While the rest of the country is talking about Covid, #BLM and Brexit, our special corner of Lincolnshire has been gripped by the thought of unveiling a new statue to Margaret Thatcher in her home town of Grantham. Loyal readers will remember the comments I made at the time of the Planning Application by GCHA back in 2018 but recently the decision by the entirely Conservative SKDC Cabinet to commit £100,000 towards an ‘unveiling event’ has stirred the world’s media once again. I have personally spoken to the national and international press as well as some of our friendly local media including BBC Radio Lincolnshire and Nub News.
First there was a Cabinet meeting back on 1st December which included a seemingly innocuous agenda item entitled “Public Realm Improvements”. The agenda pack was published with a note stating that the relevant papers would follow later.
It was only after the meeting that we discovered that a 9ft bronze statue of the Iron Lady represents an improvement to Grantham town centre and that the statue should unveiled at a ceremony costing £100,000. The decision had been taken without any scrutiny and consequently I used the ‘call-in’ procedure to ensure that other councillors would have a chance to the contribute to the debate.
This is just a quick note to say thanks to everyone for has supported my participation in the Age UK #RunYourAge January fundraising challenge.
I’m delighted to report that I finished the challenge on Sunday 31st with a 10k run via Maxey and Northborough.
I ran it in 57m11s smashing my PB (Personal Best) and enabling me to tick an item off my bucket list (run a 10k in less than an hour).
It brought my total distance run for January to 55.75km which is slightly more than was necessary but it’s always good to go ‘the extra mile’.
I was euphoric at the end and even more so when, the following morning, a flurry of donors took me past the fundraising target as well as the distance target.
I still have to finish writing up the blogs of each village run but it has been really good for me to become better acquainted with the villages and footpaths around the Deepings. Thank you all so much!
During January 2021, I am participating in Age UK’s ‘Run Your Age’ event by running a total of 51km. It would be great if you would SPONSOR ME to raise funds to support older people in Lincolnshire and across the UK!
On Sat 9th Jan, I ran through Wilsthorpe, Obthorpe and across to Baston in a loop of 10km bringing my ‘running total’ to 33km.
My run started on King Street which is a Roman road which dissects the County Council Division of ‘Deepings West and Rural’. I first followed a footpath across a field of beet to a bridge over the River Glen, in fact the first bridge after the West Glen merges with the East Glen. This brought me into the small village of village of Wilsthorpe (formerly Wivelestorp) which comprises only forty houses including two farms.
At the centre of the village is the church of St Faith of Acquitaine, Wilsthorpe. Due to Covid, the church was not open but I had visited once before when I attended a meeting of Braceborough and Wilsthorpe Parish Council which uses the church in the absence of any other appropriate meeting place in the village. I remember it being quite cold and gloomy (the church, not the Parish Council) but it was, as I recall, a winter evening.
St Faith’s church is one of the smallest in the area as well as the youngest church in the Uffington benefice, being only 300 years old. The tercentenary was celebrated in 2015 with a service led by the Bishop of Lincoln.
It was built in the 18th century, a fine example of early Georgian but in 1863 the building was altered by architect James Fowler which resulted in a Classical & Gothic mash-up.
If Dan Brown ever makes a sequel to the Da Vinci code set in rural Lincolnshire, then St Faith’s church might be a good place to start. The stained glass above the altar would be right up his street while the ancient grafitti carved into the front of the building would give him plenty to think about.
Despite being only 300 years old, the church has somehow acquired a fine and authentic stone figure of a 13th century knight bearing a shield with the arms. It is thought to be that of the Wake family but this has not been proven. Hereward the Wake was an Anglo-Saxon originally from the Bourne area who led resistance to the Norman invasion & became known as ‘Hereward the Outlaw’ and ‘the last Englishman’ because he held out against the occupying army until 1081. The Wakes are remembered fondly in and around our area with a road in Market Deeping named after Joan Wake and, when I was young, there was a radio station at the other end of the fens named after Hereward. The car stickers used to read “Hereward is a-wake!” which I thought was quite clever even if the pun had been over 900 years in development.
