At each monthly meeting of Deeping St James Parish Council, the 3 District Councillors and 1 District Councillor who represent the village are invited to deliver a written or verbal report.

This month, I have asked for copies of the written reports and I publish those which I receive below.

Disclaimer: The reports below are not written by me, I am merely publishing them for the benefit of those who wish to know what’s happening at SKDC and in the Deepings. I cannot take responsibility for any errors within or offence which may be caused. However, if any factual inaccuracies or other errors are brought to my attention I will do my best to correct them.

Councillor Phil Dilks (Ind)
Report to Deeping St James Parish Council – July 2020

Unsurprisingly, I’ve been contacted by various would-be users of the leisure centre asking “What’s happening with the Leisure Centre”. Consequently, I’ve written this blog-post to bring you up-to-date with progress (or lack of it) with the proposed new Deeping leisure centres.

This blog concerns the legendary ‘New Deepings Leisure Centre’. I am planning to write another blog within the next few days about the lack of progress in re-opening the existing Deepings Leisure Centre (and pool) now that the Covid Lockdown has been eased and the government has given permission for Leisure Centre and swimming pools to be opened.

Just before publishing this blog, I received an e-mail in relation to questions I had asked at a Finance Committee meeting. This contained the ‘official position on Leisure centres‘ as provided by the Cabinet Member and I have published it, in full. I think you will find my interpretation (below) is more comprehensible, credible and correct. I apologise if it appears somewhat acidic which is due to my continued frustration at not being given clear answers nor access to information.

Regular readers will be aware that new Leisure Centres for the Deepings and Stamford were announced by SKDC Leader, Cllr Matthew Lee (Con) back in October 2017. Since then, Cllr Lee has resigned, the Stamford idea has been abandoned but the Deepings Leisure Centre is still a ‘work in progress’.

The Conservatives have repeatedly promised that ward Councillors will be kept up-to-date with progress. The last update meeting with ward Councillors regarding the new Deepings Leisure Centre was on 30^th January before the responsibility for Leisure Centres formally passed to Cllr Barry Dobson (Con) who is now Deputy Leader of SKDC as well as County Councillor for ‘Deepings East’ (even though he lives in Thurlby).

On 21^st May, Cllr Dobson told Deepings Independent Councillors
“We are expecting the plans along with costings for the new centre to be ready shortly. Once we have these and have looked into the financial solutions, I will get together with our Deepings group. The present situation hasn’t helped in expediting the proposals, but I am pleased to say that good progress is being made”.

On 23^rd May, Cllr Dobson told Deepings Councillors “I look forward to sharing the options with you very soon”.

On 26^rd May, when pressed for a specific timescale, Cllr Dobson told Deepings Independent Councillors “Consultation should be in June – I certainly hope so” and “June – end of probably”.

On 27^th May, I challenged Cllr Dobson about working groups and consultants’ reports the Council had commissioned (one of which cost over £250,000) and he reiterated as follows:
“Although I thought it would be useful to have an overarching group at the beginning, it would only delay and possibly confuse the situation. The new report will show proposals to upgrade the three centres at Grantham, Bourne and Stamford and a completely new facility for the Deepings. 

“As soon as the report is ready, we will have a meeting so that we can all contribute to its success by putting the plans in motion: planning and finance will need to go hand-in-hand so that we can expedite the realisation of the new centre. You will be informed at every step of the process – I promise. 

“Next step: Show and discuss the plans with relevant members for each of the centres, including facilities and finance.
Date: Before the end of June 2020.
Method: MS Teams through invitation”.

So, having promised three times to hold a meeting with Ward Members before the end of June, what do you think he delivered to us before the end of June? … Correct – Nothing at all: no plans; no strategy; no meeting.

Undeterred, local Independent Councillors Phil Dilks, Virginia Moran and I have persevered with questions about the plans for the new leisure centre at every opportunity. These have included formal public meetings including Cabinet as well as written requests for information and informal conversations with officers. When I was first elected as a Councillor I didn’t expect to take on the role of an investigative journalist but that’s seems to be an essential part of the role.

At a SKDC Cabinet meeting on 16^th June, I asked about the Leisure Centres and Cllr Dobson, Deputy Leader, responded that “before the September meeting of the Cabinet a meeting would be arranged with the Chairman of the Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services OSC to confirm a date for a joint meeting to discuss the leisure programme and the options available to the Council”.

He also added that “consultation had been carried out with an architect who had undertaken design for Sport England projects”.

The Cabinet minutes also record that “The Leader of the Council stated that the leisure programme would be the largest expenditure that the Council had confirmed that engagement would take place with local Ward Members (sic). There would be opportunity for Members to debate the issue at the joint OSC meeting, Cabinet and Council, which would make the final decision”.

