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Oslo Trip

Nov 22nd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Fact finding missions have long been the butt of many jokes. You name the subject, and it seems an elected or unelected official has been forced into arduous foreign travel to get that final piece of information to complete the jigsaw. In our report earlier this month, we highlighted the foreign jaunts council taxpayers in the Midlands have had to pay for, and now another one has come across my radar.

The recycling rate in Hull is currently at 50%. This is above the target 45%, and residents of the city are regularly told to ‘Recycle for Hull.’ Not content with this, some councillors recently went on a fact-finding mission to Oslo to see how Norwegians dispose of their rubbish. They have already visited Rotherham, Sheffield and Swindon to see how its done there.

This had angered Cllr John Fareham, the leader of the Conservative Group, as the councillors who travelled to Norway are a sub-committee of the environment scrutiny commission. This means they can only recommend. They cannot make decisions.

The cost of the trip was under £1000, but to defend it as cheap (as a councillor has done) is missing the point.

A group of councillors and officials drove to Stansted Airport, stayed overnight, then flew to and from Oslo in the same day, and then drove back to Hull. The people who can make decisions about this were not present. It has to be asked what did they find out that they couldn’t find out by research on the Internet, and a conference call on Skype?

If councillors spent our money in the same way they would spend their own, trips like this would not happen. All it achieves is two things. It makes councillors the butt of jokes, and gives the impression they have their snouts in the trough. I know that’s not true of the majority of councillors. If they don’t want to give the public that impression, they know what to do next time.

Hull Action Day

Nov 3rd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Last Wednesday I wrote about our new campaign to end KCOM’s monopoly in Hull. Last Saturday a group of us were out on the streets of Hull collecting signatures for our petition (you can sign the online petition here).

We got a great response. There is no doubt that almost everyone in the city wants a choice in who supplies their telephone and broadband services. This was the message coming back to us over again. We also know people feel they are paying too much, and suffer from poor download speeds.

One member of the public also told us how the company she works for recently lost business as they were unable to accept chip and pin payments because of a fault on the line. She said it took two weeks to repair the fault.

Dominique Lazanski and I met with KCOM on Monday and presented our case to them. It was a productive meeting, although as you will no doubt appreciate, there were some differences of opinion. To give you an example, they were unaware of the problems of broadband speeds during a recent electrical storm, although they did say they would investigate this issue.

When you add up the costs of broadband, and the problems many of us experience, this can easily add as a disincentive for those who are thinking of relocating their businesses in the city, or for those who want to start a new business. When broadband goes down in this way, it causes serious disruption for not only members of the public, but also for businesses.

Taxpayers in Hull not only want, but need to benefit from competition. It is vital for any local economy. We will be doing everything we can to achieve this goal.

UPDATE:

I have been contacted by KCOM, and have been informed that according to their records the business I wrote about was suffering from a fault in their hardware, and it was not a fault with the line. They have also informed me that unless there was a lightning strike on an exchange or on the underground or overhead copper cabling to your home, an electrical storm shouldn’t affect your broadband, however I have still not received an explanation as to why there was a problem with the broadband service on Tuesday 25 October which did occur during an electrical storm.

 

Photographs courtesy of Carl Minns

End KCOM’s monopoly in Hull

Oct 26th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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If you live in Hull and some of the surrounding areas (the 01482 dialling code) instead of having a BT telephone line, your services are provided by KC – part of the KCOM group. When municipal telephone exchanges were brought into the national network, Hull was the exception, and it remains the exception to this day.

Taxpayers in Hull are forced to use KC every time they want to make a call from their landline, or access reliable broadband from a fixed line. If other companies call you and offer you a cheaper service, as soon as you say you’re from Hull, they apologise for disturbing you, and put the phone down.

This monopoly has been allowed to continue, with telecoms regulator OFCOM ruling as recently as 2008 that the people of Hull are getting a fair deal. The truth is: they are not.

