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Filton Council’s costly container

Dec 14th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Filton Town Council continues to be troubled by a mysterious container. Sited opposite the council’s Cycle Speedway track, it costs the taxpayer £600 a year to rent and yet no one knows exactly what is inside it. The puzzling container was mentioned at a recent cost cutting meeting. Filton Councillor Roger Hutchinson claimed it contained pedal Go Karts as part of an intended recreational fitness initiative. This scheme, however, has failed to excite the public and in the last year the Go Karts raised only £60 against an expected revenue of £1000. The container has cost the Filton taxpayer £3000 in rent so far.

The Filton container controversy has sparked doubts about the value to the taxpayer of the nearby Cycle Speedway track completed in 2006. Costing approximately £50,000, the track has been barely used by locals and is only occasionally utilised by clubs outside the area, leaving it unused for 350 days a year.   Councillor Hutchinson, who also happens to be Filton Cycle Speedway Secretary, explains on its website that the track was built in an effort to re-introduce the sport of Cycle Speedway to the Greater Bristol area, but sadly the club has hit difficulties in recent years and has failed to enter the speedway league in the last two seasons.

A leisure centre manager, however, disagrees with Cllr Hutchinson and says that the costly container holds a large amount of cycle club equipment, for which the club members pay no fee towards its storage. When a recent boules competition spilled over onto the controversial cycle track that, in turn, ignited another debate about Filton Council’s loose use of taxpayers’ money

The latest Filton council uproar concerned a boules court being used regularly by players for free.  Recently, the court was given a new sign costing the taxpayer £300 and yet no fee is charged for using it, unlike other council provided sports facilities. In a lively debate at a packed council meeting, one councillor argued ‘There was no point on spending money on looking after the courts if you don’t get income in return.’ Quite, but at least it’s being used…

Tim Newark, Bath and South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Cheltenham Council’s bizarre costly case continues

Dec 7th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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The bizarre case of Christine Laird, former managing director of Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) continues to drain money from the taxpayer. The media consensus is broadly sympathetic to her claim for damages suffered as a result of a bullying environment at CBC during the years of her employment, and yet, her statements in court betrayed a strange attitude to public sector employment.

Mrs Laird was appointed to the post at CBC in 2002 but left in 2005 after accepting early retirement on the grounds of ill health—severe depression—that involved a council payment of £450,000. The council accused of her acting fraudulently by withholding details of her past depressive illness and said this resulted in a substantial financial loss. In 2009, the council sued her for £1 million—that is, taxpayers’ money.

In her defence, she claimed that the recruitment pack she was sent did not truthfully represent the organisation she would work for. ‘The statement that the council,’ she told the court, ‘embraced the values of being honest, truthful, wanting to work together in partnership with other organisations and providing quality service at the right price was absolute bunkum.’ Well, I would have to agree with her on that, but could that not be said of almost every council? And the level of naivety shown by her seems amazing in someone recruited to such a high council post. But it does not end there.

She went on to tell the court that she believed CBC was ‘at the least negligent and at worst deceived me into accepting a job that, had I been aware of all the facts, I would have immediately turned down, or at best reserved judgment about.’ So, she claims she was deceived into accepting a very highly paid job that she would not have taken had she known how councils really behave. Well, that does rather open the floodgates, doesn’t it? Couldn’t most disgruntled public sector workers say that?

Mrs Laird claims that her bouts of depression were sparked by family bereavements, her personal financial situation and a lack of certainty in employment. Otherwise, she believed herself to be in good health. But there appears to have been no point when she thought that maybe it would have been best for her, the council and the taxpayer if she just quietly resigned her position.

In fact, according to an external auditor’s report, the atmosphere of conflict between Laird and the council appears to have arisen out of a change in political administration following a local election a few months after she took the job.

In 2009, the council lost its £1 million case and was ordered by the High Court to pay her £250,000 in damages. In total, however, spiralling legal fees meant that the case actually cost £2.1 million in taxpayers’ money and the council sent letters to local residents apologising for its failed legal action. In 2010, an industrial tribunal declared that her treatment by the council was ‘calculated to cause personal distress’.

Now, Mrs Laird claims that £75,000 of public money is still owed to her and, apparently, Eric Pickles agrees. ‘The secretary of state has said I am entitled to an injury allowance in law,’ she told the BBC this week, ‘a tribunal has ruled I was injured at work because my illness is an industrial injury and yet the medical advice to make me an award has been ignored by the council.’ Bouts of depression—personality clashes with councillors—an industrial injury, eh? It is an interesting definition that is exciting a lot of lawyers.

‘I’d been a chief officer since I was 32, and working in local government at senior level is no picnic, so I was used to the rough and tumble of political life,’ she says. ‘What I wasn’t used to was being personally attacked and undermined. It got to the point where I would wake up in the morning and feel physically sick at the thought of having to go to work.’

Bullying in the workplace is never acceptable, but this case is not just about bullying, it is about someone with an apparently fragile mental capacity taking on a demanding job with all the cut-and-thrust of party politics thrown in. Certainly, she now admits that throughout the costly saga ‘I can’t think of anything worse than someone with a severe mental illness [having] to be dragged though the courts system.’ And yet she has shown the mental strength to carry on her long battle against the council.

An external auditor’s report on the case concluded that that there were ‘flaws in the decision-making process whereby decisions were made with an over-emphasis on legal matters.’ That is, councils should not be too eager to call in lawyers at the taxpayers’ expense. But, it also concluded that ‘It is not unreasonable for a council to go to court to seek recovery of a substantial financial loss. The Council had incurred significant costs as a result of the employment dispute with Mrs Laird and it was appropriate to consider options for recovering losses.’ What is clear is that there was a succession of poor decision making and management at the council during this dispute and that the subsequent legal fees was allowed to spiral out of control with little regard for the cost to the taxpayer.

Certainly, locals commenting on the case have been far from charitable towards Mrs Laird. ‘This woman caused hell at the council,’ says one anonymous Cheltenham resident, ‘why should the ratepayer fork out for her malicious actions?’

Cheltenham Council’s bizarre costly case continues

Dec 7th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
Comments are off for this post

The bizarre case of Christine Laird, former managing director of Cheltenham Borough Council (CBC) continues to drain money from the taxpayer. The media consensus is broadly sympathetic to her claim for damages suffered as a result of a bullying environment at CBC during the years of her employment, and yet, her statements in court betrayed a strange attitude to public sector employment.

