The TaxPayers' Alliance - West Midlands

Alton Towers trip for those who go to school

There was a time when wagging off school and taking sickies here, there and everywhere was seen as poor form, now actually going to school everyday in the way you’re supposed to is being viewed as an achievement and richly rewarded…by the taxpayer. (BBC News)

Kids at Kingstone High School in Herefordshire are being treated to a day at Alton Towers provided they attend school every day during term time as part of a scheme to encourage better attendance. But far from luring truants back into the classroom, this method is resulting in the lame, the ill and the injured dragging themselves into the classroom for fear of missing out on this rare treat.

The parents of such children, like the father of one boy who will be missing out on the theme park trip because his attendance record is a mere 99%, are understandably upset especially since in this case a doctor’s note was supplied to cover the absence and the boy’s dad even offered to pay!

The teachers at Kingstone are ignorantly peacocking, claiming their canny project has improved attendance, but at what cost, both physical and financial?

Surely any drive to get kids into school consistently should focus less on forcing the reliable kids in whether or not they’re germy, and more on making sure those with very low attendance rates make it in more often. But once they’ve missed a day or two and forsaken Alton Towers, why would consistent truants bother to up their game? The only children this appears to be affecting are those who might be ill through no fault of their own…

Ah but fear not, the ‘one strike and your out’ rule that at first seems to define this most ridiculous project has a loophole that completely undermines any possible good the thing could yield. How is this for genius?:

 “The school has introduced a scheme whereby students with 100% records can invite a friend with a less than 100% record.”

So the poor child who has dragged himself through the school gates regardless of any sickness or injury has the privilege of taking with him, at best, someone who was forced to forsake the trip due to more serious illness, and at worst, one of the very absentees this ill-thought through and costly fiasco was intended to punish through deprivation.

How about leaving well-behaved kids alone and imposing some real penalties on those who consider school to be optional, thus protecting against the spread of germs, allaying the worries of young children and their parents and saving the taxpayer money? 

This strategy, bankrolled by the public purse, is utterly meaningless. Any conceivable benefits are far outweighed by negatives, and as the aforementioned statement proves, the children going to Alton Towers will not be the most diligent or the most improved, just the most hardy and the most popular.

Is this really what we should be paying for?

Birmingham City Council boss takes home £200,000+

Our last Town Hall Rich List revealed that Birmingham City Council Chief Executive, Stephen Hughes, enjoyed a very healthy 18.2% pay increase between 2006/7 and 2007/8 and last week the Birmingham Post reported that he’s now a member of the “£200,000+ per year club”.

So how exactly has Mr. Hughes earned a rise that puts his total remuneration in the £200,000 – £209,999 bracket, netting him a cool £3,900 per week? Well that remains entirely unclear, especially when the Audit Commission recently slashed the council’s star rating from a three to a two. Like we see all over the country at different government bodies and local authorities, pay is entirely unrelated to performance and taxpayers must cough up for the predictable and inflated pay rise year on year regardless of whether they’ve seen any improvement in services.

Perhaps more pertinent is just how insensitive such a salary hike is at a time when people are losing their jobs and taking pay cuts all over the city. In just 2006 this Chief Executive was on £175,000 and it appears that since then increases in his total remuneration have been unstoppable and whilst the city council have kept to a fairly repectable “low rise” in terms of council tax, keeping it at 1.9% for the past three years, it still means that residents have had to dig deeper whilst more money goes to top up already hefty salaries.

Councils are really going to have to reassess their apparent policy of bumping up executive salaries year on year regardless of whether these people are producing results, because MPs have opened our eyes and there’s a feeling of real resentment amongst the public who are utterly fed-up of shelling out to line the pockets of those who class themselves as public servants.

Gipsy month for all Sandwell schools

There’s little doubt that history is a very valuable subject and that it’s tremendously important to keep children aware of the most vital and relevant dates and events in the human calendar. Selecting them is an unenviable task…and sadly for kids in the Black Country, somewhere along the line, Sandwell Council got involved.

Forget the Tudors or the Italian Renaissance, Sandwell Council’s lightening-hot Equality and Diversity Scrutiny Panel are recommending that every school in the borough celebrates a “gipsy and traveller history month”, according to today’s Express & Star.

That’s right, not gipsy day, not gipsy week, but a whole gipsy month. Now, doubtless, the travelling community have a rich and illustrious history, but when the chips are down and with so much history behind us, it’s pretty hard to argue that it deserves a place on the curriculum of every school.