In July this year, my colleague Dominique Lazanski wrote how OFCOM had ruled where BT has a monopoly (generally in rural areas) it must reduce its wholesale prices to other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) by 12% below the rate of inflation. Today we are launching a campaign calling on OFCOM to rule in the same way regarding KC. Taxpayers in Hull are paying over the odds for telephone and broadband bundles compared to what other companies charge. I personally pay £40 a month for unlimited telephone calls, and 150 gb of broadband per month. Other companies who operate outside of the Hull area offer similar deals for around 25-30% less.

In the 2008 report, OFCOM correctly stated that other ISPs were not being prevented from entering the market in Hull, but because the population was relatively small, it was not in their commercial interests to do so. The report also stated that the wholesale charges KC were offering were similar to BT. Since its ruling in July though, the same arguments do not apply. Reducing wholesale prices by 12% below the rate of inflation would make the Hull market more attractive, and thus open it up for competition.

We believe taxpayers in Hull deserve a better deal, and have set-up a petition for you to sign. If you live in the Hull area, you can meet-up with us on Saturday from 11.30 am in Queen Victoria Square in the city centre where we will be collecting signatures for the petition. If you have some time to spare, please contact me if you can help us.

Competition will help the economy of Hull by driving up service quality and lowering bills for everyone, leaving taxpayers with more money to spend as they wish. This is good news for everyone, especially businesses who are already struggling during these hard economic times.

Blame the cuts, say two of Hull’s MPs

Oct 25th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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A report in the Yorkshire Post says Humberside Police has recorded one if the worst crime rates in the country. Between June and August this year the force ranked in the bottom three for violent assaults causing injury and incidents of criminal damage, and is among the worst 10 for serious acquisitive crime and domestic burglaries.

Not good news for those of us who live in Hull, East Yorkshire, North and North East Lincolnshire. There may be many factors that explain this, and Humberside Police have promised to give those explanations, but the story has provided some politicians a platform to blame government cuts.

Karl Turner, MP for Hull East has this to say:

“These figures are worrying but not surprising. I have regular contact with Tim Hollis and I believe he is doing the best job he can with drastically reduced budgets. It is disingenuous of the Government to state that the quality of policing will be not affected when savage cuts to police officer levels are taking place. It is simply not possible. I am deeply concerned that as the cuts take further hold crime will continue to increase in Humberside and the public will ultimately end up paying the price.”

Diana Johnson, the MP for Hull North and Shadow Home Office Minister, also waded into the debate, once again blaming government cuts

I have a lot of time for Karl, but he knows he is being disingenuous. The budget has been reduced, but that has not had a massive impact on police numbers in June, July, and August this year. Figures given to me by Humberside Police state that from 1 April – 31 August, 27 police officers have left the force due to funded reductions. It is also worth noting that not all of them were front-line officers. A reduction of around 1% can hardly be described as savage.

The country is suffering from a debt crisis. People are losing their jobs and their homes. This doesn’t mean we are more likely to go out and commit a violent assault, or cause criminal damage.

Those politicians who are eager to blame the cuts should read what Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute for Economic Affairs, has to say in his Daily Mail blog. In it, Mark says:

“The government plans to reduce state expenditure by about 3% before the next election. In real terms, for every pound being spent by government by Gordon Brown when he left office, David Cameron intends to spend about 97p by May 2015. He may not even succeed in this modest objective.”

If every time some statistics are quoted, politicians are going to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the cuts, we will never have a serious debate about the problems facing this country.

Armchair auditing in Hull

Oct 18th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Transparency in government spending is something we have been campaigning about for many years. Councils publishing their spending above £500 was a major policy victory for us, but it does have to be said that looking through hundreds of pages of council spending on your computer could be made easier.

A new website has just been launched that does just that for residents in Hull. With a few clicks of the mouse, you can find spending details in areas that most interest you. This makes the job of an armchair auditor much easier. Let me give you two practical examples. 

In April, I wrote about the demise of ‘Hull in Print’ – Hull City Council’s newspaper. Using this website, in under a minute I found out that from March to August, taxpayers funded this newspaper by £45,048.

With a few clicks of a mouse, I found out that from 1 March – 31 August this year, the council made a total of 2014 payments totalling £1,197,927 in council tax computer refunds. Why this is, I don’t know, but it’s very easy for me to send a freedom of information request to find out. Without this website, it would have been much more difficult to spot this information, never mind collate all the figures.