Mrs Laird was appointed to the post at CBC in 2002 but left in 2005 after accepting early retirement on the grounds of ill health—severe depression—that involved a council payment of £450,000. The council accused of her acting fraudulently by withholding details of her past depressive illness and said this resulted in a substantial financial loss. In 2009, the council sued her for £1 million—that is, taxpayers’ money.

In her defence, she claimed that the recruitment pack she was sent did not truthfully represent the organisation she would work for. ‘The statement that the council,’ she told the court, ‘embraced the values of being honest, truthful, wanting to work together in partnership with other organisations and providing quality service at the right price was absolute bunkum.’ Well, I would have to agree with her on that, but could that not be said of almost every council? And the level of naivety shown by her seems amazing in someone recruited to such a high council post. But it does not end there.

She went on to tell the court that she believed CBC was ‘at the least negligent and at worst deceived me into accepting a job that, had I been aware of all the facts, I would have immediately turned down, or at best reserved judgment about.’ So, she claims she was deceived into accepting a very highly paid job that she would not have taken had she known how councils really behave. Well, that does rather open the floodgates, doesn’t it? Couldn’t most disgruntled public sector workers say that?

Mrs Laird claims that her bouts of depression were sparked by family bereavements, her personal financial situation and a lack of certainty in employment. Otherwise, she believed herself to be in good health. But there appears to have been no point when she thought that maybe it would have been best for her, the council and the taxpayer if she just quietly resigned her position.

In fact, according to an external auditor’s report, the atmosphere of conflict between Laird and the council appears to have arisen out of a change in political administration following a local election a few months after she took the job.

In 2009, the council lost its £1 million case and was ordered by the High Court to pay her £250,000 in damages. In total, however, spiralling legal fees meant that the case actually cost £2.1 million in taxpayers’ money and the council sent letters to local residents apologising for its failed legal action. In 2010, an industrial tribunal declared that her treatment by the council was ‘calculated to cause personal distress’.

Now, Mrs Laird claims that £75,000 of public money is still owed to her and, apparently, Eric Pickles agrees. ‘The secretary of state has said I am entitled to an injury allowance in law,’ she told the BBC this week, ‘a tribunal has ruled I was injured at work because my illness is an industrial injury and yet the medical advice to make me an award has been ignored by the council.’ Bouts of depression—personality clashes with councillors—an industrial injury, eh? It is an interesting definition that is exciting a lot of lawyers.

‘I’d been a chief officer since I was 32, and working in local government at senior level is no picnic, so I was used to the rough and tumble of political life,’ she says. ‘What I wasn’t used to was being personally attacked and undermined. It got to the point where I would wake up in the morning and feel physically sick at the thought of having to go to work.’

Bullying in the workplace is never acceptable, but this case is not just about bullying, it is about someone with an apparently fragile mental capacity taking on a demanding job with all the cut-and-thrust of party politics thrown in. Certainly, she now admits that throughout the costly saga ‘I can’t think of anything worse than someone with a severe mental illness [having] to be dragged though the courts system.’ And yet she has shown the mental strength to carry on her long battle against the council.

An external auditor’s report on the case concluded that that there were ‘flaws in the decision-making process whereby decisions were made with an over-emphasis on legal matters.’ That is, councils should not be too eager to call in lawyers at the taxpayers’ expense. But, it also concluded that ‘It is not unreasonable for a council to go to court to seek recovery of a substantial financial loss. The Council had incurred significant costs as a result of the employment dispute with Mrs Laird and it was appropriate to consider options for recovering losses.’ What is clear is that there was a succession of poor decision making and management at the council during this dispute and that the subsequent legal fees was allowed to spiral out of control with little regard for the cost to the taxpayer.

Certainly, locals commenting on the case have been far from charitable towards Mrs Laird. ‘This woman caused hell at the council,’ says one anonymous Cheltenham resident, ‘why should the ratepayer fork out for her malicious actions?’

Wiltshire Council Parking Fiasco

Dec 1st, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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In the vital shopping days leading up to Christmas, Wiltshire Council continues to hinder hard-pressed traders with their farcical parking charges policy, ignoring both popular protest and a ‘Show Some Sense’ local newspaper campaign. The latest twist in this sorry saga sees Wiltshire Council proffering a miserly 10p cut in parking charges in Trowbridge, Chippenham and Salisbury—after having increased charges by 300 per cent in some of their car parks!

Council leader Jane Scott was forced to introduce this 10p cut following a sharp shortfall in business for local traders, but the revised charges won’t formally come into effect until December 19th, leaving just six shopping days before Christmas. Nice timing!

Local residents have been unimpressed. ‘As if 10p will tempt anyone to pay for parking in any of these towns,’ said one. ‘It is pitiful to watch perfectly reasonable town centres having the life sucked out of them by supermarkets and out-of-town mega-stores with their free parking, whilst the local governments and planning agencies actually encourage the process with bizarre and unimaginative policies.’

In the meantime, traders and residents in Devizes are furious that Wiltshire Council is not introducing cuts to their parking charges. ‘Charges should be reduced in Devizes,’ says their Mayor, ‘because they are stopping people from coming into our town. I really can’t understand why Melksham has kept its two-hour free parking and Wiltshire Council hasn’t changed the parking in Devizes Market Place. We are very similar towns.’

Wiltshire Council cut the free parking in Devizes Market Place to just half-an-hour, hardly time to fill a shopping basket. ‘The feedback we have had is that retailers in the town are suffering as a result of increased parking charges,’ says the chairman of Devizes’ Chamber of Commerce, ‘in spite of Wiltshire Council putting it down to the general economic situation.’

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Bath councillors exposed

Nov 23rd, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Finally, a response, on appeal, to my Freedom of Information request about Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES) councillors not paying their council tax. Shockingly, it has revealed that one Bath councillor has had to have legal action taken against him or her to recover the outstanding council tax. Who this is has not been disclosed.

Initially my FoI request was turned down by B&NES council, but I appealed and the Head of Audit, Risk and Information stated that the original refusal by the council ‘was applied incorrectly and the requested information should be provided to you.’ The information he passed on reveals that over the last two years a total of eight B&NES councillors have been sent reminder letters for late payment of their council tax—an amount totalling £3,429.55. Three of these councillors then had to be sent a second reminder letter—at taxpayers’ expense—for a total of £491. One of these then had to have legal action taken against them to recover the outstanding tax.

