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Have they no shame?

Jul 8th, 2011
by Jago Pearson.
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On the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG) website, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is hailed as being “focused on reducing economic disparities within and between member states by supporting economic regeneration and safeguarding jobs.” Sounds grand, but the reality is another example of taxpayers’ money being collected by an unaccountable European power then re-distributed to a narrow elite of chosen institutions and causes.

It emerged earlier this week that the fund hasn’t just been dishing out grants, but slapping fines on our institutions too. The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at DCLG, Bob Neill, replied to a question posed by Burton’s Member of Parliament, Andrew Griffiths, regarding how much money has been paid back by British organisations to the European Union as a result of breaches to the fund’s rules. Griffiths specifically referred to infringements relating to the publicity of the fund on the part of the organisations that received the financial support. Neill’s answer was nothing less than startling.

He revealed that in excess of £436,000 has been paid back to the EU by thirteen different organisations; Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce being the worst hit. The latter organised an event without suitable acknowledgement of the ERDF contibution; a flat rate penalty of 10 per cent was imposed and £77,609 repaid. The former, thankfully soon to be wound up, received a £201,801 bill for not using the EU logo on area publicity material in an attempt to simplify its brand image.

EU

You will comply

Most recently, the University of Northampton was fined £56,477 by penny-pinching bureaucrats after it failed to display the European Union logo outside a building whose facilities had been part-funded by the ERDF. Michael Ellis, Conservative MP for Northampton North, criticised the fine as “astronomical” and demanded the EU return the cash:

“It’s outrageous. These European dictocrats shouldn’t be worrying about their egos or wasting taxpayer’s money on investigating these matters. This is British taxpayer’s money being wasted on absurd self-publicity. There’s not an ounce of common sense being used here.”

These fines ultimately come out of the pockets of British taxpayers; we’re being stung once for contributions to the EU, which are then handed to the ERDF before being handed back to us, and then again when we’re fined for not following their petty rules. Outrageous. Why does the European Union insist so vigorously on promoting itself and its brand? Why must individual member states be forced to assume an additional financial burden to the already monumental sums they already contribute annually for Union membership?

In Neill’s answer, the full version of which can be found here, he said:

“We have to operate existing ERDF programmes according to the regulations. However, the Government believe that the regulations should be focused on ensuring that ERDF meets its objective of promoting economic competitiveness. We will be arguing strongly with the Commission that in the next programme, penalties for things that do not contribute to this objective, such as failing to publicise the programme, should be swept away.”

British taxpayers will be astounded at this current situation. Thankfully, the Government is slowly waking up to this and we can only hope that it will apply sufficient diplomatic pressure to make sure this nonsense is stopped. The EU truly is bloated if it can afford the time and money to waste on pathetic pedantry and bothering people for not flying the right flag or displaying the correct logo.

Costly consumables

Mar 30th, 2011
by Jago Pearson.
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Courtesy of a Freedom of Information Request, it has been established that Leicestershire County Council spent in excess of £600,000 between 2009/10 procuring paper, stationary, printers and ink.  In these times of austerity and technological innovation, it is time for figures such as these to be radically reduced.

In February, I blogged about Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, who have been trialling a system of transferring all of their work over to taxpayer provided laptops. Although at first glance this looked like a monstrous waste of money, financially the scheme stacked up, promising £70,000 of total savings.

It all adds up

Being a much larger body, Leicestershire County Council has the potential to make a large swathe of savings with a bit of initiative and innovation. At present, they spend £201,122 on paper, £180,246 on stationary and more than £250,000 on printers and ink cartridges.

Granted, they do have a target of reducing this expenditure by 20% over the next four years. Surely though, for the benefit of taxpayers, these changes can go much further and happen much quicker in an attempt to help reduce the burden of cuts on frontline services?

Advantage West Midlands

Mar 4th, 2011
by Jago Pearson.
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Some stories relating to public sector waste in recent years have been been hard to believe. However, this one takes the biscuit.