The website has nothing to do with Hull City Council, although the council must be congratulated for publishing all spending online – not just spending above £500. It has been created by a member of the public called Adam Jennison. Adam is to be congratulated for doing this. It is a valuable tool for taxpayers who can easily find out how their money is spent. It is also useful for the council itself, as well as local businesses who may be able to spot an opening in the market and deliver services at a better rate.

As this program can be adapted for use across the country, all councils can be covered. If this was so, all of us would be in a better position to scrutinise them more effectively.

The hidden perks inside Hull City Council

Oct 14th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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In a report earlier this year, we revealed that many councils pay mileage rates to staff well above the HMRC recommended rate of 45p per mile. Hull was one of those councils.

In a report in the Yorkshire Post this week, it was revealed that not only are staff benefiting from generous rates of 65p per mile, but staff can also claim a petrol allowance on top of the mileage allowance of up to 11.3p per mile. This was news to me, and to the journalist I spoke to about it. I described it as another of the hidden perks inside Hull City Council, and something that needs to be rectified. Scrapping this allowance and reducing the mileage rate to 45p per mile will bring considerable savings to the council’s budget.

It was also revealed that officers on Grade 12 or higher benefit from 33 days annual leave. Those on lower grades receive 25 days, rising to 26 after ten years service. The council also award two extra days leave to all staff in addition to the statutory public holidays. This means those earning above £42,066 a year are not only benefiting from hugely generous mileage rates when they travel on council business, they also receive 35 days holiday every year.

It is impossible to work out exactly how many officers there are benefiting from these additional days, as the council’s accounts only list those earning above £50k. Instead of providing two lists of teaching and non-teaching staff (which many councils do), Hull does not list them separately. There are, however, over 300 staff listed in the accounts (page 61) who earn in excess of £50k. We can easily add many more who will be earning above £42,066. It is therefore safe to assume that the council would not need as many managers as it currently employs if only the amount of annual leave was reduced.

I’m pleased to say that the leader of the council, Cllr Steve Brady, is negotiating with the unions on these matters. However, this is not a guarantee that these perks will end, or that other perks won’t be substituted for them. Hopefully everyone will see sense and realise that by reducing the mileage rates paid and reducing the amount of annual leave many officers receive, a significant contribution can be made towards balancing the books.

I would love to know if there are similar hidden perks in your council. If you know, please e-mail me. If you don’t know, you can always send a freedom of information (FoI) request to find out. If you would like me to send you a FoI template, please do get in touch.

NHS parking charges

Sep 30th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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There’s some bad news if you are sick or are visiting a sick friend or relative in Goole. Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has increased parking charges at Goole Hospital. Charges have risen this month by a massive 13.33%, and then will increase again next September by the same amount. The amount of free parking time has also decreased from 40 minutes to 20 minutes.

Cllr Brent Huntingdon, the chairman of planning at Goole Town Council has said that will not be enough time to park-up, and get to the ward and back. Very true. It seems as if the Trust is determined to extract cash out of you. A spokesman for the Trust gave the usual, standard response:

“We’ve tried to make the charges as fair as possible in line with best practice national guidelines.”

Castle Hill Hospital, near Hull

Although this is a massive increase, parking charges in Goole are not as bad as they are in Hull. Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust must have some of the highest parking charges in the country, charging £1.50 for the first hour; £2.50 for up to two hours, and £5 for over two hours, with a maximum stay of six hours. If you have to take your son or daughter to casualty because they have injured themselves, you have no idea how long you will be. Because it is ‘pay and display’ the hospital is almost guaranteed £5. You can’t risk putting anything less in the machine, otherwise the parking wardens will fine you.

Although I don’t object to hospitals making a charge for a well lit, secure car park, clearly most regard parking as an additional revenue stream, and because it is often difficult to park elsewhere, they have you over a barrel. Best practice national guidelines is a cop out. Massive charges, and massive increases in charges cannot be justified.