Further questions were asked at the following Cabinet meeting of 7^th July for which the minutes are not yet available. At that meeting, a workplan was presented which stated that Cabinet meeting of 8^th September would “consider the Procurement Strategy and Investment Proposals for the Leisure facilities within the District Leisure Centres” and “agree the approach to delivering the programme to enhance leisure opportunities for everyone”. I challenged the Deputy Leader over whether this time-scale was realistic and he admitted that it was extremely unlikely that the necessary consultation would be completed by that date; nevertheless the workplan was approved.

Questions about the existing Leisure Centre were asked during the extremely chaotic Full Council meeting of 16^th July but unfortunately the agenda item concerning Leisure Centres was held in closed session so I am forbidden to report the questions and answers at that meeting.

Full Council usually allows for 45 minutes of open questions to the Cabinet but due to the incompetence of the Chair, and the party politicking of the Conservatives, there was no time for councillors to ask questions or debate motions but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, after a lengthy exchange of e-mails, I had managed to obtain a redacted copy of the aforementioned expensive consultancy report produced by MACE. I can confirm that I agree with Cllr Dobson’s opinion that it is inadequate. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to share any of the detail as the report is still regarded as ‘confidential’.

I have also asked for the second consultancy report, produced by the ‘Sport England’ consultant. At time of writing I have been refused access to the report because it is still in ‘draft’ form. I have protested stating that if the Deputy Leader is able to cite reports at Cabinet meetings then, as an elected Councillor, I have a legal right to see them.

The Council’s Monitoring Officer has responded with the view that I am not entitled to view the Sport England report until the Conservatives are willing to publish it. The Independent Group Leader and I have immediately responded by quoting section 100(f) of the Local Government Act 1972 which clearly states:
“Any document which is in the possession or under the control of a principal council and contains material relating to any business to be transacted at a meeting of the council or a committee or sub-committee of the council shall … be open to inspection by any member of the council.”

Is now a good time to remind you of the Conservative Council Leader, Cllr Kelham Cooke’s comments during his inaugural speech that he wanted “a more open, transparent and collaborative style of council that welcomes constructive challenge and respects differences”?

Despite the procrastination and prevarication by Cabinet Members at SKDC, I am pleased to say council officers are speaking to some interested parties behind the scenes. This includes some of the current leisure centre users and also Deeping St James parish council.

Actually, the district council has no choice but to speak to the parish council because the latter owns a significant part of the land which comprises the school playing field and the intended site for the new leisure centre. Before the leisure centre project can proceed to formal stages of planning procurement, it is required that all the landowners ie. the parish and the county councils will need to have signed an ‘in principle’ agreement to co-operate.

Informal negotiations led to a more formal meeting last Thursday to which all 15 parish councillors were invited. I requested permission to observe that meeting but was refused access, therefore I cannot report what was said. What I can say with confidence is that Cllr Dobson, for all his promises of collaboration, has shared more information with the parish council than he has with his district council colleagues.

One of my district council colleagues has speculated that the leisure centre project is being timed to align with the county council election process, i.e. we should expect another big announcement towards the end of February so that the Conservatives have something to put on their leaflets. Having spoken to officers, I am not so cynical. I believe there is a genuine will to make progress but the secrecy and naivety of the Conservative cabinet members is more of a hindrance than a help. Certainly, nothing they have said or done since January has been of any tangible use.

On June 30th, I attended the SKDC Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Comimttee (aka FEDetc), I asked the Deputy Leader for an update on the Working Groups on Leisure Centres established, in a confused manner, at two of the Council’s Committees. I was promised a written update and, 40 minutes before today’s FEDetc meeting I was sent the following which does not appear in the public agenda pack:

Written update from the Deputy Leader and Portfolio Holder for Growth and Leisure (Cllr Barry Dobson)

Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services Committee – 28^th July 2020

This written update is in response to the following minute and action from 30^th June 2020:

Minute:

A member [Cllr Ashley Baxter] questioned the membership of leisure centre working groups and asked for an update on the working groups or if they had been abandoned since the last meeting. He went on to ask if the list of recreation grounds assets requested at the February meeting could be circulated to other Councillors, as well as to Committee members.

Action:

A written response on the status of the leisure centre working groups to be provided

Response from Councillor Barry Dobson:

The proposed Member Working Group for Leisure was considered at FEDCO on the 4^th February 2020. The minutes noted that:

As the Deputy Leader of the Council, I introduced an item relating to the review of the leisure provision across the district. I informed the Committee that visits to all of the leisure centres would be carried out and that the input of local Councillors would be welcomed when considering the options for the specific leisure sites.

