Praise and Bouquets. Plus a plea.

After seeing council tax in Craven rise in excess of inflation year after year, it's very good indeed to see that Craven district council (CDC) are not increasing tax to householders at all for the next year.
Sadly this is not echoed by North Yorkshire county council, or by the ever greedy North Yorkshire police authority, both of whom think that increases of twice inflation are reasonable!

This makes Craven's stance all the more commendable, as it would be all too easy to follow in the footsteps of these other profligate and spendthrift organisations, especially the police authority, which is rapidly becoming a byword for financial incompetence - See Chapter 4 of 'Incompetence or Worse?

And there's yet more good news!

CDC have refused to allow the Settle festival.
Now Paakwa is not going to go into the merits or otherwise of this festival, but one thing did stand out about it, that officers of CDC were strongly backing it.
Not alas! With their money, but with ours.

Two senior officers had apparently approved, and given, a large grant to the festival organisers.
How large?
Well larger than the combined totals of that reserved for all sport and all art combined in Craven!

This was done without councillors' permission, and without taking the request to them seeking such permission, until after the money had been given to the festival organisers.

If we had so much money to give in grants, should not councillors have been asked whether they would prefer to double the grants for sports and arts in Craven, or to give it to the organisers of what appeared to be a rock festival before they had even achieved consent for that festival?
And now the application to hold that festival has fallen, meaning that the money granted has been totally wasted.

It is the job of councillors to award grant money, not officers, and most certainly not to the extent done on this occasion.

It is to be hoped that councillors will now have something to say on that score, especially to the officers concerned,* but meanwhile three councillors are to be commended for taking a stance for what they believed, rather than following the leads of CDC's employees, the council officers.

At the risk of bringing down the wrath of some of their more pusillanimous council brethren on their necks, Paakwa hands bouquets to councillors Heseltine, Ireton, and Quinn for reminding council officers that theirs is a supportive role, and not a commanding one.

* The licensing committee rejected the application on all 4 licensing objectives as follows:

1. The Committee have decided to reject the application.

2. The Committee considered that it was necessary to reject the application for the premises licence so as to promote the four licensing objectives under the Act –

1) The prevention of crime and disorder

2) The prevention of public nuisance

3) Public safety

4) The protection of children from harm

Bearing in mind that the application fell on all four points, Paakwa asks the following questions:

Why have council officers, in breach of agreement, granted these festival organisers a larger grant than that available for the whole of sports and arts in Craven?

As officers have now shown their standard of judgement when allocating taxpayers' funds, will councillors now consider whether to rescind the latest agreement, that allowing officers to grant up to £10,000 in individual cases backed only by one councillor, a tenfold increase on the previous agreement?

Incompetence or worse? Chapter 4

This is a change from our normal ‘Incompetence or Worse’ series, because this is possibly the most incompetent bunch of people in public service, however if you're patient enough to get to the end, then there is a little video for your delectation and delight.

This chapter concerns a self selecting quango with an appalling history of grabbing taxpayers’ money whilst rewarding themselves with ever more of our hard-earned.

Yep, you’ve guessed it, it’s North Yorkshire police authority (NYPA) once again.

This little band of people are in charge of North Yorkshire police, and are, in their own words,

‘Open and Accountable.’

Oh Yes?

After years when they increased our precept by amounts such as a staggering 42% followed by an eye watering 76% so that we’re now paying around 4 times as much for our policing as a few short years ago, what have we actually got for our money?

Well we DO have a best value team, and they have reported as follows:

The Best Value team has:

• produced an article for the NYP News magazine
• produced posters that have been distributed across the organisation
• updated the intranet sub-site
• put out a “Message of the day” to the whole service publishing details of reviews and seeking contributions
• established a communication strategy as a key part of every review

Producing an article for their news magazine eh?

Well if THAT doesn’t inspire confidence, what could?

Mind you, it’s to be hoped that their news magazine really is news, ‘cos their website is still detailing budget requirements for the year 2004-2005, and indeed the report from the Best Value team is from that year also!

No doubt after their employment of a marketing manager – no, that’s not a misprint, North Yorkshire police have had a marketing manager since 2007 – the news magazine will be even more balanced and objective than in the past.

There are 16 members of this quango, and their work load is so little that the chairman, the Gorgeous and pouting Jane Kenyon, has time to chair the Authority’s Leadership and Strategic Planning Boards; be a Conservative County Councillor for the Mayfield Division of Whitby since 1989; be a Scarborough Borough Councillor, serving as Deputy Mayor of the Borough of Scarborough from 1989 to 1999.

Formerly a Whitby Town Councillor, she served as Mayor of Whitby for three years and Chairman of Scarborough Safer Community Partnership. Jane is also a primary school governor, Chairman of Whitby Regatta and a non-executive director of Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Health Trust. She gained business experience in the health service and property market fields. She is a member of the APA’s Leadership and Community Leadership Police Group and Finance Lobbying Group.

All these and more Jane has done whilst being chairman of NYPA!

Phew!