Bath TPA supporters protest outside B&NES Guildhall, with Tim Newark (centre) displaying his Freedom of Information request

We are all human and we all make mistakes, but councillors are elected by us to represent us and we are entitled to expect them to act with due responsibility when it comes to paying their council tax—the money that funds our local government. They should display leadership and lead by example—not delay or avoid paying their council tax. Can they not set up a direct debit payment?

Such information is only being revealed by FoI requests and yet elsewhere in the South-West there are signs that councils are trying to close down these avenues of legitimate enquiry. North Devon Council is introducing charges for material printed as part of FoI requests, as well as charging £25 per hour for public access to environmental information.

North Devon councillors say they are levying the charges to curb excessive requests made under the information laws, but their decision comes a month after the North Devon Journal used FoI requests to reveal that some of these councillors had made late payments of council tax. ‘They are obviously smarting from this exposure,’ says Bideford TPA supporter Graham Jones, ‘particularly as they were also claiming allowances at the same time.’

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

West Country MPs against rise in petrol duty

Nov 17th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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West Country MPs are up in arms over any proposed rise in petrol duty. Speaking out in the House of Commons debate this week, Bridgwater & West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger said he would rebel against the government if they put up petrol prices by 3p in January. The debate came only days after we revealed the excessive motoring taxes that motorists are facing across the UK.

‘It is a no-brainer, there is no way the Chancellor can put it up – it is hard enough in rural areas without another 3p on a litre,’ the Somerset MP told the Western Daily Press. ‘As it is, petrol prices are too high and we need to find a way to get them down.’

‘We have a large number of haulage firms who are very concerned about the price of diesel,’ said Stroud MP Neil Carmichael in the Commons debate. ‘They are in turn passing it on to small and medium-sized firms and it is causing difficulties for them.’

Claire Perry MP drew attention to the lack of competition among filling stations in her Devizes constituency. Other MPs in the South-West demanding action against fuel taxes are Robert Buckland (North Swindon), Justin Tomlinson (South Swindon), James Gray (North Wiltshire), John Glen (Salisbury), and Tessa Munt (Wells).

It’s up to the Treasury now if they listen to the growing chorus of voices calling for a scrapping of the rise in fuel duty.

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

False Economies

Nov 10th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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The determination of local councils to cut libraries, street lighting, rubbish removal, and public toilets—the quality of our civilisation and what we pay our taxes for—rather than tackle their own waste on bureaucracy is breathtaking. Two stories in the South-West illustrate how they can get it so wrong.

Cornwall Council’s economy and environment committee recommended they cut funding to 114 of its public toilets in order to save £1.1million, but as soon as news of this got it out, it caused outrage from local taxpayers. The council has now agreed to reconsider the proposal, but a local councillor is wary. ‘This, at face value, is great news,’ he said. ‘The problem is: what does further consultation mean? Will it be along the line of the “take them over or they close” to the parish and town councils? If any local council does agree to take them over, will there be the right financial package in place?’ So, a case of appearing to make cuts, but just sifting the burden on to another branch of local government.

In the meantime, Swindon Borough Council has switched off 140 streetlights to save £20,000 a year. A highly questionable way of saving taxpayers’ money, as the TPA has already demonstrated. That would be bad enough, except that elsewhere in the borough 140 lights are being left on for a road going nowhere. Streets lights costing more than £300 a month are blazing away along a stretch of newly constructed road not yet open to the public.

‘The council should not be leaving street lights on for no reason, wasting hundreds of pounds each month,’ says an opposition councillor. ‘What is even more galling about this is that there are people in Swindon who are having their street lights switched off in order for the council to make savings, so it seems ridiculous that these street lights are being left on.’ Indeed, 433 lights turned off over the summer have had to be turned back on because of concerns over public safety!

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Bath Action Day

Nov 7th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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On Saturday, November 5th, Bath TPA supporters gathered to put a rocket under the position of B&NES’ Chief Executive. At a busy Farmers’ Market at Green Park Station, they collected a number of signatures calling for the next Bath council boss to take a pay cut of £50,000 from the current sum of £210,000 (including pension benefits) to £160,000.

Bath TPA supporters (left to right), Matt Showering, Ben Lodge and Tim Newark show the signatures for their petition collected at Bath’s Farmers’ Market.

Many locals, fed up with high wages being spent on senior council officials rather than frontline services, called for an even bigger pay cut.

Ben Lodge collects signature from Bath stallholder.

This demand has had broad support from across the political spectrum in Bath, including a recent letter in the Bath Chronicle from the local Green Party calling for the same council wage cut.

Matt Showering collects signature from Bath stallholder.

It was sparked by the incoming Chief Executive of Islington Borough Council, Lesley Seary, volunteering a pay cut of £50,000 to bring her wage down to £160,000. ‘We are committed to tackling inequality in all its forms,’ she said, ‘and putting money back in the pockets of our residents.’ If it’s good enough for her, why not the next Chief Executive in Bath?

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West grassroots coordinator, collects signature from Bath stallholder.

Vicky Newark collects signature from Bath stallholder.

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Getting our money back from Icelandic banks

Nov 2nd, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Good news potentially for council taxpayers as they look set to get back, finally, their money invested in Icelandic banks that collapsed in 2008. Last Friday’s decision by Iceland’s Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by Glitnir bank’s winding up board against an earlier judgement by the Icelandic District Court in favour of UK depositors.  It now leaves the way clear for councils throughout the South-West and elsewhere to reclaim their money.

‘It’s very good news,’ says Cotswold District Council’s leader, hoping to now recover their £2 million. ‘It will help keep council tax down and help us to protect front line services. Many local authorities had funds with Icelandic banks.’

To keep legal fees down, local authorities have been using one firm of lawyers and estimated that the total legal cost will be below one per cent of the outstanding amount. Gloucester County Council also hope to regain taxpayers’ money from the decision. ‘This will mean the council will be able to recover approximately £10 million, which will be used to pay off some of the council’s debt,’ says their Strategic Finance Director.

The decision includes money deposited in Landsbanki, which was recently looking to sell off some of its assets, including a majority shareholding in frozen food store Iceland. Other South-West councils who hope to regain some of their—I mean, our money—include Somerset County Council that had £25m in Icelandic banks, Plymouth City Council with £13m in deposits in Heritable, Glitnir and Landsbanki, Bristol City Council with £8m invested in Landsbanki, Wiltshire County Council with £8m in Heritable, North Somerset Council with £3m at Landsbanki, and Cornwall County Council with £5m also invested in Landsbanki.

