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.
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 across the UK!
Today is New Year’s Day and so I put my best foot forward and ran a 5k from Market Deeping to West Deeping.
Starting on Godsey Lane, I ran along Bramley Road, then through the footpath to the Grove. I then ran up Church Street, past St Guthlac’s church and onto St Guthlac’s Avenue where I literally bumped into a friend from St Guthlac’s church almost knocking her into the hedge. Nothing broken, other than my concentration, and teaching me an important lesson of ‘look where you’re going’!
“The day is thine” – Architectural wisdom at St Guthlac’s church.
I then ran round Meadway and Sandringham Way across Tattershall and over to Millfield. The Mill Field is the subject of a long-running and ongoing planning dispute. The field is a popular and accessible open space with a public footpath across the middle. Lincolnshire County Council own the land and wanted to build 270 houses on it. Happily, their application was rejected by the South Kesteven District Council Planning Committee on 28th October after receiving many objections and representations from local people including a five-minute speech from me as Ward Councillor (Previous comments I made about the Millfield village green application, the previous year, can be found on YouTube or at the foot of this blogpost).
After crossing the by-pass, I followed the footpath through to Molecey’s Mill on Stamford Road and then another along the side of a Welland tributary which was muddy, but not too muddy. The sunlight and the birds and the river combined to make one forget that it is ‘bleak midwinter’.
This brought me to the Lane, West Deeping and through to the Red Lion PH which is sadly closed due to current Tier 4 Covid restrictions.
Heading South, I rounded the corner to St Andrew’s Church and slightly beyond to make the run up to a round 5km.
I visiting St Andrew’s a couple of times during runs in 2020. It currently hosts an informal lending library in the porch if you fancy a read. Inside the church is a comprehensive guide to the graves in the churchyard as well as some certificates celebrating successes in the ‘South Kesteven ‘Tourist Church of the Year’ of 20 years ago.
If you would like to know what St Andrew’s West Deeping is like today, I would thoroughly recommend attending one of their regular Sunday ‘Zoom’ services from the comfort of your own home. You will surely receive a warm welcome!
Disputed elections are not just a recent American phenomena. Last night, the management of Deepings Youth Group (DYG) attracted criticism when two long-standing members of the youth club’s governing body were virtually defenestrated as power over the funds and activities of the organisation was further consolidated into the hands of a small cadre following a coup two years ago.
Members of the public were neither invited nor welcome at the Annual General Meeting which followed recent public controversy over the group’s funding.. This year, DYG will receive around £15,000 from the Parish and Town which represents about 80% of the group’s total income.
[Author’s note: I wouldn’t usually write about the internal machinations of a community group but the recent decision by Market Deeping Town Council to temporarily withhold grant funding from DYG demonstrated that people are particularly interested in how the youth club is managed].
The meeting was preceded by a kind of postal election in which each of the Trustees were given the opportunity to vote for (or against) each other. Anyone who achieved 50% of the votes was declared elected but those who failed to win the approval of their colleagues were unceremoniously removed from the Board. No votes were cast other than by the existing Trustees and there were no new nominees (other than those people co-opted by the Board since the previous meeting).
A few days prior to the meeting, Cllr Phil Dilks requested an up-to-date copy of the DYG constitution in order to ascertain whether the procedures for the AGM, including the election of Trustees, were being followed correctly. No copy was supplied to him. Nevertheless, it seems highly unlikely that the Youth Club was paying attention to its own rules because according to the Minutes of Market Deeping Town and Deeping St James Parish Councils, several were originally appointed directly by those Councils.
The meeting took place via Zoom yesterday evening and was Chaired by Jayne Reed who, at the beginning of the meeting immediately requested permission to vary the agenda which she had sent out the previous week. Miss Reed said she thought it was appropriate to bring forward the declaration of the results of the vote to the top of the agenda. She did not explain her reasons but the Committee agreed and the results were announced. The two Trustees who failed to gain 50% support were Parish Councillor Andrew Bowell (Ind) and Parish and District Councillor Phil Dilks (Ind). The Chair then asked them to leave the meeting and a few moments later they were disconnected by the meeting administrator.