“But there are is a burgeoning travelling community in Sandwell!”, the panel will no doubt insist, but since when did the history we learn have to reflect the demographic of the learner? There were no Romans in my class at school, nor Greeks, nor Vikings, nor Egyptians. None of what I learned was relevant to prejudices or issues in my local community, it didn’t teach me to empathise particularly with other the children, nor boost my regard for their varying heritages, so did that make it a worthless waste of time?  I think not. History shouldn’t be some easily accessible social tool, malleable in the hands of local council officers and used to deflect any racial frictions on their patch.  In the same way as maths, literature and science, history lessons are there to give a rudimentary but nonetheless fundamental backdrop to the world we live in, and when giving a potted guide only the truly pivotal things must remain.

The recommendation is for:

“each school in Sandwell to positively mark gipsy and traveller history month in 2010 and subsequent years” and that each of the six towns in the borough should “proactively run events to celebrate” it.

What’s more there are brochures set to be printed, a ‘myth busting’ leaflet and those who come into regular contact with gipsies or travellers are to receive “cultural awareness training” as though these people were aliens. What a costly, clinical and no doubt entirely ineffective way of dealing with a bunch of ordinary people who’ve lived in communities up and down the UK for as long as anyone can remember.

If discrimination is a problem (and at the moment it seems to be an anticipated problem) then there are laws to rely on, but the fact is, this is looking like yet another pet project for a council that consistently make very questionable judgement calls.

If they want all teaching in schools to reflect the issues in the immediate vicinity, then perhaps economics classes could look at the case study of the disastrous The Public gallery in West Bromwich, and geography could look at all the destinations Chief Executive of Sandwell Council Alison Fraser has been on junkets to take courses on meaningless psychobabble, or maybe Sandwell should check themselves once in a while and stop wasting precious money.

Coventry Council's drugs exhibition

If you had a drug problem and wanted to tackle it, where would you fancy going to admit it and seek help? Perhaps you’d go to your family at home? Or maybe visit a doctor’s surgery? Or – if you’re rather an exhibitionist – you can now go along to a crowded shopping centre in Coventry where you can be publically “outed” whilst surrounded by oversized picture portraits, taken by those who are similarly drug-addled.

As part of a gimmicky nod to solving the drugs problem, Coventry City Council are pulling out all the stops by displaying an exhibition of photos taken by drug users, flanked by the obligatory drug workers, as part of “Tackling Drugs Week”, a branded initiative that is unlikely to produce any quantifiable results.

It’s all to do with “raising awareness” (as though drug addicts aren’t “aware” that they should probably lay off the drugs…). It’s touchy, feely and no doubt costly.

The details are given in an article in the Coventry Telegraph, the frankly named “Druggies’ pictures go on display”.

Councillor Andrew Williams says:

“The work we are doing to tackle drug misuse is a mix of activity to help ensure today’s young people don’t become tomorrow’s addicts.”

If that’s a full-proof argument we should give cameras to alcoholics, homeless people and anyone who might even be considered deviant, and display their work in every shopping centre in the country in order to “ensure” an end to all manner of problems.

But the truth is, this doesn’t look like a genuine outreach to drug users at all, or anything to do with promoting the treatments available – it smacks of a PR exercise by Coventry City Council who just want to be seen as taking action and playing a part in the National Tackling Drugs Week.  It’s hardly targeted to drug users when they’ve plonked it in a completely conspicuous position in the very centre of town after all. ..

And just how much does this manned exhibition cost the non-drug taking taxpayer during the length of its run? This is really just another publicity bill for local residents who are, as it stands, paying to promote the image of their council when they’ve no choice over who provides their services?

WMCCE on the lookout for new staff

Around this time last year the WMTPA wrote on the West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence (WMCCE), an off-the-radar quango with a snazzy website whose remit seemingly allowed them to give out a lot of advice and a lot of money.  Oddly, at the time, the limited content on the WMCCE’s website indicated that this venture may have been abandoned (their dedicated research website still has a very Marie-Celestian feel about it), but now there’s a recession on it seems their guns are a-blazing and their off to hire more staff.

More staff?! Yep, that’s right. Whilst most private enterprises are pretty grateful to keep the whatever staff they have, given the economic climate, public bodies with vague aims and questionable successes are off spending taxpayers’ money to expand their ranks.