At the time it was claimed that local authorities had not been reckless with taxpayers’ money by chasing higher interest rates advertised in Icelandic banks and depositing over £840m. Many of their highly paid finance directors said that no one could have foreseen the catastrophe coming their way. But that is not true. I recall reading articles in the Sunday Times financial pages earlier in 2008 expressing doubts about the stability of Icelandic banks. So much so that I warned my cousin who had his life-savings in one Icelandic account. He withdrew his money in the nick of time. If I could see it, how come all those other council hired experts didn’t? Surely, that’s what they’re paid for?

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Bristol’s clever thinking

Oct 27th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Clever thinking at Bristol City Council as they propose replacing two costly night bus services with a shared-taxi scheme. Instead of catching night buses to Avonmouth and Henbury after midnight, Bristol residents will be able to share a taxi ride from the same bus stop for a flat £4 fare. This will serve the dual purpose of cutting £50,000 in bus subsidies and providing a much-needed boost to the city’s hard-pressed taxi drivers.

‘This will be something good that we can do for the taxi trade in Bristol,’ said a Bristol councillor. ‘It should save the taxpayers a bit of money and actually provide a better service to the public as well—if it works this will be a good all round win.’ The six-month trial measure has been welcomed by Bristol’s taxi drivers and goes before the council’s cabinet for approval tonight.

In contrast, in Somerset, Taunton Deane Borough Council seem to have been undone by their own environmental projects to cut the amount of cars entering Taunton’s town centre. Thanks to spending million of taxpayers’ money on a second park-and-ride scheme to the east of the town, parking fee revenues have dramatically fallen by £600,000. It hasn’t helped either that they have also spent more money turning the Castle Green car park into a public square and green space.

Having spent all this taxpayers money discouraging cars, the council now wants to make up this shortfall in revenue by charging Taunton’s taxpayers even more to park on their own streets by increasing the cost of short-term parking—just the sort parking that is aimed at shoppers—and introducing Sunday parking fees. Local traders are up in arms about this further blow to their businesses. It seems that some car-hating councillors just can’t do without the money drivers bring in…

Cirencester’s naked revenue raiser

Oct 21st, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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For a long time, we were all fed the line that council parking charges were not merely another tax on residents but were ring-fenced for the purpose of improving the local transport system. Now Cotswold District Council (CDC) has done away with this pretence and is keen to introduce Sunday and overnight parking fees in all its car parks. It seemed a ‘fair way’ to raise local income, said one councillor, and ‘could net the council as much as £50,000 per year’.

Local business representatives were not so keen and put up a fight against the proposal, with the result that it was scrapped in all Cotswold car parks except one. ‘In the light of the economic projections,’ said a district councillor, ‘we feel that now is not the time to extend or increase parking charges.’ It is the last thing that hard-pressed town centre shops and businesses need.

Good news, apart from the one exception—the Brewery Car Park in Cirencester. This was thought to be a potential money-spinner and CDC still wanted to introduce the off-peak charges there. Cirencester Town Council, however, was not so enthusiastic and threatened taking legal action against the decision. ‘I hope we will be able to move forward in a positive way,’ said a town councillor diplomatically, ‘to achieve a car parking policy which will support the vitality and viability of Cirencester.’

Cirencester mobilised people power to fight the off-peak parking charges and local campaigners raised a petition signed by nearly 3,000 residents and 450 businesses against CDC’s parking plan—dubbed ‘a naked revenue raiser’ by one protestor—but their efforts fell on deaf ears at a packed district council meeting earlier this week when the cabinet rejected their concerns. ‘We accept the concerns of members of the public and stakeholders both in Cirencester and surrounding areas,’ said the Cabinet Member for Environmental Services—and then proceeded to ignore them.

Overnight and Sunday charges will be imposed, whether the citizens of Cirencester like it or not. Still, there is one practical consideration that could undermine all this. ‘If we’re going to enforce in one car park with free ones nearby,’ noted one councillor, ‘who is going to pay?’ Doh!

Wiltshire Chief Executive goes

Oct 14th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Three cheers for Wiltshire County Council (WCC) leader Jane Scott. After weeks of speculation and postponed meetings, the decision was finally made to jettison their chief executive, Andrew Kerr. ‘The buck stops with me,’ she says. ‘This is an organisation which is led by politicians, not by officers, and that is what we are talking about here.’

The move was made to help save £1.4 million from the council’s budget, but £4m is being put aside to pay for the redundancies of Kerr and one of four corporate directors removed alongside him.

Criticism has been levelled at Cllr Scott for initially agreeing to the employment of a chief executive when WCC became a unitary authority in 2009, but she has hit back by saying she wasn’t happy at the time with the extra expense of paying for Kerr’s £183,000 salary. ‘I didn’t want to pay out for such a post in particular,’ says Scott, ‘but my hands were tied by the DCLG [Department for Communities and Local Government] transitional arrangements to enable us to move to one authority.’

One Wiltshire local questions why chief executives are paid so much in the first place: ‘CEs aren’t the chief policy makers in local government, but they are paid salaries comparable to their private sector equivalents who have more responsibility.’

Some more than others, though

Since the beginning of this year, as part of its Localism Bill, the current government is seeking to answer this question. ‘There is increasing evidence that senior pay in local government,’ says its publicationon the subject, ‘has escalated in recent years and that the process for determining senior pay lacks transparency and local democratic accountability to taxpayers.’ An Audit Commission report found that basic salary levels for county council chief executives has risen by 34 per cent between 2003/04 and 2007/08. This was well above the level of their counterparts in universities and hospital trusts, as well as in the private sector. The report explains this by saying that a high turnover rate in local government chief executives has led to councils out-bidding each other for competent senior officers and whacking up their salary costs.

It also hasn’t helped that the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE) has been involved in setting the pay for their own members! An amusing justification of their own jobs can be viewed on their website and includes a variety of demanding roles from promoting local democracy to ensuring cohesive communities. How ever did we manage without them? But clearly WCC feels they can do very well without their guiding hand.

In order to deal with the problem of excessive chief executive pay, the government has put forward several options, one of which is to introduce a central cap on senior salaries. However, because this conflicts with the essential ethos of the Localism Bill, which is to transfer power to local communities, such a measure is not being recommended. Instead, it is favouring an option that requires local authorities to approve and publish annual senior pay statements. This may improve transparency, but will do little to stop council’s outbidding each other for supposedly talented chief executives and escalating their wages. So, sadly, a bit of a fudge, in which an attempt to understand and defeat wasteful high salaries is undercut by its own localism philosophy.