At the end of 2016 the church steeple was repaired to stop ingress of rain and pigeons. This was funded by grants from various organisations and fund-raising withisin the village, including Open Gardens and a ‘Pimms and Plants’ evening, which is now an annual event!
Wilsthorpe was also known for providing Peterborough (14 miles away) with gallons of water each day after a 52ft deep well was drilled in the 19th Century.
Shortly after passing the church my route converged with the Macmillan Way which is one of a small number of long distance walks which takes a route through South Kesteven. The path ahead therefore led towards Boston while the path in another direction could have taken me over 200 miles to Abbotsbury in Dorset! I ran past a total of three people before leaving the village to the North towards the hamlet of Obthorpe. I was a bit surprised to be confronted with a very slight incline. The first since I started this month’s running challenge and possibly the last.
I continued on the Macmillan Way across the a15 at Kate’s Bridge which, for centuries if not millenia, has been a point of interest on the route between Peterborough and Lincoln. It would have been the point at which traffic crossed the aforementioned King Street Roman road met the River Glen and the nearby ‘Thetford’ suggests there was a ford there. By the 13th century it was known as ‘Caterbrig’ suggesting that a bridge had been established. The current bridge was built in the 19th century as part of the turnpike route. Travellers can still refresh themselves at the nearby filling station which now sells petrol.
Kate’s Bridge is also the point at which King Street meets Car Dyke which is another construction of the Roman era which eight-five miles along the western edge of the Great Fen. The origin and purpose of the Car Dyke are a mystery, but it is generally accepted as marking the western edge of the Fens. To the South it runs through the middle of Market Deeping, roughly along the course of Godsey Lane.
Arriving in Baston in stile!
Baston village has a church, a primary school as well as Kirkstone House private school. It is divided by the busy A15. I was particularly grateful for the footpaths because I have previously tried to run alongside the A15 towards Kate’s bridge but the lack of footpath provision makes it very dangerous.
The River Glen to the East of the A15 was particularly picturesque as I ran. After about a kilometre, I turned to the South towards Baston entering that village via a footpath adjacent to the cemetery.
After Baston, my route wend its way back onto King Street completing the loop and the run.
Excerpt from the Times 01 September 1977Shot valet wants to stay with employer
Harry Lyttelon Dowsett, an industrialist, was so befuddled by drink that be mistook his valet-ohauffeur for an intruder and shot him in rbe leg with a shotgun, it was stated at Lincoln Crown Court yesterday.
Nevertheless, Philip Wymer, who might never fully recover after his leg was shattered, wants to continue to work for Mr Dowsett, counsel said.
Mr Dowsett, aged 70. of Greatford Hall, near Stamford, who built up the Dowsett Group of companies, was given a two-year jail sentence, suspended
for a year, after pleading guilty to unlawful wounding. He was also fined £1,000 and ordered to pay up to £500 prosecution costs. Judge Whitehead ordered his firearms licences to be cancelled.
Mr Igor Judge, for the prosecution, accepted Mr Dowsett's plea of not guilty to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily barm. He said chat on the evening of April 26 Mr Wymer went to Greatford Hall to see Mr Dowsett. He found him in bed. He was about to go home when Mr Dowsett, who was in a rage, demanded a drink. When Mr Wymer went into an adjoining room Mr Dowsett shot him, saying: “I have got you, you bastard."
Mr Brian Smedky, QC. for die defence, said: “The last person in the world Mr Dowsett would ever normally want to injure was the man who had been more than just a chauffeur-valet but who was his friend for the past 25 years.
I am delighted to report that at the South Kesteven Full Council meeting of 17 December, Councillors agreed unanimously with my proposal that the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committees could benefit from a bit more, well, overview and scrutiny!
A report was presented to the Council by ‘Chair of Chairs’, Cllr Graham Jeal (Con), on behalf of the four Overview and Scrutiny Committees was supposed to be only for noting. However, I introduced a ‘motion without notice’, in line with the Council’s constitution, in order to recommend that:
“the role structure and performance of the scrutiny committees should be referred to a suitable independent individual, nominated by the LGA, to review whether or not it is fit for purpose and how it might be improved”
I suggested that the Council Leader, Cllr Kelham Cooke (Con) should not be involved in the debate because he had previously claimed that he didn’t get involved in the management and workings of scrutiny committees (even though he personally appoints the Chairs and Vice-Chairs of all the Scrutiny Committees which are [ahem] coincidentally filled entirely by Conservatives. However, I was surprised and delighted when he did intervene to ask his Conservative colleagues to support the review of scrutiny which was then passed unanimously.