So who are they after?:

Project Co-ordinator  Salary: £27,999 - £30,594 pa

School/Dept: West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence (WMCCE)

Location: Birmingham

The West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence is managed by the University of Wolverhampton with the mission to help the construction industry to become more efficient and as a result more competitive.

The Centre, based in Birmingham, aims to ‘work with the sector to develop the West Midlands into a world class sustainable and competitive region for the built environment’. Much of the work of WMCCE is focussed on embedding the principles of Constructing Excellence and promotion of best practice. You should be willing to travel within the UK.

Temporary until 31 December 2011.

Funded jointly by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)

To act as the focal point for the co-ordination and linkage of WMCCE projects and to manage the WMCCE Administration team on a day-to-day basis and allocate work to that team.

Educated to degree level or equivalent you should have experience of administrating, developing and co-ordinating projects in industry and/or Higher Education establishments. You will have excellent communication, interpersonal and IT skills including MS Office and Project Management packages. You should have the ability to develop project proposals and co-ordinate programmes. You should be able to work on your own initiative whilst prioritising your workload and working to tight deadlines.

The successful candidate should have had experience of Public Funding (including ERDF) as well as of the Private Sector.

Reference: B5287EF

Closing Date: 5 June 2009

 

Skills Co-ordinator  Salary:£24,877 - £27,183 pa

School/Dept: West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence (WMCCE)

Location: Birmingham

The West Midlands Centre for Constructing Excellence is managed by the University of Wolverhampton with the mission to help the construction industry to become more efficient and as a result more competitive.

The Centre, based in Birmingham, aims to ‘work with the sector to develop the West Midlands into a world class sustainable and competitive region for the built environment’. Much of the work of WMCCE is focussed on embedding the principles of Constructing Excellence and promotion of best practice. You should be willing to travel within the UK.

Temporary for 1 year.

Funded by the Learning Skills Council (LSC)

To manage a comprehensive action plan for the Local Skills Academy initiative, including identifying skills needs and relevant training solutions for supply chains. You will co-ordinate educational activities for 14 – 19 year olds, teachers and careers advisors, co-ordinating work placements and identify opportunities for the community.

Educated to degree level or equivalent you should have experience of administrating, developing and co-ordinating project proposals in industry and or Higher Education establishments particularly in relation to skills development. You should have evidence of practical engagement with industrial and public sector to develop skills and successful management of output orientated projects. You will have excellent interpersonal, communication and IT skills including MS office, word processing and project management packages. The ability to work to deadlines without supervision is essential.

Reference:A5311EF

Closing Date: 5 June 2009

No surprises when it comes to who's funding these roles...

A WMTPA supporter emailed these details in, asking whether this body was aware of the current recession at all, and questioning whether this is the most effective use of taxpayers cash when so many hard-working families could truly benefit from the tax-cut at the moment.

Sir Roy wins the AWM throne and crams another 3-day week into his schedule

So Sir Roy McNulty is to fill the £80,510 per year position of chairman at Advantage West Midlands, despite actually pulling out of the original race in April 2008, according to the Birmingham Post.

Sir Roy’s withdrawal was apparently “amid speculation that he had been asked by the Government to concentrate on his role as chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority following concern at the possibility of a growing row over airport charges”. 

You see, the AWM role is not the only chairmanship/public position Sir Roy plans to hold down at the age of 72, no no, not even nearly.

As I wrote last year when Sir Roy was one of six contenders:

“Sir Roy McNulty may well have an impressive professional history with various private aerospace companies, but this has also led to significant involvement with public bodies, presumably leading to his pending application. He is already currently the chairman (£90,000pa, 3-day-week) of the Civil Aviation Authority, and has been since 2001; he has also been the Chairman of the former Department of Trade and Industry’s Aviation committee from 1995 until 1998; additionally he has recently taken up as Deputy Chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority. Oh, and he’s also Chairman of Ilex, the ‘Urban Regeneration Committee’ in the Derry City Council area of Northern Ireland.

He’s a very busy man indeed! But is it even possible to juggle all of these positions?  Surely at the very least the Civil Aviation Authority position would have to be dropped if he became AWM Chairman, as I doubt he’d manage a 6-day week split between Birmingham and London at the age of 70, particularly with the 2012 Olympics and regeneration in Northern Ireland to co-ordinate as well!