A Member Working Group for Leisure was being formed to help shape and develop the overall leisure review process, to allow a small group of Members to track progress and feed back to the relevant Overview and Scrutiny Committees as needed. Although the Terms of Reference stated that two Members of the Committee would be required, there were four members of the Committee who volunteered, and I agreed to amend the requirement to allow all four Members to join the Working Group. The Committee also suggested that it would be beneficial for a representative from the Finance Department be invited to join the group.

Whilst no timescale was given for its implementation, it was proposed that the group should remain in place until the new management option has been implemented in April 2022.

A further update was provided to Cabinet on the 16^th June. The minutes note that:

A question was asked [by Cllr Baxter] about the leisure transformation programme and the Working Groups that had been nominated by the Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services Overview and Scrutiny Committee (OSC) and the Culture and Visitor Economy OSC. These working groups had not met but I had spoken to Parish Councils on the subject.  Investment Plans for the Leisure Centres was on the Forward Plan to report at the September Cabinet and the non-Cabinet Member [Cllr Baxter] wanted to know the scrutiny path for the issue and whether consultation would take place with Ward Members.  The non-Cabinet Member [Cllr Baxter] also asked whether a joint OSC meeting would take place between the Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services OSC and the Culture and Visitor Economy OSC.  

I referred to my meeting at the end of January 2020 with Members for the Deepings area and the meeting I had also attended with Deeping St James Parish Council.  Before the September meeting of the Cabinet a meeting would be arranged with the Chairman of the Finance, Economic Development and Corporate Services OSC to confirm a date for a joint meeting to discuss the leisure programme and the options available to the Council. The leisure programme would require significant investment and feedback from the joint OSC meeting would allow for the refinement of the report and future engagement and consultation with Members. 

I further reported that I had visited all the leisure centres with Members from all groups [which is simply not true!] and the proposal was to upgrade, facilities in Bourne, Grantham and Stamford and build a new centre in the Deepings.  Consultation had been carried out with an architect who had undertaken design for Sport England projects and I hoped to progress the issue as soon as possible.  

The Leader of the Council stated that the leisure programme would be the largest expenditure that the Council would have and confirmed that engagement would take place with local Ward Members.  There would be opportunity for Members to debate the issue at the joint OSC meeting, Cabinet and Council, which would make the final decision. 

In February it was originally intended to set-up a Member Working Group for Leisure and that this working group would be responsible for providing advice and direction for the leisure improvement programme, together with monitoring progress and providing advocacy for the project. Since that time, Cabinet have established a Leisure Board to include the key Members of the Cabinet whose areas of responsibility are connected to the leisure improvement programme.  

The Members of the Board and their respective portfolios are:

Cllr Kelham Cooke [Con] – Leader, and Cabinet Member for Property

Cllr Barry Dobson [Con]- Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Growth and Leisure

Cllr Adam Stokes [Con]- Cabinet Member for Finance

Cllr Rosemary Trollope-Bellew [Con] – Cabinet Member for Culture and Visitor Economy

In addition to this the Project Board, an officer working group, led by the Chief Executive, has been established to advise the board on relevant matters.

Significant steps have been made in respect of leisure since the last update to FEdCo:

• The feasibility work undertaken by MACE has been concluded and the Council received the draft report on the 17^th February this year, the finalised report being received on the 17^th March.  Following receipt of the draft report it was apparent that additional feasibility work was required, and [an] Architect was commissioned on the 13^th March to identify alternative schemes and provide the associated capital costs in relation to these.  This work is ongoing.

• As a result of Covid-19 the Government closed all leisure facilities on the 21^st March 2020.  Since that time the Council have been assessing the impact of Covid-19 and a claim for financial support received from our leisure provider, 1Life.

• The Council were successful in securing grant funding from Sport England to provide expert consultancy support and as a result Sport and Leisure Consultancy Ltd (SLC) were appointed on the 1^st May 2020. 

• The first phase of SLC’s work was to assess the claim received by 1Life and provide advice in this regard.  This work has been concluded and a financial support package for the period March 2020 to June 2020 was agreed at a meeting of the Cabinet on the 7^th July and a subsequent meeting of Council on the 16^th July. 

• Since December 2019 the Council has been engaging with Lincolnshire County Council and Deeping St James Parish Council to secure a long lease of the Linchfield Road site in Deeping St James.  This site has previously been announced as the preferred site for a new leisure centre development.  Final [Final?] amendments to the draft heads of terms were circulated in July and discussions are ongoing.