Here is the text of the speech I made to encourage the Council to review its scrutiny function:
“Thank you very much, Chair,
I’m pleased to see that we’re scrutinising scrutiny for a change, but this report is a bit like a “What I did in the holidays” type of essay. A list of information without any reflection or self-criticism.
Report to MDTC Full Council 11th November 2020 from ASHLEY BAXTER, SKDC Councillor for Market & West Deeping.
Continued from previous post
Leisure News
At yet another secret briefing for Councillors, Cllr Dobson and Officers shared some scant detail of the proposals for the proposed new Deepings Leisure Centre. The good news is that there is some evidence of progress and, after eight months of asking, Deepings Councillors have now seen some of the detail involved. There is also some evidence that some of our lobbying has been taken into account in the draft designs produced so far.
The bad news is that the information remains confidential and there are still plenty of unanswered questions regarding the design, the business case and the route by which the Leisure Centre will be delivered.
Independent Deepings Councillors have arranged an informal meeting with the representatives of local Sports Clubs in order to ensure we still understand local aspirations for the new sports facilities. We also intend to compare notes regarding the incorporation of Leisure SK which is a company being set up within SKDC in order to manage the Leisure Centres directly rather than contracting out to 1Life.
Victory over Deepings Special Expense Area
At the Finance Committee yesterday, it was agreed to recommend the abolition of the Deepings Special Expense Area charge. This is a item on the Council Tax bills of all Deepings residents (and only Deepings residents) which relates to the costs of mowing and maintaining the sports fields at the Deepings School.
I first started lobbying the Council on this issue in 2015 soon after I was first elected to SKDC. I finally got it put on an agenda last June when the issue was kicked into the long grass (forgive the pun). It was to be revisited in January next year which would have been too late to remove it from next years budget cycle. Thanks to the intervention of Cllr Phil Dilks (Ind) and I, it was brought forward to yesterday’s meeting. There was a long debate during which some Councillors grumbled about the Special Expense Areas in their own towns. Cllr Bob Adams (Con) argued that the Council shouldn’t address the issue of the Deepings SEA until all the questions of SEA across the District could be resolved. Thankfully, the rest of the Committee could see the particular injustice of the Deepings SEA – after all, it’s £3.33 per household to pay for a facility that is not accessible to the public – and common sense won the day. Your Deepings Council Tax bills should be £3.33 light next year!
As ever, if you have been affected by any of the issues raised in the report, please feel free to get in touch with me by any means necessary!
Ashley Baxter SKDC Councillor for Market & West Deeping 11th November 2020
To read the first two parts of my November report to Market Deeping Town Council, please click the links below.
Report to MDTC Full Council 11th November 2020 from ASHLEY BAXTER, SKDC Councillor for Market & West Deeping.
Continued from previous post
Housing Matters
Last week, District Councillors were invited to a secret briefing about a recent auditor’s report into the awful state of the SKDC Housing Department. The report contains a litany of underperformance and compliance failures over more than a decade (Incidentally, the briefing was attended by all three of the Deepings Independent SKDC Councillors but none of the three Deepings Conservative SKDC Councillors)
The failures include the lack of an up-to-date Stock Condition Survey and the lack of up-to-date electrical and fire safety reports.
In June this year, in response to comments from Market Deeping residents, I personally requested details of the Council’s ‘Void Policy’, i.e. the system for ensuring that Council Houses which become vacant are quickly checked for problems; repaired; and made fit for the next occupants in a timely fashion. In June I was promised that a new Senior Officer was working on a new Voids Policy which should be implemented by November 2020. Surprise, surprise, there is not yet any sign of even a draft Voids Policy.
The Council also claims to have a rolling target (and budget) for delivering 500 new homes over 5 years. In reality, the Council built only 60 houses between 2014 and 2017 and ZERO new council houses since then until earlier this year when 14 single-bed modular build dwellings were completed in Grantham.