It will be interesting to see how charges differ around the country. Welsh hospitals don’t have any charges, and there are only three hospitals in Scotland that charge. Send me some examples, and I’ll prepare a list of those hospitals who are clearly taking out-patients and visitors for a ride!

£6 million overspend in Hull

Sep 23rd, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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In June, I wrote how Hull City Council was storing up problems for the future. I said then it looked like there was going to be a £6 million overspend that would need to be plugged. Figures out this week have proved I was correct.

The latest forecasts indicate the council could be overspent by £6.68 million at the end of this financial year, however Labour’s finance portfolio holder, Cllr Phil Webster, says he is confident the books will be balanced. When I heard this yesterday, I was intrigued how they plan to do it. The previous response, as far as I could see, was to bury their heads in the sand and collectively sing a chorus of “Things can only get better!”

In a report in today’s Yorkshire Post, Cllr Webster claims he has not only found the money, but it was there all the time. He said they had set aside £6.5 million from their original budget as a contingency. “If we can hold onto that £6.5m, then we have already closed the gap on the Medium Term Financial Plan. If we have to spend it we have to spend it and look at what’s down the line in forthcoming years”, he said.

The problem is no-one seems to have heard of this £6.5 million before. Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Cllr Mike Ross, said this was the first they had heard of it. I’m with him. In all the documents I have read, I have not seen this figure anywhere, nor have I heard Cllr Webster, or the leader, Cllr Brady, talk about it.

Meanwhile, the council is still in talks with the unions about mileage rates paid to members of staff. In a report earlier this year, we revealed that Hull City Council was paying staff 65p per mile, rather than the HMRC standard 40p (which increased to 45p in April) per mile. This is a simple cost cutting measure, and no-one can complain if they are paid the recommended HMRC rate.

It does seem though that when UNISON stated after the elections in May they were in power, they meant it, as they don’t seem to want to give up this particular perk.

My best guess is come next April, there will be a massive overspend, and either council tax will increase, or front-line services will be cut. Yet if the council adopts simple measures like reducing mileage costs, and not reducing the cost of primary school meals by 50p, it can find money to help plug the gap.

Will they do it? Personally, I don’t think they will.

Hull’s 10% parking increase

Sep 12th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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A few weeks ago, I wrote about a petition I have set up calling on Hull City Council to abolish on-street parking charges in the city centre on Sundays.

Last week it was announced that on-street parking charges will be abolished on Sundays during November and December, however – even though few people currently park in those spaces because of the charges – Hull City Council has decided to pay for its scheme and will be permanently increasing charges by 10% from January.

Cllr Hale, left, with Cllr Steve Brady, leader of Hull City Council

The deputy leader of the council, Daren Hale, had this to say about the decision:

“This increase was actually approved by the previous Lib Dem council leader, but delayed until after the local elections. That delay has not helped our financial situation. While we regret having to make an increase, it would be typically hypocritical for the Liberal Democrats who approved this increase to criticise us for implementing it.”

I spoke to the previous Lib Dem leader of the council and asked him for his comments. He denied the accusation that he had approved an increase in charges, but that really isn’t the point. The new administration did not have to vote for these increases, especially after a recent report revealing that a quarter of the city’s shops are standing empty. One contributing factor is the high parking charges, and it’s not just shopkeepers complaining. In the Hull Daily Mail today, a member of the public had this to say:

“Quite a few people will choose to shop out of town. People will just go to places like St Andrew’s Quay and Kingswood because most of the things you need, you can get there. If the council makes parking cheaper or free, rather than more expensive, then more people will come into town.”

She is right. St Andrew’s Quay and Kingswood have retail parks where you can park for free, and it is very difficult to find a parking space there on weekends – especially Sundays. In comparison, the city centre is empty.

I understand the council has to balance its books and has to make some difficult decisions, but increasing parking charges at a time when businesses are saying they are already too high is not the way to do it. It will be counter productive, and could easily put more people out of business.

If you live, work, or study in Hull, you can sign my online petition, and if you would like a paper copy of the petition to pass around your place of work, please get in touch. The petition was set up before this decision was announced, but please rest assured I will be campaigning against these proposed increases too. Anyone who lives in Hull wants to see the city centre flourish, and the council needs to work with businesses, not against them.