There is speculation now that Kerr may apply for the position of chief executive at Bath and North East Somerset Council, when their current chief executive retires. If this happens, it will be yet another case of a senior council officer grabbing a fat taxpayers’ cheque before moving straight into another highly paid post. Easy money if you can get it.

Bath’s wasted millions

Oct 5th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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A slab of pavement, a chronically underused bike scheme and an electric van trundling around the streets of Bath delivering goods to just a handful of shops are just some of the questionable benefits derived from a taxpayer funded scheme costing millions of pounds.

My attention was first drawn to this waste of money when I saw Boris-Bike-style stands going up at four locations across the city of Bath. After the first week of this trial scheme, these bikes have proved to be a dismal failure.  Only 29 people have signed up to use the bikes, making a total of 36 trips. This is far less than the predicted 210 trips per week hoped for on the scheme’s website.

This is partly due to the complexity of the scheme itself.  One local found it a far from ‘pain-free process’ of registering for a bike pass at the Tourist Information Centre. It involves  paying a subscription up front of £9 for a daily card and £13 for a weekend card. ‘By comparison,’ said the local resident, ‘in London the daily access charge is £1, or £5 for seven days. I really do not think this level of charging is going to encourage Bathonians to make use of what is a fantastic facility.’

Fantastic or not, Bath is a very concentrated city that can be easily walked around—the ultimate in low pollution, high personal health transport. But that would be too cheap. The backers of this bike scheme have a much bigger vision in mind.

It is part of a bundle of measures pulled together under the umbrella of ‘Civitas Renaissance’. Alongside four other European cities, Bath is being used as an experiment for improving local transport and the urban environment. The total cost of this package of policies in Bath is expected to be €7 million, with €4 million of this coming from the European Commission’s Civitas initiative, that is, the European/British taxpayer.
It is funny how a taxpayer-funded project can sound so grand to begin with and then end up ending spending money on initiatives like a slab of pavement. But this is no ordinary slab of pavement—it is the St James Rampire demonstration area ‘designed to enhance the urban realm.’ In reality, it is wilderness of pavement that is ludicrously wide and dominates the street to an ugly and environmentally unfriendly degree. And yet Civitas claims this as a success, saying it has ‘Improved perceptions of personal safety and security against a 2010 baseline.’ Well, there you go!Civitas Renaissance,’ claims its website, ‘aims to demonstrate how the legacy of the Renaissance can be preserved and developed through a renaissance of innovative and sustainable clean urban transport solutions.’

Another scheme is ‘Freight Transhipment’, that is an electric van that takes goods pooled together from a warehouse on the edge of the city and then delivers them to businesses inside the city’s narrow streets. Not a bad idea actually, but again this has not been met with much enthusiasm. Only five retailers have signed up to the delivery scheme business, far less than the anticipated 30 businesses.

Far more futuristic is the ‘Personal Rapid Transit’ system that involves passengers zooming around Bath in a pod on a ‘guideway network’, similar to the system running at Heathrow Airport. ‘As the system is emissions free, it is an excellent alternative to the bus, train or car,’ says Civitas, but is such a system really appropriate to the historic streets of Bath? I think they would face an uphill battle with that one.

So far, Bath & North East Somerset council has presented this project as a victory for Bath residents, bringing in outside investment, even if it is just shifting taxpayers’ money around. But the reality is that B&NES is matching the incoming European grants with its own expenditure. So all this under-performing nonsense is costing the local taxpayer. B&NES budget for 2010/11 reveals that £381,000 of EU grant was matched by £388,000 of B&NES Local Transport Plan expenditure. In addition to this, comes at least £438,000 from central government funding spent in 2009/2010.

Some of this money is paying for the usual freebies enjoyed by bureaucrats as they are shuttled around Europe to see how our cash is being spent. In 2008, Bath and North East Somerset Council hosted a two-day Civitas transport workshop in which delegates from four other European cities visited Bath to hear the then Leader of the Council announce ‘we all welcome the opportunity provided by the Renaissance project to bring about much needed improvements in the quality of life for our citizens.’ As millions of our money is spent on questionable and disappointing schemes, we are still waiting to see any real improvement to our streets…

Tim Newark, Bath and South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Cornish parking fees cut

Sep 29th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Good news from Cornwall – councillors are listening to local residents and shopkeepers and are planning to reduce the cost of parking in some council car parks. The chairman of Cornwall’s parking advisory panel has told Helston residents that he is recommending the reduction of council parking fees to just £1 for two hours.

‘It’s a huge step forward to help low paid drivers who have to work in the shops,’ said Cllr Andy Wallis. ‘I think this is good news for Helston, to encourage people back into the town and encourage people to park away from the streets, which can be quite congested.’

It will also be more attractive for tourists, who have long complained about the elevated parking fees they face on holiday in Cornwall. Such a positive change, however, stems from a disparity in parking fees with other Cornish towns.

At nearby St Just, council parking is free. ‘With free parking on offer,’ said a local, ‘it certainly encouraged me to spend more time in St Just round the shops as I was not clock watching for the car park.’ But that is set to come to an end, much to the annoyance of local residents. ‘This area is one of deprivation and the affect on the local population and businesses could be catastrophic,’ said one. There is the added factor that the land for the car park was given to the council on the condition that parking remain free.  Parking charges imposed on Penzance have already had a negative impact on several businesses.

‘There are currently a wide variety of charges in place for council owned car parks,’ says the council on its website, ‘and the aim of the changes is to ensure there is a fair and consistent charging policy across the whole of Cornwall.’

‘Parking is a very important issue which affects almost everyone in Cornwall and it is vital for both local residents and the viability of our towns and villages that we get it right,’ said Andy Wallis, after a major consultation with local residents and business people. Critics have said that parking in Cornwall can be as expensive as parking in London. ‘It is also important to remember that we have substantially increased the number of hours people can park free of charge,’ Wallis continued, ‘with charges in car parks in some of the smaller towns not coming into operation until after 9 am and ending at 4pm.’ Will this be enough to relieve the pressure on hard-pressed high street traders?

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Has anyone lost their job over half-billion pound waste?

Sep 23rd, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Following Liz Holiday’s earlier post, as some of the half-billion pound ‘white elephant’ FiReControl Project control centres are in the South-West, it is well worth looking at the government report itself to see the detail of the government mess-up.