Cllr Dilks had perhaps made himself unpopular with the rest of the board by stating publicly that he disassociated himself from the comments, social media posts and petitions which had been published when the October meeting of Market DeepingTown Council decided to postpone payment of a grant which had been earmarked for DYG.
At the time, the Council had a number of concerns about the financial stability of DYG and asked for clarification of some of figures which had been mentioned in the accounting statements provided by the group. Market Deeping Town Council’s representative on the DYG Trustees, Cllr Xan Collins (Con), chose not to answer any questions about the Youth Club at that meeting insisting that the Council had earmarked £7,000 for DYG and the group was therefore entitled to a grants for that amount. The decision to delay the second of two grant payments was voted on with the result 3 in favour, 3 against and 4 abstentions. The Deputy Mayor, Cllr Virginia Moran (Ind) used her casting vote to delay the payment.
After that decision, representatives of the DYG Board were invited to speak to the Mayor and Deputy Mayor at a meeting which held answer the questions but not before the Town Council, and Cllr Moran in particular, had been villified on social media.
Later that month, the DYG Trustees met, virtually, for the first time since Lockdown and Paul Hanson resigned as Chair. Mr Hanson had been elected as a Town Councillor in May 2019 but resigned unexpectedly in May 2020. He is the partner of a Conservative SKDC Councillor who is also a Trustee of DYG.
Jayne Reed stepped into the breach and took on the role of Chair. Miss Reed is also familiar with the role of a Town Councillor having been served on the Council on more than one occasion and having resigned in 2017 causing a by-election which was successfully contested by Cllr Moran.
At the November meeting of Market Deeping Town Council, the councillors voted on the DYG funding once again. This time there were 5votes in favour of awarding the grant, 1 against and 4 abstentions. One of the Councillors expressed the view that he had previously been in favour of awarding the grant but after seeing the vociferous social media attacks after the previous meeting he was now concerned about the suitability of the Trustees. This view resonated with the personal comments made by Cllr Dilks during the public open forum before the meeting,
At the time of the October meeting, at least one trustee accused Cllr Moran of holding a personal vendetta. It now seems that there is indeed a personal vendetta, but it is not the one we were warned about!
The reasons why Cllr Bowell was not re-elected are less obvious. Certainly, he is not hesitant to ask questions or express his opinions but surely those are good qualities for a Trustee? Until March this year, Cllr Bowell, a former bank manager, was the Treasurer of DYG but he resigned as Treasurer I think because of differences of opinion with the Chair at the time. Whatever the reasons for their removal from the Board, their early removal from the meeting meant that neither Cllr Dilks nor Cllr Bowell could ask questions about the Chair’s report to the AGM, nor the Treasurers report to the AGM, the first of which would likely be “Who is currently the Treasurer of DYG?”.
Miss Reed believes that the Trustees are not obliged to hold an AGM, let alone allow members of the public to attend. Consequently, when I asked if I could attend the virtual AGM I was told I could not and that only Trustees had been invited. Procedurally, there might not be an obligation to allow members of the public, funding bodies, local councillors like me, members of the press, parents of youth club users or even the many young people who allegedly use the service. The organisations that my teenage children are involved in are usually very keen to encourage parents and potential sponsors to get involved. Given all the recent public hoo-hah over the funding of the Youth Club you might have thought the Trustees would be only too keen to open the doors. You have to wonder why DYG are so reluctant to allow people to see what’s happening!
Footnote 1: As explained above, I wasn’t allowed to attend the DYG but I am confident that the information above is all factually correct. If anyone points out any mistakes; inaccuracies or even typos, I will be happy to edit accordingly.
