’t cover running costs…

According to the branch secretary, a 40p rate would involve subsidising the council 20p – so we might assume they want a 60p rate? So essentially at the sound of a decrease they’ve called for an increase, and implied that they’ve been subsidising the council 4p per mile all along (though without complaining and presumably out of the goodness of their hearts…). It really does make you wonder how most other councils and businesses survive on the 40p rate…

It all smacks of “we’re happy with our cushy little number, leave us be”, which doesn’t show much regard for taxpayers.

Let’s hope Stoke are successful in pushing this through. If they do they’ll have come along way since Christmas 2007 when they were unapologetically pouring money down the drain. It’s great to see a council that’s been fraught with difficulties making some concise moves to tighten their belts so here's hoping this union’s crackpot calculator fails to stop progress.

Warwickshire 'value for money' boss in expenses hearing

The very Warwickshire county councillor responsible for ensuring value for money went before a sub-committee yesterday accused of breaching the members code of conduct after submitting excessive expenses claims (Coventry Telegraph).

Readers of this blog might remember that back in May Coun Martin Heatley (then the county’s environment leader) clocked up more mileage than any other councillor in his 4x4. Now it appears that although the distance from his house to the county council buildings stands at 32 miles, Heatley has claimed for 120 journeys at 52 miles each. What’s more, the majority of his rail journeys have been made on a first class ticket.

It seems as though this councillor has fairly successfully covered his tracks though, citing that he was required to make ‘detours to other meetings’ and that he’d accidentally miscalculated many of the claims by developing a system of aggregating his expenses. How easy it is to miscalculate when it’s other people’s money…

Coun Heatley was ordered to pay back £200 and will now be retrained on the members’ code of conduct and the members’ remuneration scheme. This, and the investigation itself, all adding to the cost for taxpayers.

Essentially, this man has pleaded ignorance. He doesn’t know how to add up, or just not in the right way or he just couldn’t be bothered/deem it important enough to find out the correct method of submitting expenses. So at best this is incompetence, at worst it’s downright abuse of taxpayers’ cash. Maybe we should be asking if this is the sort of individual who can realistically be trusted with the responsibilities of a local politician?

In many, or indeed most, jobs this level of negligence would result in dismissal, but Heatley is only required to pay a token fine and be further trained at the expense of the rest of us. Hardly fearsome consequences for those who are tempted to manipulate what appears to be a fairly pliable system.

Some West Midlands non-jobs...

As you know, at the TPA we have our weekly ‘Non-job of the week’, but here are a couple of our very own West Midlands non-jobs, as advertised by our local councils. And if there ever was any doubt that we’ve evolved too far, check out these two vacancies and ponder how we ever survived without them.

First off we have Coventry City Council who are currently hiring for the role of ‘Healthy Weight Facilitator’(£23,708 – £29,236 pa). The job description itself only serves to embellish upon the absurdity this title suggests by plainly stating that this ‘facilitator’ is needed to join ‘the Coventry healthy weight team’ (images of spandex, smiles and hi-fives…), who apparently work to support ‘weight management initiatives across Coventry’. Well, it certainly comes to something when such basic bodily norms like eating and moving require an official co-ordinator sanctioned by the state – “it doesn’t matter how you want your body to look, that’s for us to decide”. Those of you who’d quite like to enjoy a drink, cigarette or maybe a burger in the full knowledge you might not live quite as long as salad-eating gym-goers – be prepared to have that option stripped away!

Will there come a time when we’re all measured and penalties issued to those who fall short of the government mandated ‘ideal’? Who knows, but residents in Coventry might want to lay off the chocolates and turkey sandwiches this Christmas lest the health police track them down.

Similarly intrusive but ultimately more depressing is Stoke-on-Trent’s advert for a Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Officer, which must be the hiring equivalent of sticking an elastoplast on a shell wound. It makes you wonder if even the people who invented such a role believe themselves that this jobsworth is the solution to the teenage pregnancy epidemic – surely no-one could be that deluded…?

Rather than being trained to spot promiscuous under-16s at a glance, the Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Officer (…must be strange to exist only to stop people being born…) will – you guessed it – educate, inform, engage, etc etc. In short, this is just another unnecessary mediator’s role. Someone to point to condoms, pass over the number of the nearest family planning clinic, indulge the tempers of angry children and take almost £30k from the public purse.