‘No one has been held to account for this project failure,’ concluded Margaret Hodge MP, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, ‘one of the worst we have seen for many years, and the careers of most of the senior staff responsible have carried on as if nothing had gone wrong at all and the consultants and contractor continue to work on many other government projects.’

During a day of questioning the key figures involved, Stephen Barclay, a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, tried to get to the heart of whether any of the five senior civil servants managing the project had actually lost their job as a result of this half-billion pound failure.

‘No one, as far as I am aware,’ said Sir Bob Kerslake KCB, Permanent Secretary, Department for Communities and Local Government. ‘None of those lost their job for poor performance,’ continued Barclay, ‘they all went elsewhere in the Civil Service, did they?’ Roger Hargreaves, the National Project Director, FiReControl, intervened with an answer. ‘I think two have retired and three are still in the Civil Service.’

Barclay then referred to his notes on the affair to clarify the situation: ‘I was told Shona Dunn is still in post; Peter Betts is now at the Department of Energy and Climate Change; Alun Evans is in the Cabinet Office on secondment to the Institute for Government, probably advising them on how to run programmes; Clive Norris has now retired; and Marie Winkler, I do not know… [now retired]’

‘What I am trying to get at,’ said Barclay, ‘is how accountability for the loss of half a billion pounds of public money has been exercised. If it was the private sector, heads would have rolled. It seems no one has lost their job as a result of this programme. Is that correct?’ ‘I think it is correct to say that no one has directly lost their job as a result of this programme,’ admitted Sir Bob Kerslake.

Earlier in the questioning, Richard Bacon, another committee member, compared the situation to ‘Lions led by donkeys. We all meet our own fire people. They are great people. [But the] point is that it is £649 million that could have been spent differently if it had been handed locally to people to be spent, with some sense of governance and control… This was an extraordinary failure of leadership that has cost nearly twothirds of £1 billion. Who is carrying the can for it?’

‘I am sitting here,’ said Sir Bob Kerslake, ‘taking responsibility for the questions that you are raising.’

‘You have a couple of hours that are slightly uncomfortable, said Bacon. ‘It is not the same.’

It was left to committee member Matthew Hancock to make the most blistering point: ‘This means that the maximum waste on this project is equivalent to around, according to my calculations, £400,000 per [fire] controller. If you think about the morale of controllers, I wonder how they feel at the thought that the Government had wasted £400,000 for each one of them in trying to allow them to talk to each other more easily. Would it not have been better to buy them all mobile phones?’

Now that is a revolutionary approach!

For anyone fascinated in the detail of how a massive loss of taxpayers’ money plays out, please read in detail the minutes of the evidence presented to the Committee of Public Accounts.

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

More councillors not paying council tax

Sep 21st, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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More councillors in the South-West have been uncovered as not paying their council tax on time. Six of West Somerset’s 28 district councillors had to be sent one or more reminders after failing to pay their council tax on time last year. Their arrears mounted to £1,947.70.

If anyone is struggling to pay their council tax, says West Somerset’s own glossy brochure, ‘There is help available and many flexible ways in which you can pay your bill. Contact the council to discuss a payment plan.’

Very convenient I would have thought for the councillors involved and much better than getting the council to spend taxpayers’ money on sending out letters chasing up late payments.

West Somerset’s council leader was unavailable for comment, but the Corporate Director stepped in. ‘Many people are sent reminders and, like anyone else,’ he said, ‘councillors may miss payments through an oversight, being away or a change in circumstances.’

The problem is that councillors are not like anyone else when it comes to council matters. They have been elected specifically to ensure the machinery of local government is run efficiently and effectively—and that includes paying their own council tax on time.

I shall be enquiring with a Freedom of Information request to see whether this contagion has spread to Bath & North-East Somerset council.

Wiltshire wants to cut chief executive

Sep 15th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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At last, a local council thinks it’s better to cut highly paid council officers rather than frontline services! Bucking the trend of bleating councils who prefer to reduce our services before halting the taxpayer-funded gravy train, Wiltshire’s council leader is proposing to axe their chief executive. Faced with finding an additional saving of £500,000, Cllr Jane Scott informed chief executive Andrew Kerr that he might have to go.

‘The decision to make this proposal has not been taken easily or lightly,’ she told the Wiltshire Times. ‘I have taken it because I believe what we are doing is the best thing for the people of Wiltshire. We do not want to do anything to take away from those who are delivering services, the frontline of the council. I believe we have to protect that.’

Instead, she is looking at removing four corporate directors in addition to the chief executive, preferring to see their highly paid jobs go rather than a larger number of less-well-paid workers. Kerr had already caused some upset earlier this year by claiming a £6000 pay rise on top of his £189,000 income while other staff were being made redundant. Public pressure forced him to decline the extra pay.

Kerr says he will now leave quickly if given the push by Wiltshire councillors, but no doubt pocketing a huge severance payment as he goes and then hopping into another chief executive post somewhere else. He only arrived in Wiltshire last year, having been chief executive in North Tyneside for five years. Before that he was a director of leisure and culture at Birmingham City Council.  At one stage, in a last ditch effort to save his job, Kerr suggested cutting other administrative costs, but that would have put other people at risk. As one local put it, ‘What a lovely man, “Sack them, not me”.’

The final decision to make Kerr redundant will be made on 26 September, but I won’t hold my breath. The public sector establishment is adept at protecting its vested interests and opposition councillors are already attacking the council leader about removing the post of chief executive. Still, as one of them says: ‘Why not have a chief executive but without the £190,000 salary?’ That would certainly do for a start.

Tim Newark, Bath & South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

Swindon’s wi-fi waste

Sep 7th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Outrage in Swindon over £400,000 of local taxpayers’ money that has gone missing with little to show for it. Two years ago, Swindon Borough Council entered into a partnership with hi-tech company Digital City to provide wi-fi across the area. To date, most of Swindon still has no wi-fi coverage and Digital City is on the brink of being dissolved. Council leader Rod Bluh, however, is optimistic that something can be salvaged from the financial calamity. 

‘If we are being accused of an error of judgment that is easy to prove with hindsight,’ he told the Swindon Advertiser. ‘We acknowledge things haven’t gone as well as we would like but we are confident as a result of [a] new investor it will be even bigger and better than we envisaged.’

Opposition councillors are less impressed, however, calling for the resignation of Bluh and his deputy. ‘Both Cllr Bluh and Cllr Perkins, who is a council-appointed director of Digital City, have failed to retrieve the £400,000 loan from Digital City,’ said one. ‘When the wi-fi scheme was presented the council was due to get all of the £400,000 loan back from Digital City by October this year. We are a month away from this date and Swindon Council-taxpayers haven’t received one penny from that company.’