Footnote 2: For avoidance of doubt: I am not criticising the Youth Club; not its staff members or the people who use the Youth Club; I have no problem with the aims and objectives of the DYG. If I have a criticism of DYG it is limited to the lack of transparency of its operations and the manner in which the AGM was conducted.
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”.
>> In Oct 2017, SKDC Leader Cllr Leader Matthew Lee (Con) committed the Council to building a new Leisure Cente in the Deepings.
>> In Sept 2019, in response to a question I asked at Full Council, it was revealed that the preferred site for the new Leisure Centre would be the school playing fields North of Spalding Road in Deeping St James.
>> Since then, Deepings’ Independent Councillors, including me, have asked for Leisure Centre progress updates at every opportunity. Until January 2020 we received fairly regular progress reports. In February the new Cabinet Member for Leisure promised us monthly regular reports and since then we have received none.
>> Undeterred, I have continued to request documents and details relating to plans for the new leisure centre. These have all been delayed or denied even though the council rules, and the law of the land, suggest that I should be given them. I have managed to find some information via scrutiny of Council spending records and informal communication with Council Officers who I am sure are frustrated by the Conservative’s secretive attitude.
Inaccurate information from the Deputy Leader
On the evening of 30 July 2020, minutes before Deeping St James Parish Council (DSJ PC) meeting were due to discuss the plans, I received a phone call from SKDC Deputy Leader, Cllr Barry Dobson BA Hons (Con), who wished to have an informal chat about progress towards the Leisure Centre. He suggested, yet again, that it would be useful to have a meeting with me about the leisure centre to compare plans etc. He implied that he wished only to speak to me about the plans and not my Independent colleagues in the Deepings. The very next day I sent him a follow-up e-mail to say that I would be happy to meet him “anywhere and with anyone to discuss the plans if it means I actually get to see them and/or contribute positively to the dialogue”.
Surprise, surprise, there was no follow up e-mail or phone call from Cllr Dobson BA Hons which underlines my suspicion that he only phoned me in the first place to prevent an embarrassment at the July meeting of DSJ PC.
At last week’s DSJ PC meeting (27 August) Cllr Dobson did submit a report, in his capacity as LCC Cllr for DSJ, which appeared to offer some useful information as follows:.
“The Leisure Centre building itself will now be located entirely on LCC land and the artificial surface pitch. The Rugby Club pavilion will remain in situ providing approval is given to lose one football pitch. However, should this be approved, it is suggested that the Rugby Club improve the condition and appearance of their facility subject to SKDC/DSJPC approval”.
Make of those comments what you will but don’t spend too long worrying about them because when presenting Cllr Dobsons’s report (in his absence), the Chair of DSJ PC, Cllr Steve Gilbert began by stating clearly “Barry Dobson has issued a report; there are some inaccuracies in his report and we will clarify those with him at some later date”.
SKDC’s Deputy Leader has suggested the 40 year-old rugby pavilion will remain alongside the proposed £20m state-of-the-art leisure centre.
Cllr Dilks and I both tried to clarify which parts of Cllr Dobson’s report were perceived to be inaccurate or rather, whether any of his comments relating to the Leisure Centre were accurate. This was not possible.
Land Grab
The good news is: Deepings St James Parish Council has agreed, in principle, to allow SKDC to have a lease on (some of) its land in order to progress the delivery of leisure facilities at the site.
The site of the school fields is owned by the County Council and the Parish Council. The Parish owns and L-shape which starts at ‘Woody Heights’ skate park and runs East to the boundary of the rugby field and then down to the Bowls Club including some, but not all, of the current all-weather pitch (aka the ‘Astro’).
The school and the Parish Council have wanted to resolve this issue since at least 2011 but the recalcitrant attitude of the Lincolnshire County Council legal department has, until now, prevented any leases being signed. Since achieving Academy Status almost a decade ago, the Deepings School has been using the playing fields on the precarious legal basis of a ‘Tenancy at Will’. The rugby club has been operating with even less security of tenure.