Kids are bombarded with this sort of information these days, it could even be that it’s because of the constant nannying intervention of authorities that teenagers are increasingly choosing to rebel and get pregnant in the first place! Whatever the case, most young people these days have got a pretty good idea that the ‘powers that be’ would rather they didn’t give birth aged twelve, in the same way as we’d all rather they stopped stabbing one another. Perhaps to next role to recruit for would be a Teenage Knife Crime Prevention Officer…? At the very least, as the former position involves such huge amounts of duplication, the council could combine these two roles and give the taxpayer a break.

Mixed messages from Birmingham City Council

West Midlands blogger The Stirrer makes an interesting observation today, noting that Birmingham City Council are still happily hiring for highly paid non-jobs, seemingly unphased by how insensitive this might look to taxpayers and soon-to-be redundant staff.

The newly created position is for a Climate Change Adaptation and Green Infrastructure Manager on a tidy £40k per year. It looks as though BCC are prioritising their mission to save the planet over and above more immediate financial problems…

Film's a flop after £380k of taxpayers' cash

Despite reviews in the local and national press, a huge amount of publicity due to the controversy surrounding it and £380,000 of Screen WM investment, the taxpayer-funded movie 1 Day still only grossed a meagre £44k on its opening weekend at 80 cinemas nationwide.

So far, this doesn’t exactly look like a great investment for West Midlands taxpayers who’ll now just be hoping that the film breaks even, and nor does 1 Day and it’s subject matter act as much of a tourist lure for the region – quite the opposite by all accounts. Worse still, people in Birmingham haven’t even had access to this film as all of the city’s cinemas chose not to screen it after a warning from the West Midlands Police that it may provoke clashes between rival gangs. Great stuff.

Possibly even more lamentable than the enormous backing this turkey has received is the ineptitude of Screen WM’s publicity people, who clearly didn’t feel up to defending the performance of this project, their ineffectiveness perhaps indicative of how the whole operation is run.

According to the Birmingham Mail:

Answering a Birmingham Mail query about its box office performance, Screen WM’s marketing and communications manager Sarah Arnesen said: “Unfortunately there is no-one in the office able to make a comment on 1 Day on behalf of Screen WM.”

Erm…you’re the marketing and communicationas manager Sarah, what on earth else do you do to earn your salary?

If this is the best this organisation have to offer then we’ve every right to despair.

The Public watch: No.3

Only last month The Public’s auditors, KPMG, urged Sandwell Council to consider “mothballing, decommissioning or demolishing” the West Bromwich eyesore and the future of the project seemed to be very grim indeed. So why on earth are they advertising in the Guardian today for four new managers and a director…?

That’s right, a total of five new positions are being hired for despite the dire situation reported recently, including:

* Head of Arts Programmes with an annual salary of £46,149 – £49,039

* Business Manager for £37,206 – £41,616 a year

* Marketing and Communications Manager for £31,754 – £36,313

* Exhibitions Manager with a salary of £31,754 – £36,313

* Learning and Community manager for £31,754 – £36,313

An article in the Express & Star quotes an indignant Cllr Bob Badham, the borough’s regeneration chief and probably The Public’s biggest champion, “Whatever I say, it will be a bad news story”, he grumbles. Erm, perhaps that’s because this looks like pretty bad news! The arts centre seems to be in jeopardy, it’s most definitely £49m over-budget (at least), everybody who has looked at the books and assessed the project’s history has gone sheet white and backed out of the room and what’s Sandwell Council’s response? Better quickly invest some more public cash in a Marketing & Communications Manager…

The trouble with The Public is that nothing ceases to amaze us anymore. Every thoughtless decision and spending error just strikes us as typical after so many years of quite simply atrocious management and indecisive political bumbling.

The reputations, and indeed the legacies of politicians like Badham absolutely depend on this leaky ship staying afloat, so if that means plugging the many, many holes with more cash and – even better – encouraging other public bodies to do the same, then all the better in order to avoid this grave error tainting an otherwise impressive career in public office.

So as four new employees jump on The Public gravy train and attempt to co-ordinate a gallery with tumbleweed blowing through it, we must continue to ask the question that’s been raised time and time again – isn’t this just throwing good money after bad, and is now the time to pull the plug?

AWM scatter some more of our money around

With our heads still spinning from the vagaries of the recent Advantage West Midlands conference, a WMTPA supporter sent over a flyer for a “FREE Diversity Week Workshop” sponsored by…well, guess.

Open to SME business managers and employees, the workshop will be delivered by First Oracle and is entitled “Thinking Outside the Equality & Diversity Box”, which I’m sure is a huge priority for such businesses at the moment. They’re probably bored of figuring out how to make ends meet and retain the staff they have during a recession anyway.