It hasn’t helped matters that Digital City was headed by local businessman Rikki Hunt, revealed as a bankrupt. Hunt, until recently chairman of local business forum Swindon Strategic Economic Partnership, filed for bankruptcy in March, with debts of over £1 million to local businesses plus unpaid tax.  In an interview to the Swindon Advertiser, he bared his soul, revealing a childhood traumatised by free school meals. But he bounced back to become a market trader and oil company executive.

Explaining the wi-fi cock-up, he says ‘It went wrong almost from day one. That was because some people didn’t agree with the internal process within the council to making this decision. Quite frankly the Labour Party decided to capitalise on some of the questioning that was going on around the policies.’ Hunt expands further on the blame he accords local Labour councillors, saying ‘They had their stick in the hole and they wiggled it. Any problem they could find, they exploited it.’

What this means exactly is not made clear, leaving local residents fuming. ‘Ever since this project was announced,’ commented one, ‘each and every one of us told SBC that it was a total waste of tax payers money and that the council should never have allowed this amount of our money to be used in such a wasteful way but they would not listen. STOP WASTING OUR MONEY SBC!’ Well, absolutely.

Bristol’s Empty Park-and-Ride

Sep 1st, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Park-and-Ride is the mantra for spending millions of taxpayers’ money on transport schemes that are supposed to be good for the environment, but what if no one uses them? In Bristol, the Stoke Gifford car park near Bristol Parkway station has been open for three months, cost £1.3 million of taxpayers’ money and has been used by precisely 139 motorists. ‘It’s gone off half-cock,’ said one councillor, ‘and made the council look stupid.’ Surely not?

Another busy day at Stoke Gifford

One of the reasons it’s not busy, apparently, is that it wasn’t promoted. ‘Nobody knows it is there,’ said the same councillor, presumably wanting more taxpayers’ money to advertise it. Another councillor blamed the fact that increased parking regulations had not been brought in at the same time in the surrounding area. That is, he wanted more double-yellow lines painted on residential streets so that local drivers would be forced to park there, paying £5 a day for parking that would have been otherwise free on their own streets. That doesn’t seem quite right either and is an additional needless cost to the taxpayer.

Of course, it doesn’t help that there is no bus service running from the car park. But that needs more taxpayers money too, some £250m of funding to link the car park into the Bus Rapid Transit route to take people into the city. In the meantime, South Gloucestershire Council’s own figures for 2009-2010 reveal that the amount of people using park-and-ride is on a downward trajectory, while overall patronage of city centre bus services is down as well.

It is always interesting to note on occasions like this how councils justified the enormous expense in the first place. At a South Gloucestershire Council meeting earlier this year, when one councillor expressed his own doubts, saying ‘I am not sure what the benefits of having a Park & Ride at Parkway Station is,’ he was slapped down by a council officer saying: ‘Parkway North Park & Ride contributes to continued economic growth in South Gloucestershire and specifically reducing traffic congestion.’ Well, the one place there is definitely no congestion is in the road leading to the Stoke Gifford Park-and-Ride!

Somerset’s costly software

Aug 25th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Efforts to make Somerset County Council (SCC) more efficient and save taxpayers’ money backfired when it was revealed by the BBC that their automated computer programme had sent out duplicate payments totalling £4.6 million.

IT firm Southwest One was supposed to improve payments made to council suppliers, but when the software system delayed payments, staff sent out cheques so suppliers didn’t have to wait, but the computer system still made the original payments, resulting in over 2,000 bills being paid twice. The largest recipient was the Somerset bus company First Group, which received £800,000 of taxpayers’ money it shouldn’t have. It has since repaid the sum, but the council is still owed £169,000 and will undertake legal action to reclaim it—at our expense.

‘Somerset County Council has always had an excellent reputation with making payments,’ said a spokesman for their Audit committee, ‘and their finance department and our reputation suffered quite significantly because of the problems of the introduction of this particular system.’

Southwest One is a joint venture set up in 2007 between Somerset County Council, Taunton Deane Borough Council, Avon and Somerset Police, and computer giant IBM, which owns 75% of it. The partnership was set to run for an initial period of 10 years, but two years into the contract, Somerset County Council was less than impressed. ‘Currently identified projected savings to SCC from procurement are approximately £45m, with approximately £2m having been delivered to date,’ says an SCC review report. ‘This is substantially below projections.’ Furthermore, ‘there appears to be insufficient clear plans for the identification and delivery of future procurement savings.’

Regarding the provision of service: ‘Both major and minor system problems and difficulties in implementation have been experienced which have often involved SCC staff in additional time and effort in working around these issues… As a result, there appears to have been substantial but unqualified additional direct and indirect costs by the County Council and others in resolving the various difficulties encountered.’

In conclusion, the SCC review panel said they would not ‘seek to negotiate a release from the contact, noting that this could invoke penalty clauses’ but they should pursue a ‘realignment of the contract that seeks to secure efficiencies… [and this] will need to be accompanied by a  robust analysis of associated costs and financial adjustments.’

In the meantime, undaunted by its latest cock-up, Southwest One trumpets on its website that ‘Our mission is to become the benchmark public sector shared service company for the UK.’ Oh dear…

Tim Newark, Bath and South-West TaxPayers’ Alliance

South-West ghost town threat

Aug 11th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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One of the most heart-breaking sights of the last few days of rioting has been seeing local shopkeepers burned out of their premises or confronted with thousands of pounds of damage to their businesses. Years of hard work have been destroyed in hours of mayhem. If life hasn’t already been tough enough for these traders then this is the final straw.

Fresh from being booed on the streets of Birmingham and with law and order uppermost in his thoughts, Nick Clegg visited Chippenham to express his support for hard-pressed shopkeepers. The deputy prime minister took time out to criticise a rise in council parking charges that threatens to turn the town centre into a ‘ghost town’.

‘I appreciate that this is a huge local concern,’ said Clegg. ‘I’m all for local councils having the power to do what they want, but the aim has got to be to keep the economic lifeblood of our towns and communities going, and it’s self-defeating to whack up charges of whatever kind in a way which then chases away business from the very communities you’re trying to serve, and that’s what councils have to get right.’