She certainly earns the miserly £16,000 plus she gets from chairing NYPA, AND she has to attend at least 4 meetings a year.

Unless there’s a reason she can’t.

So onerous is this that the authority reduced the meeting number from 6 a year to 4,

Well done!

There are other small payments of course, up to £217/day for actually attending meetings, plus mileage allowances, meal allowances etc. but these are small beer.

Up to April of last year they had a clerk, one Jeremy Holderness, to take down notes, issue the minutes and so on, but they no longer have a clerk, instead they have a…

Wait for it...

CHIEF EXECUTIVE!

Still the same Jeremy of course, but no doubt on an enhanced salary structure more concomitant with his title.

And his first job in his new position?

Well if you look carefully, you’ll find that he needs an assistant, and so that there is now an…

ASSISTANT CHIEF EXECUTIVE!

Isn’t it easy to spend public money, OUR money?

NYPA has now been lambasted by auditors over its handling of finances.

This bunch of highly rewarded and unelected people which has shown scant respect for the public purse under its stewardship, what with fleets of leather trimmed Discoveries for inspectors’ personal use, and £28,000 showers for Chief Constables, has come under fire again for its lack of financial competence, the local M.P. calling it:

“A level of financial incompetence of classic proportions.”

Their response?

This is from the clerk - sorry - chief executive:

“It shows people that we are exercising strong governance.”

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

But perhaps we'll now see some level of accountability, with some members, or maybe even the chairman, resigning? After all, whilst she has overseen a quadrupling of cost for North Yorkshire taxpayers, it appears that the handling of those finances has been, very much less than satisfactory.

Don't hold your breath.

Would YOU give up such a nice well paid job, where however badly you did, you couldn't get sacked?

We in Craven have two members of that authority,

Polly English and

David Ireton.

Polly and David, as ordinary members, only receive a little over £8,000 for their allowances, and a quick scan of the meetings listed under 2007/8 shows that Polly has attended at least 4 meetings, and David at least 5!

Both of these have been mentioned by Paakwa before, David as the man who used his second vote as chairman of Craven district council to vote for the best person to take over that job for the next year.

Himself.

Yes, David Ireton used both his votes for no other than David Ireton to carry on receiving the chairman's allowance, and Polly is the only person to claim more in household allowances for Information Technology than David.

Most councillors get one allowance which pays for their computer, telephone line etc. but David gets two, once for being an Independent Craven councillor, and once for being a Conservative county councillor.

The English household however tops the poll with no fewer than 3 lots of IT allowances!

That’s the way to do it!

Oink Oink!

Now here's the promised video, which has nothing to do with North Yorkshire police authority, but something to do with Craven.
As always, to watch the video, click on the little arrow at the bottom left hand side, and apologies to Bill Blake, a great poet whose work has now got the inimitable Paakwa touch.

Incompetence or Worse? Chapter 3

"Something" they say, "is rotten in Denmark."
Well that's as may be, but there's certainly something strange going on at Craven district council (CDC).
Only a few short weeks ago councillors were told that the £340,000 offered by Bentley's for a prestigious greenfield site on Gargrave Road of around two acres, was the best that could be obtained for that site, and a very fair price indeed.
And so those councillors accepted that advice, advice given in a document written by one Jonathan Kerr, whose name crops up not infrequently in this website.

Some may have wondered why a 'non-local' company, one headquartered in Chicago, should have given the valuation, and not a local company such as say Dacre son and Hartley.
Some might have wondered why there weren't two or more valuations.
Some may have wondered about the reason given, that of employment, when Craven does not have an employment problem.
Indeed HML have to import most of their staff from Keighley and Lancashire, such is the shortage of workers!

Others might have wondered, as did the editor of the Craven Herald, why, if the price was right, it should be kept a secret.

And now we see that Dacre Son and Hartley have indeed given an offer for this land, at twice the price accepted by the policy committee from Bentleys!

The letter confirming that offer may be seen here.

So just what IS going on at CDC?
Why was the price offered kept secret?
Is one single officer, one living in West Yorkshire, responsible for who determines the value of our assets?
Would CDC really allow such a stupid system, one which is incredibly open to mistake or abuse, to exist when dealing with valuable assets?

The reality is that they probably would.
It's but a few years ago when our council houses, all 1,540 of them, were sold at the give away price of just over £5,000 each.
Not to the tenants, but to a newly formed private company, who proceeded to allow them to be sold at an average of 10 times that price, and now at full market value.
A company which has declared itself to be a charity (although not appearing on the Charities Commission website) and thereby exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Of course CDC had a 'Clawback' mechanism whereby any huge gains such as this could be realised, at least in part, by the council, didn't they?

You wish!

And so Paakwa has this plea to make, to all councillors at CDC.

Please don't accept everything you're told by officers of the council, especially when it comes to disposing of our assets.
Please question and re-question, especially every time that secrecy is declared essential.
Demand to know why 'cloak and dagger' techniques are necessary, and why the public, the owners of those assets, should not be told the truth, and better still consulted.

Please.