It involves the RDA, Advantage West Midlands, which is due to be scrapped in 2012. Despite this, it seems it continues to fritter away taxpayers’ money with only its own interests at heart. This particular story has a few different strands, so I suggest that you buckle in tight.

First of all, it emerged last year that the boss, Mick Laverty, received a bonus of £21,000 on top of his salary, which surpassed that of the Prime Minister’s. In total, there are four directors on a six-figure salary, with twenty-seven other senior staff receiving between £61,000 and £85,000 per year. In fact, only one such individual took voluntary redundancy in response to a widespread call to preserve valuable public money at the same time as they were asking their lower-end staff ‘to show restraint’. We may just have found one of the reasons why.

When you log on to the AWM website, you are greeted with a picture of Mr Laverty and his colleagues collecting a prize at the Midlands Excellence Awards 2011. This is particularly interesting. In the words of Midlands Excellence themselves, the awards are “open to private, public and voluntary organisations of all sizes” and provide “a rigorous and cost-effective assessment of performance in nine key areas ranging from customer satisfaction to people management, leadership, processes and impact on society.” Winning an award such as this would, at first sight, seem to be an excellent indication of the supposed exceptional work carried out by the RDA. Unfortunately, things are a little more complicated than that.

Midlands Excellence has a Board of Trustees comprising 5 people, plus a Chairman. One of these five is none other than Mick Laverty himself.  So hang on one minute: the CEO of AWM, which applauds itself for winning this esteemed award, is on the Board of Trustees of the organisation that gave it them? Yes, but it gets worse.

How it works. We think...

To enter the awards, you have to pay a fee, amounting to a value in excess of £1,000 in AWM’s case. But, as our research into RDA grants revealed, Midlands Excellence are already recipients of funding from Advantage West Midlands – over £400,000 between 2007 and 2009. Taxpayers’ money, allocated to AWM by the Government, was paid to an organisation that later commended AWM for its ‘excellence’. It really does beggar belief.

The idea is that receiving an award like the one from Midlands Excellence makes the RDA look good, but most importantly makes its directors look good, all of whom will of course be looking for a job come next year. Undoubtedly, they see this as an excellent addition to their CV, and they have said that themselves in the minutes of a board meeting in July 2010!

Note: A keen-eyed supporter alerts us that AWM have removed their July 2010 minutes from their website – so we’ve included a copy below:

Over 400 public sector employees in Leicestershire earn in excess of £100K

Feb 8th, 2011
by Jago Pearson.
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Leicestershire County Council has proven its mettle up to now, preparing in advance for the inevitable cuts coming its way.  It has, therefore, been able to maintain the majority of frontline services that are so crucial to local communities.

The cuts that have been made to care for the elderly and recycling could well have had a reduced impact if top officials at the Council office were not in receipt of huge, inexcusable salaries, which surpass even the wage of the Prime Minister. With 1000 posts expected to go as part of plans to claw back £82m over the next four years, earnings in excess of £150,000 per annum, received by the likes of Chief Executive Sheila Lock, are inexcusable and an insult to Leicestershire taxpayers.

We should applaud the authority for enforcing a one-year council tax freeze, but with year-on-year increases back within 12 months, we must ask what more can be done to relieve the tax burden on Leicestershire residents. Part of the answer  is to recover money from the salaries of more than 400 public sector employees earning six-figure salaries in the county. As we have stated in our manifesto, the top 10% of public sector workers should take a 5% pay cut.  With this amazingly high number of people earning above £100K a year, this would go a long way to protecting some front-line services.

Eric Pickles has also announced that councils across the country will have to publish the names of those employees earning over £58,000 per annum,  detailing their responsibilities. This will show where some of our money goes, and where it is wasted. You will be able to decide who gives value for money, and who doesn’t. Councils are finding there are fewer hiding places as they are forced to become more transparent.

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