The SKDC spin-doctors will claim that the Council did build houses via its wholly-owned subsidiary company Gravitas Housing Ltd which was established to ‘disrupt the market place’. In four years, Gravitas has only completed a single project of 25 homes at Wherry’s Lane in Bourne, most of which remain unsold.
In January this year, Cllr Barry Dobson (Con) presented a report to the Companies Committee outlining proposals to find a strategic partner to support the delivery of new homes as part of the Council’s “strategic ambitions for housing growth and delivery in the District”
The prefaces from 2017 and the 2020 SK Housing Strategies. The text is identical.
Two weeks ago, Cllr Dobson returned to the Companies Committee with a report explaining why a housing partnership will not be pursued at this time but might be considered in the future.
Some of the staff responsible for this mess have now left the authority but some of the Conservative Councillors who presided over this clear dereliction of duty are still in office, for example Cllr Dobson held the Portfolio for Housing between May 2019 and January 2020 and is now the Deputy Leader and responsible for the delivery of the famous new Deepings Leisure Centre.
Hats off to the relatively new Chief Executive, Karen Bradford, and the new Cabinet Member for Housing, Cllr Robert Reid (Con) for grasping the nettle and self-referring the Council to Housing Regulator.
For ease of reading, my November report to Market Deeping Town Council is split into three. Here are links to the other parts:
Report to MDTC Full Council 11th November 2020 from ASHLEY BAXTER, SKDC Councillor for Market & West Deeping.
Good evening, Councillors.
Sadly, once again we are in ‘lockdown’ and so the Town Council meeting will once again take place via Zoom.
A very busy month at South Kesteven District Council. I will try to bring you the edited highlights beginning with some planning matters.
Millfield Decision
I am delighted to report that the SKDC Planning Committee refused the application from Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) to build 260 on the old showground at Millfield Road. This is the latest episode in LCC’s quest to squander Market Deeping’s last remaining accessible open space for the sake of a short-term cash advantage.
I attended the Committee and spoke against the application, as did MDTC Cllr David Shelton, Pam Steel who is Chair of the Friends of Mill Field and Chandra Mistry who is among the many people who have campaigned very hard for several years to defend the site from development.
This particular battle of Mill Field has been won but I suspect the intransigence of the Conservative County Council will mean that the war is not yet over. The next stage will be the County Council’s challenge to the draft Neighbourhood Plan which is likely to be heard by the Inspector next month.
War Memorial Decision
At the same Planning Committee meeting, Cllr Virginia Moran and I also spoke against an application to erect a 6ft war memorial outside Callow’s cigar shop. While we all consider it very important to honour those who fought and those who died in service of our country, the Committee agreed that this particular application would not be in keeping with our ancient market place and there was insufficient evidence of community support for the memorial.
The Deepings already has at least four war memorial including those in the two parish churches which were chosen soon after the First World War by those who bore the raw grief of loss of their friends and family. I am not convinced that a further memorial will assist in our acts of remembrance.
However, on this Armistice Day, I should mention that I accepted the Mayor’s invitation to attend the formal opening of the Deepings Garden of Remembrance which, as usual, was an appropriately decorous event.
Proposed Extension to Rectory Cottage
Planners recently considered an application to remove 3 mature holly trees at Rectory Cottage, Market Deeping. The applicants claimed the trees were damaging a garden wall. Working alongside the Town Council I tried my best to save these trees from the chainsaw but the SKDC Tree Consultant did not agree that the trees added to the visual amenity of our town, despite being in a Conservation Area and just yards from the cemetery and the award-winning Rectory Paddock.
Now, just six week’s later, the householders have submitted an application to demolish the garden wall they used to care so much about and expand the boundary of their property up to the public footpath. I have requested this application be dealt with by the elected Councillors serving on the Planning Committee rather than delegated to Council Officers.
BP Filling Station Appeal
I regret to report that despite representations from Market Deeping Town Council, Langtoft Parish Council, local residents and myself, the Planning Inspector has decided to overturn the decision of elected Councillors and permit the application for a filling station, retail premises and café to the North of the Langtoft roundabout. During the appeal process, the applicants altered the application to imply that it will be able to refuel electric vehicles even though, during the original planning process, this was supposed to be impractical.