That the government may be waking up to the link between punitive parking and declining high streets was revealed in a recent statement by the Local Government minister. While local newspapers are reporting that a fifth of shops in Bristol are currently empty, with similar vacancy figures across the South-West, the Coalition has announced its intention to scrap anti-car targets for town centres. ‘Parking restrictions have hit small shops the hardest,’ said Eric Pickles, ‘creating “ghost town” high streets which can’t compete with out-of-town supermarkets. We want to see more parking spaces to help small shops prosper in local high streets and assist mums struggling with their family shop.’

The Western Daily Press drew attention to this problem when it wrote about Wiltshire Council chiefs hiking parking charges in every market town. Their intention was to raise more cash to subsidise bus services, but ‘shoppers have stayed away in droves, with the numbers using council car parks plummeting, and total revenue is expected to drop by half a million pounds instead.’

Council turkeys

Aug 4th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Councillors in North Somerset are thinking the unthinkable. Maybe, at 61 members, there’s just too many of them. The local authority needs to make a dent in its corporate services budget of £47.3 million and, in a move that sounds like turkeys voting for Christmas, councillor Mark Canniford suggested starting with the number of representatives.

“I think there would certainly be a lot of support for this among the different parties,” said another councillor. “If you look at cities like Bristol or Birmingham, they operate with relatively few councillors considering the amount of people they represent, so there probably are too many councillors in North Somerset. Although I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest cutting it by half, I would certainly think reducing the number by around 10 should be something we should be looking at.”

I don’t know, half seems a good starting point. The population of the unitary authority of Bristol is 433,100 and is represented by 70 councillors. In North Somerset, it is 209,100, so, in effect, 35 councillors would represent the same number of people there as in Bristol. If the cuts in councillors are agreed, they will be implemented at the next district elections in 2015.

In the meantime, the Western Daily Press reveals the substantial cost of council redundancies in the South-West. Over the past year, more than 1500 staff have been cut and paid over £25 million in compensation. Somerset shed the most staff, with 446 employees being paid compensation of £5.6 million. Although the average sum paid out was just over £15,000, sums of over £100,000 of taxpayers’ money were given to senior managers. Former South Somerset District Council chief executive Phil Dolan left in March 2010 with a £167,000 redundancy pay out, plus an extra £239,000 donated to his pension pot.

Payments just below £100,000 included £98,000 to Dorset’s head of regulatory services in adult and community services, between £93,000 and £97,000 for a Wiltshire library services manager, while £78,000 in Somerset went to a ‘virtual headmaster—education & individual services’, whatever that is!

Such generous sums for senior managers are matched by recent redundancy payments to regional quangos. Tony Cooper, head of the Rural Payments Agency, received a golden goodbye of at least £310,000 when he retired in July 2010, while two senior managers at the South West Regional Development Agency were given exit packages ranging from £100,000 to £149,000. The total redundancy cost of scrapping this quango is estimated at £1.7 million.

Bath Council disappoints

Jul 28th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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For a moment the spirit of the TPA seemed to be with Bath and North East Somerset Council as they discussed the possibility of dumping their ludicrously overpaid chief executive. A report to a meeting of the council’s restructuring implementation committee (big name, little results) asked them to consider reducing the number of senior council managers and saving £2 million. Part of this would have involved doing away with the position of chief executive—currently paid over £212,000—and having the role covered by three other senior managers. The idea being that some of the money frittered away in senior pay packets would go to frontline services.

Come Monday this week, however, at a meeting to which the public were excluded, the three-member B&NES committee, featuring one Lib-Dem, one Conservative and one Labour member, rejected the advice of the report and chose to keep their chief executive. Reading the 20-page document they were asked to consider, it seems very much that the proposed re-structuring is merely a game of musical chairs with executive posts simply being given different titles. I can’t see any precise reference whatsoever to saving taxpayers’ money through pruning the management structure.

As one disappointed Bath resident put it: ‘It sends the wrong signal out to employees losing their jobs and it also annoys people like me who have to pay the same council tax for fewer services yet see some guy get paid a stupid salary.’ Exactly!

Tagging council flowers

Jul 22nd, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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A cunning plan for saving taxpayers’ money was revealed recently by East Devon District Council. Valuable flowers are being stolen from municipal flower displays on a regular basis in Axminster, Exmouth and Sidmouth. ‘One week we lost about 50 heathers from a garden in Honiton, which cost about £200,’ said an exasperated councillor.

To counter this, the council is tagging flowers with microchips, which can then be scanned to determine where they come from. ‘They will be tagged randomly in East Devon,’ warns the councillor, ‘so people will have to be on their guard.’

The man behind the plan is the council’s Parks Development Officer. ‘Plant thefts have been a problem this year and a waste of council tax payers’ money,’ he says. ‘Microchips have come down in price and now only cost a matter of pence, making it feasible for us to use them as a deterrent. They last for ever, even if the plant dies.’

Now if only they could tag taxpayers’ money going into the pension pots of senior council executives, then we’d really be on to something.

West Country Transport Waste

Jul 11th, 2011
by Tim Newark.
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Multi-million pounds schemes for building unnecessary transport infrastructure are surging ahead across the South West despite the need for councils to rein in their expenditure. In South Devon, two councils want to borrow £23 million to help fund a bypass between Newton Abbott and Torquay, but the debt would cost local taxpayers £1.2m a year to pay off. The total scheme costs £110m, with £76m coming from central government.

Some doubt the need for the 50-year-old bypass scheme, saying there are cheaper alternatives available. ‘The South Devon Link Road, which would save less than a minute on average journey times’ says a spokesman for grassroots opposition group Kingskerswell Alliance, ‘appears to be more important to councillors than the provision of key services and public transport at a time of severe cuts.’

In the meantime, in Radstock in Somerset, local campaigners are increasingly infuriated by plans to spend £800,000 of taxpayers’ money on unwanted changes to a double mini-roundabout in the town centre.

‘The announcement from Bath and North East Somerset Council that it is hell-bent on continuing with plans for the unwanted road through the town centre has upset many people,’ says a local resident from the Radstock Action Group, ‘some of whom were unaware that the idea was still being pursued by the council.’

Perhaps all this West Country council enthusiasm to spend taxpayers’ money is to divert attention from past transport mess-ups. Somerset County Council has been presented with a bill for £3m following a poor value bus subsidy deal agreed by a previous administration three years earlier. Details are hazy. ‘We have no idea of how that loss occurred and despite questions no information was forthcoming,’ admits a new party leader within the council. ‘My fear is that there is total mismanagement as well as loss from within this department at the council.’ You don’t say!

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