Since the mid-1970s the fields have been used effectively as one unit by the school and by sports clubs. In the 1970s it was assumed that all the Councils were working together in the common public interest – Those were the days!. The grounds maintenance of the fields is funded entirely by residents of Market Deeping and Deeping St James as a designated Special Expense Area (SEA). The land used to be freely accessible to members of the community as an open space but, about five years ago, the school decided to put a perimeter fence to keep the children in and so-called trespassers out. The fence cost over £40,000. No adjustment has been made to the SEA to reflect that fact that Deepings residents can no longer freely access the fields they pay to maintain.
I digress….
The important part of the decision by Deeping St James PC last week is that SKDC should now have sufficient confidence to engage consultants, partners and other professionals to further develop plans for the delivery of a new Leisure Centre as well as new All-Weather pitches.
Any sport you like, as long as it’s football
With regard to the All-Weather Pitch(es), the Council has budgeted £200,000 in this financial year for the replacement of the 30 year-old ‘astro’ which should have been repaired or condemned several years ago when the Bourne Deeping Hockey Club (BDHC) were forced, by safety concerns, to stop playing on it. It wasn’t until November 2019 that it was actually condemned after two injuries allegedly caused by its atrocious condition.
BDHC currently train in Peterborough where they also have to play their home games because there is no pitch available in the South of the SK District. Most of the training takes place in Glinton but because this is a school site, there is very limited access during the school holidays so the club misses out on the potential income and benefits of holiday clubs.
The cost of a new astro is estimated to be over £600,000, therefore SKDC will need to find additional income from other sources. The most likely funder is the Football Foundation who are rightly impressed by the success of Deepings growing new side, Deeping United who cater for almost all ages and abilities. Unfortunately, the artificial playing surface required for competitive adult hockey is not suitable for competitive adult football, and vice versa. Therefore, it is unlikely that a pitch funded by the Football Foundation would meet the needs of Bourne Deeping HC (established since the 1920s). Consequently, it seems the new leisure centre either needs two new pitches or the hockey club need to find a permanent new home.
Whether or not an artificial soccer pitch would be suitable for other other sports to train and compete (e.g. cricket, rugby, lacrosse, baseball, athletics etc) is an unknown. I’ve had lots of conversations about the pros and cons of, for example, ‘3G Rubber Crumb Filled Turf’ but I still don’t consider myself an expert!
My daughter swims with the Deepings Swim Club, and lately her squad has been training in the wind and the rain. I think I can speak on behalf of all the parents when I say that, while we’re very grateful to the folks at Tallington Lakes, we can’t wait to get back indoors!
The following District Council report was presented by Cllr Phil Dilks (Ind, Deeping St James) to Deeping St James Parish Council last Thursday 27 August, 2020.
Phil was the only one of the three DSJ District Councillors to submit a written report (The County Councillor submitted a report I will publish later). Nevertheless, Cllr Dilks was criticised by the Chair for not complying with Standing Orders requiring papers to be submitted via the Clerk and 72 hours ahead of a meeting. DSJ’s two Conservative Councillors, who had little to report, whined that Cllr Dilks’ report was overtly partly political and insisted there is ‘another side to the story’. When challenged to explain their alternative view, the Conservatives declined so I am afraid I can only present you with Cllr Dilks report, as follows:.
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.NB. I have added the hyperlinks and photos.
Councillor Phil Dilks (Ind) Report to Deeping St James Parish Council – August 2020
Cost of Covid…
Government grants mean the costs of the pandemic to SKDC in lost income and provision of extra services are now expected to be just over £1 million – down from earlier predictions of over £3 million. A revised budget with some capital projects deferred until next year is being worked on to bring finances back into balance and is expected to be presented to full Council in September.
Council Leader’s ‘errors of judgement’…
Do as we say, not as we do!
There have been calls for Cllr Kelham Cooke to resign as Leader of SKDC after he was caught breaking the Covid-19 social distancing rules he has been urging the rest of us to follow.