Abolish on-street parking charges on Sundays in Hull

Aug 11th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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At the end of last year, one of my concerns was councils would try and raise extra revenue by increasing parking charges. It concerned me because I knew it would have a detrimental impact on local shopkeepers. The sheer amount of stories there have been this year has proved my fears were not unfounded.

Last week, I was talking to a cafe owner in Hull City Centre regarding on-street parking charges on Sundays. Although there are free car parks in the city centre on Sundays, the council still charges for on-street parking at the full rate of £1.30 an hour, up to a maximum of £2.60 for a two hour stay. Unsurprisingly, most of the parking spaces remain empty. 

Traders tell me that if Hull had free on-street parking on Sundays it would encourage people to park-up, and have a coffee or lunch in one of the city’s many cafes and restaurants. This argument makes sense. If you don’t have to pay to park, you are more likely to pop into a couple of shops and then have something to eat or drink. If you are pushed for time, you don’t want to park in a multi storey car park, and then walk into the city centre. You want to park somewhere that’s convenient and easy. It’s not that the council will lose out on much revenue either. As I’ve already stated, very few people currently park their cars in the on-street spaces. 

I have therefore set-up a petition on Hull City Council’s website calling for the abolition of on-street parking charges in the city centre on Sundays. If you live, work, or study in Hull, you are eligible to sign the petition. If you don’t live in the city, but have friends or relations who do, please send them the link. No-one wants to see boarded-up shops, and businesses going to the wall. This is one way we can all do something to help prevent this happening.  

Hull City Council is storing up problems for the future

Jun 20th, 2011
by Andrew Allison.
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Earlier this year, the Labour group on Hull City Council asked officers to look at their proposed budget. This was done, and officers signed-off the proposals, saying the books balanced.

As I have previously reported, Labour won a surprise victory and took control of the council. Last Thursday, it passed its emergency budget, but as I predicted on election night, the budget is nothing more than a fantasy. It is based on saving money on redundancy costs. The argument goes, if you don’t make people redundant you don’t have to  pay them off.  Anyone can see that although you may save money on redundancy costs this year, you will still have those employees salaries to pay next year. Well it seems as if the new leader and his colleagues are going to worry about next year when next year arrives.

One of the new spending decisions is to reduce the cost of primary school meals by 50p a day. This will cost £500K to implement. Hardly protecting front-line services, but working towards an existing pledge of providing free school meals to all primary school children in the city. As far as I’m concerned, it is not my responsibility to feed all of the primary school children of Hull. There are many families who already receive free school meals due to their current financial circumstances, but what about those people who can easily afford it? They should be paying for it themselves, but this argument doesn’t resonate with the new ruling administration.

It looks like there will be a £6 million black hole in the budget next year that will need to be plugged. How do they plan to do it? My guess is they will rely on two things. Firstly, the government has promised to reward councils again for not increasing council tax. This could get the council through 2012/13, but will of course be storing up problems for the future. A source told me the administration is hoping it can limp through until the time of the next general election, hoping that a new government will give it a generous settlement. It is also likely to increase charges through the back door. Look out for increased parking charges, burial charges, planning application fees. You name it, the council will increase the charges for it.

Is this the leader of Hull City Council?

Instead of responsible local government, and making tough decisions, the administration is burying its head in the sand, hoping for jam tomorrow. It should be looking to provide the best front-line services, for the best possible price. It could look at cooperating with neighbouring East Riding Council. Both councils could merge some back-office functions. Although it has taken on my my suggestion to seek more private sponsorship for the city’s Freedom Festival next year, it can expand this policy, engaging the private sector more. There are always savings to me made. Some are big; some are small, but they are there, and they require the political will.

Spending half a million pounds to reduce the cost of meals for all primary schoolchildren is a waste of money. Pretending you are really saving money by not going through with the planned voluntary redundancies is putting your head in the sand. The new leader, Cllr Steve Brady, needs to face reality and stop being an ostrich. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist won’t make it go away.

 

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