The next key milestones are as follows:

• Report to Cabinet on further impact of Covid-19    –    18 August 2020
• Report to Cabinet on proposed land deal     –   8 September 2020

Work is ongoing to identify appropriate schemes of improvements across the leisure facilities.  When there are some clear options available the previously proposed Member Working Group will meet to assess these, and a joint OSC will be convened to ensure that the improvement plans have the appropriate level of scrutiny.  In addition to this, consultation will take place with Ward Members (supplementing the Initial meetings and site visits which took place with Ward Members in January and February of this year) so that an informed report can be presented to Cabinet later this year.

Thank you,

Barry

Since 2010, the Conservative Government has systematically reduced the amount of Revenue Support Grant Funding to local authorities. In South Kesteven this means the District Council is fast reaching the point where it will receive no funding from central government under normal circumstances (The Covid19 pandemic is not normal).

Consequently, most council services are funded by income raised directly by the council in the form of Council Tax, business rates and sold services. Fraud has always reduced the income of local councils but the impact of council tax and other frauds now has a greater relative impact. The financial cost to the council of fraud could be somewhere in the region of £1million.

There is a difference between deliberate fraud and a genuine mistake. You only have to look at some of the forms relating to tax credits and other benefits to realise they are often complicated and sometimes require a forensic level of detail about earnings which many people do not have to hand. Within an annual report on ‘Counter Fraud’ being presented to the SKDC Governance and Audit Ctte this week is a table which suggests that £561,765 was overpaid in Housing Benefit last year. Well over half of this amount was recovered from the claimants and it would be wrong to assume that all the mistakes were made by the claimants (rather than the council) let alone that any large proportion of the overpayments were the result of deliberate fraud.

Lincolnshire has a counter fraud partnership and the County Council manages a Confidential Reporting Line for whistleblowers as a central point of contact for people wishing to report suspected fraud.

An analysis of district related referrals made to the Whistleblowers’ line during 2019-20 identified that 125 referrals were received ( compared to 102 in 2018/19). The maintype of referrals relate to council tax and housing tenancy fraud.

Of the 125 referrals received by Assurance Lincolnshire, 41 related to South Kesteven. As can be seen from the graph above, the annual number of reports relating to SKDC has climbed steadily in recent years. Increased reports to the Whistleblowers’ line is thought to be more likely an indicator that fraud awareness is reaching a wider audience rather than purely an increase in the amount of frauds being committed.

All 41 whistleblowing allegations have been investigated and action taken where appropriate (although most involved no further action or referral to the DWP).

If you wish to report an alleged fraud, or would like more information about whistleblowing, you can contact the confidential freephone whistleblowing number on 0800 0853716
or email: whistleblowing@lincolnshire.gov.uk

Meanwhile here’s a clip of some good old fashion whistleblowing of a different kind…

The Conservative’s flagship development project – St Martin’s Park in Stamford (aka the old Cummins engineering works) – is costing council taxpayers around £20,000/month in maintenance costs including rates, electricity, water etc.

Yesterday, SKDC announced that an additional one-off sum of £35,000 is to be spent on essential health and safety works and to decommission the gas supply. Given that the factory was purchased over 18 months ago, at a cost of £7.5million, one might have assumed that all essential health and safety works would have been implemented much earlier but this additional expenditure is now deemed justified because of “the number of times the property has been broken into by unauthorised persons“. Additional security measures have been put in place (presumably incurring additional cost) in the interim to minimise the risk to life but it is now important to switch the gas system off and release all gas from the pipework.

The grand scheme for the St Martin’s Park development changes from one month to the next. Originally it was purchased “in order to preserve its use as an employment site in the town, rather than risk it being taken by private developers solely for housebuilding”.

The site are being promoted for a mixed-use development including commercial, residential and retirement homes along with associated public open space, car parking, retail and infrastructure. These uses are subject to planning consent. The objective is to create space for a minimum of 500 jobs on a mixed-use development site while protecting the setting of Burghley House and its grounds.

Originally the preferred delivery mechanism was going to be a new company called DeliverSK. This entity was supposed to allow the Council to take a much more flexible, commercial approach, while ensuring the council can scrutinise and approve any decisions involving council-owned land or projects requiring further council investment. It has clearly failed on both counts since after 18 months the DeliverSK company hasn’t even been registered at Companies House.

The most recent report to Councillors explains that despite the Council already having spent £77,000 on legal costs, the establishment of DeliverSK has collapsed due to confustion over the legal status of the Guernsey-based partner company who was supposed to be our partners. IAG were supposed “to assist with development and regeneration projects in the area seeing them through from the concept stage right through to completion”, Instead it turns out that they didn’t even tell us their real name!