In what has been described as a serious error of judgement by someone in a position of power, photographs of Cllr Cooke taken on two separate occasions showing him and his mates ignoring social distancing rules have appeared in the local press and on television news.
The previous restructuring resulted in the entire senior management team leaving the council, almost £1 million in ‘payoffs’ to senior staff in exchange signing non-disclosure agreements and recruitment of a new senior management team.
At the request of Cllr Cooke, the Council’s third Chief Executive in as many years has launched a private consultation exercise with existing senior staff. The extent and costs and potential benefits of the restructuring is not yet known.
However, first casualty appears to be Steve Bowyer, Chief Exec of Invest SK, the council funded regeneration company. Mr Bowyer departed earlier this month following reports that his post was being reviewed.
(InvestSK is the council funded regeneration company set up a couple of years ago as part of the last management restructuring under former Leader Cllr Matthew Lee and his Deputy Cllr Kelham Cooke. InvestSK’s remit was curtailed earlier this year and its £1.4 million annual funding was reduced to approx. £800,000).
I have asked questions at Cabinet regarding Mr Bowyer’s sudden departure, but it is not yet known whether he received a payoff from the public purse, nor whether he and the Council or InvestSK have signed a non-disclosure agreement.
SKDC to be abolished….??
SKDC may disappear under local government re-organisation to be announced by the government in the autumn.
Lincolnshire County Council, under its Leader Cllr Martin Hill, is advocating a ‘unitary’ authority to cover the whole of Greater Lincolnshire – incorporating the south bank of the Humber. This would involve the abolition of the seven current district councils covering what is now Lincolnshire, as well as the unitaries covering the Scunthorpe (now North Lincolnshire) and Grimsby (now North East Lincolnshire).
SKDC’s Cabinet this month approved spending of up to £50,000 to help develop of a business case for local government reorganisation in Lincolnshire that best serves the needs of local residents.
All seven district councils in the current county are working together on the best way forward for local government in the county ahead of the Government’s White Paper on Recovery and Devolution due to be published in the autumn.
Apology for Ashley…
A Deepings councillor has received an apology from council chiefs after he was wrongly ‘ejected’ from an online council meeting.
Cllr Ashley Baxter lodged a formal complaint after he was repeatedly – and wrongly -removed from a meeting of the Council’s Licensing Committee.
Citizens Advice…
This afternoon, I had an online meeting with Simon Richards, the new Chief Exec of South Lincs Citizens Advice Bureau which is financially supported by SKDC They have continued to provide online and telephone advice to people across the District during the pandemic and have seen enquiries regarding employment issues triple since March and predict a surge in demand for their services in the autumn following the end of the furlough scheme and possible ending of the moritorium on debt collections.
Planning Matters…
During August, I have attended numerous site visits in advance of planning applications and two lengthy Planning Committee meetings determining applications ranging from a drive-through coffee shop on the A1 southbound north of Grantham, an entry-level affordable scheme for Morton to an extension to a Bourne care home and an Aldi store in Grantham.
The consultation process linked to an application for an Aldi store on Uffington Road, Stamford provoked local calls for a similar store here in The Deepings.
Earlier today, I was one of two members of the Planning Committee invited to attend a four hour Planning and Design Panel meeting with developers, planners, highways officials and other professionals to discuss various major applications across the District which are in the pipeline.
A team representing Aldi were at the PAD meeting to discuss their Stamford application and I can say they confirmed they are taking the call for a Deepings Aldi seriously and are already considering potential local sites.
(The Stamford Aldi application – for a brownfield site Deepings side of Morrisons is to be determined by Committee on 30th September).
This month I have attended meetings of the Environment OSC and the Finance, Economic and Corporate.
Cllr Phil Dilks, District and Parish Councillor 27 August 2020
DeepingDo - The blog of Ashley Baxter, Independent Councillor and founder member of the Deepings Rebel Alliance! 