The case is either that this septuagenarian is working himself to the bone in the name of public service, working – at the very least – a six or seven day week and stretching himself between the Northern Ireland, London and the West Midlands (he lives in Warwick). Or that the time constraints are irrelevant, the position is purely a ‘cushy-number’ and the AWM Chairmanship simply represents £80k safely in the back pocket of anyone with the right credentials”.

Holding down these three positions isn’t just a logistical nightmare, it’s logistically impossible for one man in his 70s to perform fully, accurately and on time without cutting corners. But hey – there’s a lot of cash going spare for the person with the right CV, so from 1st September 2009 you’ll be paying for this man to take-up the chairmanship of a £300million budget public organisation, and whether he fails, flails or never turns up, there’s absolutely nothing you can do to remove him*.

Oh, and you’ll be paying his remuneration for those other positions he holds too.

Doesn't this sound a little bit like the Fire Authority situation all over again? If you've had a distinguished career and have either never rubbed the authorities up the wrong way, or alternatively you have something to offer them, your thank you present (courtesy of the British taxpayer) is a nice retirement gig at £80/£90k per year for a short week - AND it's completely recession-proof! Smashing!

Our MPs have, quite rightly, been in the firing line the last couple of weeks for abusing their expenses, but the truth is, we elected them and we can get rid of them when the time rolls round (and even more effectively with the power of recall), but there’s something a whole lot more sinister going on here, a world bobbing just below the surface, wielding a decent amount of power and being paid huge amounts of cash without accountability. Indeed, most of us don’t even know they’re there and we can be confident they're pretty happy with that situation. But surely if our MPs have to justify what they're getting from the taxpayer and what it’s for, these people who claim remuneration for two three-days-per-week jobs with other public responsibilities (and probably paycheques!) to boot should absolutely have to explain exactly how these arrangements work and what, precisely, they’re doing in return for these huge amounts of public money.

*Since this was written the WMTPA have been informed that Sir Roy will be stepping down from the Civil Aviation Authority, although he appears to be retaining his other positions.

Fire Authority spend as board members reap rewards

Last month the WMTPA blogged on how the West Midlands Fire Service is spending £23million kitting out a new base for call centre staff when the council-owned i54 project in Wolverhampton is across the road and still has tumbleweed blowing through it. Well, last Friday the Birmingham Post reported how the West Midlands Fire Service HQ relocation project in Birmingham scooped the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors’ top award at a glitzy black-tie ceremony at the Botanical Gardens.

Apparently (and it’s not hard to believe) this accolade is only ever given for a notably high-value spend, with cheap properties rarely considered, and so as beaming Fire Authority board members collect their coveted award it’s important for us to remember this is taxpayers’ money that’s been lashed out to reach such impeccably high-standards.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with decent premises and decent conditions, but it seems that in the case of these Birmingham and Wolverhampton moves, the Fire Authority have decided to push the boat out and relocate, refurbish, renovate and regenerate on a massive scale, quite clearly surpassing any similar projects in the private sector.

As the RICS West Midlands Chair said in the article:

“As always, we received a very high standard of award entries, however the relocation project of the West Midlands Fire Headquarters in Birmingham was extremely impressive and a clear winner”.

And as nice as it’d be to assume the Fire Service outstripped their opponents with a clear focus on prudence and innovation, those in the know would consider this a pretty naïve view. Big prize = big spend.

Signing-off on such big spends we have our trusty West Midlands Fire Authority, and yet, if last week’s news is anything to go by, a position on the board of this organisation is less about responsibility and more about the generous yearly salary that goes with it. A salary that Council Leader Mike Whitby appears to use as a stick to beat or a bung to bribe in the tricky business of keeping his unruly court in order.

Councillor Peter Howard, who was suspected of fuelling if not leading the recent revolt against Whitby, has been stripped of his £28,000 per year Fire Authority position as punishment and it has subsequently been handed to Councillor John Alden, a back bench critic. The implication is that this new ‘nice little earner’ might keep Councillor John Alden ‘sweet’ and is a suitable thanks for his support in averting Whitby’s dethronement.

But hang on – this, once again, is taxpayers money! It isn’t supposed to be a bonus or a treat, it’s supposed to be payment for a job (and supposedly a job that justifies such a salary!). The use of it here as a political tool is staggering.