This is a greenfield site which has not been allocated within the Local Plan and, as far as I’m concerned, will be a Trojan Horse for development of all the land North of the by-pass up to Langtoft. In the words of Joni Mitchell: “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”.
Bike Rack
I was as surprised and appalled as everyone else to see the neon green bike rack in the centre of Market Deeping. As a regular cyclist I have never found any difficult in parking my bike securely in the town centre. It is typical of the remote and out-of-touch County Council to impose and dispose this facility in the heart of our Conservation Area without any proper thought or consultation. It is astonishing that they didn’t even consult the County Councillor for area and that she seems powerless to have it removed.
For ease of reading, my November report to Market Deeping Town Council is split into three. Here are links to the other parts:
In a recent post published prior to SKDC Companies Committee, I mentioned that progress towards DeliverSK had been slow and uncertain. I also mentioned that it has already cost the Council £90,000 for a company that hasn’t even been incorporated.
The DeliverSK wheeze was one of a number of initiatives which involved recycling ideas from Peterborough City Council and I have mentioned several of them previously on this blog. It was noted at Full Council last week, by one of my Independent colleagues, that the ‘Peterborough Project’ now appears to be over and the council has changed direction.
The £90,000 was split three ways. £50,000 for the expertise of Pinsent Masons who, we are told, are very good at the legal aspects of setting up arms-length enterprises for the council. Indeed, they were very clued up when I asked (on 29 August 2018) how it was possible for the council to enter a multi-million partnership with a third party finance company without an formal procurement process. The Company would not be procuring works or services; they would be seeking and selecting an investment partner so no need for all that pesky red-tape.
The next £6,000 went to KPMG. Don’t ask me what for because I don’t know.
The remaining £34,339 went to Peterborough City Council. I didn’t really understand what this was for until this morning when I had a reply to a request for further information. Apparently, a decision was taken to take one of Peterborough’s senior staff members on secondment. He worked for South Kesteven for 50 days (excluding weekends) between January and March 2019 at a cost of £686 per day. Shortly after he returned from his secondment, Peterborough City Council made him redundant with a massive ‘golden goodbye’.
And what do we, at South Kesteven, have to show for it?
That’s a rhetorical question, as I am sure you can guess the answer, but the forthcoming minutes of the closed session of Companies Committee will hopefully shed some light on it.
My Sunday afternoon has been spent reading the agenda and reports relating to next Tuesday’s Companies Committee. On the off-chance that some SK residents are interested in how millions of pounds is being squandered or invested, I have put together this short summary about the council’s growing portfolio of Local Authority Owned Company (LACC).
Gravitas Housing Ltd
The first ‘Shareholders’ meeting’ about setting up SKDC’s first LACC took place in October 2016 and in January 2017 we decided on a name and a purpose for the company. The name would be ‘Gravitas’ and Members agreed it should focus on new build developments.
Since then, the company has completed only one project comprising 25 dwellings at Wherry’s Lane in Bourne. Only 5 of these dwellings have so far been sold and therefore the company has not yet returned its investment; nor has it ‘disrupted the housing market’ as was hoped; nor does it have any other projects currently in the pipeline.
The Shareholders Committee has been replaced by the Companies Committee and the Chair of the latter has described the progress of Gravitas as “moving at a glacial pace”.
Until July 2020, Gravitas had three Directors, all of whom were Council employees. Long-suffering member of the council’s Finance team, Mr Richard Wyles, has served since 2017 and he was originally on the ‘Board of Directors’ with Steve Ingram and Tracey Blackwell. In the summer of 2018, Steve and Tracey left the council, with significant financial settlements (aka pay-offs) and consequently resigned as Directors of Gravitas Housing Ltd. They were replaced by the recently appointed Assistant Director for Growth, Jane McDaid and the recently appointed Assistant Director for Housing, Harry Rai.
Skip forward to July 2020, two years almost to the day since they were appointed, and Jane and Harry resigned as Gravitas Directors because they too had been encouraged to leave the council, probably with significant financial settlements (aka pay-offs). This has left Richard Wyles as the sole current Gravitas Director.