Traditionally, lectures on political correctness don’t come cheap so who knows how much the taxpayer has stumped up for this one, or how many people will actually attend (let alone follow through on the preachy advice given). With West Midlands employment stats looking pretty lamentable, it is – unfortunately – as plain as day that not many companies in this region are hiring, let alone looking to enrich the tapestry of their workforce with new employees chosen for their ‘life experience’ rather than their skills.

This may not be the sort of thing that provokes mass outrage, it might not be sucking millions upon millions from the public purse, but it does arouse fears that this unelected agency with access to an enormous amount of taxpayers’ cash doesn’t really have it’s eye on the ball… 

Sandwell Council hit mother and baby with £75 fine for feeding ducks

A couple of weeks ago the WMTPA commented on how Sandwell Council wardens appeared to have been somewhat over zealous issuing on-the-spot fines, doling out an enormous 2,200 compared to just 336 in neighbouring Dudley. Well now an article in today’s Express & Star presents us with some of the unlikely victims of this local government avarice.

So we must be rational and assume that the warden to pedestrian ratio in the borough of Sandwell isn’t just 1:1, with those on foot being allocated their own personal council stalker on arrival, but in truth by all reports it does seem that wherever you are in Sandwell, whatever you’re doing, you’re probably being eyed by a jobsworth in a hi-vis jacket.

These predators are just waiting for you to put a foot wrong, and if you think they just have their eyes trained on reprobates and smokers then you’d be wrong. No-one flies above the radar in these five Black Country towns, and anything with a pulse is a potential cash cow.

Take mother Vanessa Kelly and her 17 month old son Harry. Now to you and I they may just look like your average mum and baby boy, but to a specially trained Sandwell Environmental Warden, they’re two prospective street demons who must be stopped in their tracks. You see, Vanessa and Harry have a bag, and they’ve come out to deliberately scatter its contents – that’s right – they’re feeding the ducks. Despicable behaviour.

Jokes aside, when this mother and son recently visited Smethwick Hall Park to do just that, Vanessa Kelly was astounded to be issued with a £75 fixed-penalty notice for littering although (somewhat bizarrely) Harry was allowed to continue the offence as he is too young to be prosecuted. Oh, and there were no signs to warn either of them that they could be attracting trouble.

Ms Kelly told the E&S:

 “We were both throwing crumbs to the ducks as the warden approached. I didn’t think anything of it and certainly didn’t think we were doing anything wrong, which is why I was surprised when she stopped me. She explained that it was banned because it could attract vermin, and I said it was fair enough and fastened the bag. I couldn’t believe my eyes when she then pulled out a little computer and started to issue a ticket. To be fined £75 for taking your child to feed the ducks is an absolute disgrace. I will be fighting this fine all the way.”

Those of you who’ve become familiar with the WMTPA blog will know that Sandwell Council are far from squeaky clean, but never before have they been known to stoop quite so low.

It’s rather too easy to pick this one apart, most decent people would find such an action indefensible on many different levels, so perhaps it’d be more appropriate to include some of the comments left by Express & Star readers who universally panned this outrageous action:

dickieg said: Nov 12th, 2009 at 11:39 am
The council are right, it does attract vermin such as rats, mice and JOBSWORTH WARDENS, like the one that issued the ticket

Brian said: Nov 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I despair. What kind of idiot would suggest that a fine is the correct way to deal with this? For goodness sake, what is wrong with just asking this lady and her child to stop? Simple common sense has left our world, especially it appears, in Sandwell.

jeffb said: Nov 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Another jobsworth I suppose, what has happened to a bit of common sense, have these robots been programmed by their masters to ignore common sense. I suppose a mother with a young child is an easy nick. It keeps the numbers up

Rachel said: Nov 12th, 2009 at 11:57 am
How sad is that we can no longer take our children to the park to feed the ducks!!!!

Cantello Rocket78 said: Nov 12th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
If what Miss Kelly says is true,issuing a fine is disgraceful.Throwing food and litter to the floor near to peoples homes is disgusting and anti-social,but feeding ducks in a park?Has the world gone mad?I bet the Warden and Council are really pleased to have prosecuted such a dangerous criminal.

PAUL MULLERY said: Nov 12th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Remember the old song
Jobsworth, Jobsworth, its more than me jobsworth
I don’t care, rain or snow.
Whatever you want the answer’s no.
I can keep you standing forever in a queue.
And if you don’t like it you know what you can do.