And of course the question is, if the lure of such a job is the generous taxpayer-funded salary and little else, what does a member really care about the level of public spending to start with? Now, I’m not suggesting that Councillor John Alden, new Chairman at the Fire Authority, will turn a blind-eye to extortionate building costs and simply enjoy the nice extra income he’ll be getting, but it does appear that his predecessors have allowed fairly extravagant spending on large-scale projects to become a feature of their unelected rule. So as taxpayers pick-up the bill perhaps we, the unconsulted public, can rely upon this new Authority member to assess whether or not it’s appropriate to spend so much on these multi-million, award-winning, nothing-comparable-in-the-private-sector builds during a recession that's putting companies out of business and parents out of jobs.

Warwickshire "Go Green" boss submits £8,500 in mileage claims

The Coventry Telegraph has revealed how Warwickshire County Council’s “Go Green” boss has been using his 4x4 vehicle to clock up almost 10,000 miles, costing taxpayers no less than £8,500.

Martin Healey, the council’s ‘environmental leader’, hasn’t exactly been leading by example as his expenses claims for mileage topped the list of all elected members, and  yet he has brushed criticism aside by stating that the council can’t “go green overnight”.

Of course, this is exactly the sort of hypocrisy that diminishes the faith residents put in their representatives, only made worse by the fact they’re having to foot the bill.

This just goes to show what little heed many councillors pay to the messages they so earnestly spout, and once again the rest of us must be resigned to the fact that it’s one rule for “them” and another for us. And as the least ‘green’ councillor of the bunch hits the road at considerable public expense whilst telling the rest of us to take the bus, we’re reminded just how detached from reality our politicians have become with behaviour like this just serving to reaffirm the current public feeling towards them.

Dudley business bus to the rescue?

You’re a business owner in Dudley trying your level best to make it through this difficult period and hoping that things pick-up so that you can retain staff and turn a profit. You may be faced with something of an uphill struggle and then out of nowhere – Is it a bird? Is it a plane? – no such luck, it’s the “business assistance campaign bus” jam-packed full of leaflets and ‘advisors’ sent by Business Link West Midlands to remind you just why your tax bill is so hefty each month.

This advert was spotted by a supporter of the TaxPayers’ Alliance who, quite fairly, wondered what possible good a roaming band of bureaucrats could do for the local economy. No need to ask which suckers are paying for it…

A press release from the council website waxes lyrical about the veritable A-Team of onboard advisors from “a number of agencies” (all presumably duplicating each others work) who will be equipped with reams of glossy literature, mostly referring companies to other bodies with funding and generally relaying information that’s sure to be available on the internet should you need it.

Nevertheless:

“The roadshows are part of a 10 point action plan the council has committed to in order to offer support to borough residents and businesses. The recession busting action plan aimed at tackling the economic downturn was unveiled this month” (April)

The ten point plan includes boosting business by ensuring they take up public sector contracts available to them, these frilly and presumably costly ‘roadshows’ to make Business Link et al look visible and proactive, the launch of web pages pointing to different support channels (even though it’s a wonder the internet hasn’t collapsed with quangos rushing to set-up slick new websites offering exactly the same information), plans to encourage benefit take-up and a scheme to extend new employment opportunities, not in jobs created by local businesses, but at Dudley Council.

Unfortunately they’ve included no plans to scrap costly quangos or give a decent cut in business rates and so the rest of us will continue to balk as these unaccountable bodies dream up more ways to waste much needed money under the guise of offering advice and support.

Taxpayers angered by fire chief's pension pot

The Express & Star revealed today that disgraced ex-West Midlands Fire Chief Frank Sheehan will be receiving a taxpayer-funded pension of over £100,000 despite being forced to quit following a child pornography investigation.

Sheehan, who was not charged as the CPS claimed it wasn’t in the public interest to do so, has been placed on the sex offenders register for two years after police raided his home and arrested him on suspicion of making indecent images of children.

Despite the appalling circumstances surrounding his sharp exit from the West Midlands Fire Service, according to the article Sheehan will still have the option to “commute” up to a quarter of his pension, allowing him to take a lump sum of £363,834 and subsist on a generous annual package of £75,276.

Many taxpayers emailing the WMTPA have insisted that there should have been a steeper financial penalty due to the criminal activity that caused Sheehan’s departure, and all resent having their taxes go toward such an impressive pension pot.

It certainly seems nonsensical that those who’ve behaved in such a deplorable manner and in contravention to the law should be paid so handsomely by the very public they’ve at best offended and at worst, compromised.