On Tuesday, the Companies Committee will be asked to appoint three new Directors to the Gravitas Board: Council Leader, Coun Kelham Cooke (Con); Deputy Leader. Cllr Barry Dobson BA Hons (Con); and Strategic Director for Growth, Mr Paul Thomas. According to the Committee report: “These proposed appointments will bring the political and professional strategic support to enable Gravitas to successfully deliver the Wherrys Lane development and bring forward a pipeline of strategic housing development proposals for Committee consideration”. Only time will tell.
Homes SK
The failure of Gravitas to deliver housing at pace has been noted and so rumours have started about an intention to set up a new Company to focus on the delivery of affordable homes in the District. This would be Homes SK.
Unfortunately, the proposed brief and purpose of Homes SK has not been published anywhere in the public domain. Companies Committee were due to hear about it this week but on Sunday evening we were sent an e-mail stating: “It has been agreed with the Chairman of the Committee that the HomesSK item (Item 9a) on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting of the Companies Committee will now be considered at the following meeting”. So, I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer.
Deliver SK
This is another Council company which doesn’t exist yet. It was an idea that the Council’s previous leader had brought with him from Peterborough and was based on the idea of the council forming a company (an LLP) with a wealthy investment company in order to bankroll a series of joint ventures.
It was reported with much fanfare in December 2018 that, after a competitive process and ‘informal cabinet’, the private sector partner had been chosen and was to be IAG Holdings which was an investment company based in Guernsey and, entirely coincidentally, the same partner engaged by Peterborough City Council on a similar wheeze.
There followed a period of virtual silence on the matter until 30 June 2020 when a holding report sent to Companies Committee explained some of the problems concerning IAG Holdings. Apparently, discussions had progressed with IAG during the course of 2019, during which it transpired that the company that would be entering into the partnership was not IAG but was in-fact a subsidiary of IAG; namely IAGH3. The Companies Committee of 30 June was informed that the change in proposed partner would require a new Non-Key Decision and necessitated due diligence on the new entity. The Committee was promised “a report at its next meeting setting out options and recommendations as to establishing DeliverSK”.
The report has indeed been circulated prior to the meeting but sadly, the entire report and its appendix has been been classed as ‘restricted’ and therefore printed on ‘pink papers’ which means that I am not allowed to tell you what is proposed relating to DeliverSK.
What I can tell you is that the Council had already incurred £90k costs in trying to establish the appropriate governance and operating structure for DeliverSK. This is broken down as: £34k to Peterborough City Council; £6k to KPMG and £50k to Pinsents.
In my opinion, the main reason why the DeliverSK report has been restricted is to prevent embarrassment of the former and existing Conservative Cabinet members responsible for the incredibly slow and uncertain progress of DeliverSK over the last two years.
EnvironmentSK
The decision to bring grounds maintenance services in-house was taken at the end of the council’s contract with Glendale Services. There were a number of problems with the contract with Glendale including 1) it was quite inflexible and required a contract variation notice everytime the company was asked to adjust it’s mowing regime. This limited any creative ideas like rewilding or extra cuts; 2) although branded ‘Glendale Local’, the company was actually based in Cheshire and, at one stage, were sending resources from Doncaster to cut the grass in Deeping St James. For these reasons, and on a point of principle, I supported bringing Grounds Maintenance in-house.
Forming another LACC, rather than simply putting grounds maintenance staff on the council payroll, has its pro’s and con’s. One ‘pro’ is flexibility with regard to staff – it was mentioned at the time that EnvironmentSK was being incorporated that it was very difficult for the council to engage on incentive packages such as performance-related pay. However, there is also a big ‘con’ in that a LACC is much more difficult to hold accountable.
For example, at a recent SKDC Cabinet meeting, it was noted that SKDC refuse collectors were the poorest paid in Lincolnshire and consequently it was agreed that they should be given a pay-rise. I asked a question about whether grounds maintenance staff were being paid fairly by EnvironmentSK. The Cabinet Member for Environment, Cllr Peter Moseley (Con), responded “The salaries paid by ESK are a matter for ESK Ltd and not for this Council and they are paid in line with what the market allows”. Yes, even though EnvironmentSK Ltd is owned entirely by SKDC and, by law, at least 80% of it’s activity is delivering services to SKDC, the Conservative Cabinet Member believes that the terms and conditions of the staff are not a matter of concern to the council.
At the last Companies Committee, the Directors of ESK submitted a half-hearted and heavily redacted Business Plan. The Chair of the Committee rightly chastised them for not taking the committee seriously. One member of the Committee also criticised the ‘pie-in-the-sky’ nature of the content of the business plan. In his words: “You could drive a 40 footer through the holes in its logic and the numbers were fanciful”.
In its first published accounts, EnvironmentSK Ltd reported a loss of £133,702. A revised and more detailed business plan will be presented to Companies Committee this week. Once again, it will not be released in the public domain but, without breaking confidence, I can tell you that ‘pie-in-the-sky’ figures are still there.
InvestSK
Tuesday’s Companies Committee will also discuss an ‘Update on InvestSK’. Regular readers will know that, from the outset, I have had concerns about the lack of accountability and transparency of InvestSK. The last (and only) time it was seriously considered at Companies Committee, the Chair said the business plan was full of fluffy and flowery targets.
Cooke, Bowyer and Lee in happier times
In recent weeks the Chief Executive of InvestSK has left the organisation, probably with a significant financial settlements (aka pay-off). Steve Bowyer was yet another member of staff who followed Cllr Lee up the A1 from Peterborough to Grantham.
After a lot of e-mails ‘to and fro’, I now have confirmation from the council’s Monitoring Officer that InvestSK should be subject to the same transparency rules as the Council so I can freely report that InvestSK has given £50,000 to a dance school in Grantham and £150,000 to a consultancy for a single project. Obviously, this doesn’t match the £280,000 recently given to Mace consultancy by SKDC but it’s still a lot of money.
The Directors of InvestSK are the Leader, the Deputy Leader and the Chief Executive of the Council. For a brief period, Paul Thomas was also a Director until I pointed out, on 13th August, that he was the person who was supposed to be managing the ‘contract’ between SKDC and InvestSK and he couldn’t act as ‘both poacher and gamekeeper’. On 14th August, Cllr Cooke e-mailed me to insist that there was no conflict of roles but, on 18th August, Mr Thomas resigned as a Director of InvestSK – Read into that what you will!
As far as I can ascertain, SKDC has set no targets for InvestSK and the whole relationship exists on the basis of ‘make it us as we go along’. This flexibility is handy at times of emergency, e.g. a global pandemic, but generally it’s not a healthy way to do business. The InvestSK LACC is supposed to be managed as rigorously as any contract with an external company but I hope we don’t just hand millions of pounds to our external partners in the same cheery way we do to InvestSK.
LeisureSK
This is the latest proposed addition to the SK family of companies which has been discussed at Cabinet, at Culture Overview and Scrutiny Committee and will be discussed again on Tuesday at Companies Committee.
I am not supposed to tell you anything else about it because all the committee papers are restricted. However, somehow these rules of secrecy do not apply to the SKDC press office who have been permitted to tell all the local media about Leisure SK! As Deepings Nub News reported:
South Kesteven District Council is bringing the management and operation of its four leisure centres back in-house. The council says this will give it greater flexibility on how the leisure facilities are managed and potentially accelerate SKDC’s leisure improvements programme.
Conclusion
If you’ve made it this far through the blog, I admire your tenacity. Please consider liking the post and sharing the post if you know anyone else with an interest in local authority accountability.
In my opinion, the main reason why so much of the information relating to the council’s wholly owned companies has been restricted is to prevent embarrassment of the former and existing Conservative Cabinet members responsible for the incredibly slow and uncertain progress over the last two years. The current culture of secrecy and constant restriction of Council reports undermines public confidence in the council. It is time for Cllr Kelham Cooke to deliver on his promise of “a more open, transparent and collaborative style of council that welcomes constructive challenge”.
DeepingDo - The blog of Ashley Baxter, Independent Councillor and founder member of the Deepings Rebel Alliance! 