26% of council staff dissatisfied - this latest move will only cause that figure to rise

Why is a Labour council eliminating the role of councillors in hearing appeals when council officers are facing the sack or demotion?  No other Lancashire council has gone down this route.

The role of councillors is an important check and balance in staff relations and boy do we need it at West Lancashire council.  In October it was reported that a very significant 26% of council staff are unable to say that West Lancs council is a good organisation to work for. 

I’ve sensed this.  For example, two staff ‘whistleblowed’ to me in 2021/22 when none had done so in the previous 20 plus years.  One of these cases involved the lack of controls when procuring refurbishments at the Derby  Street offices which led to strong formal criticism from the external auditors and a hefty price tag of c. £900,000.

Officers raising legitimate concerns about the operation of the council need to have channels to raise those concerns with councillors.  This inexplicable change narrows that further and puts West Lancashire in a class of its own in the way it (mis)treats its officers.  That 26% dissatisfaction figure looks likely to increase further.

Remembering Councillor Ian Davis

My short speech at Council Meeting 5 April 2023

Remembering my friend, Councillor Ian Davis - 1941-2023

We have a seat empty for all the wrong reasons this evening; that of my friend, colleague and Deputy Chairman of the OWL Group Ian Davis who died on Monday.  It was very rapid as he contracted sepsis which led to organ failure.

Ian was one of the three musketeers along with Cllr Jane Thompson and myself who launched Our West Lancashire in January 2015 and he has been there ever since.  He brought his wealth of life experience to our group and to the wider council.  Sadly, I don’t feel that enough weight was sometimes given to Ian’s interventions perhaps being dismissed as an idea from an opposition councillor or just someone long retired. 

In fact, Ian held senior roles in business including being a former Managing Director of a UK PLC, Thomas Robinson and Son who made flour milling machinery used locally here at Ainscough Mill in Burscough but also around the world.  He travelled extensively globally in the role and to the City of London.  Ian was a fount of stories and he told me of some scrapes escaping from Iran in 1979 at the time of the fall of the Shah.

Ian was a qualified accountant and continued to practice, never 'hanging up his ledgers'.  I know he regularly helped out local residents with financial matters without charge.  His stewardship of Westhead Village Hall has transformed the facility and it will stand as a reminder of Ian for many years to come.

A native of East Lancashire and a keen Burnley supporter, Ian was a talented footballer playing centre forward in his younger years and also played Lancashire League cricket.  He was widowed relatively young, but subsequently he met Tish and his love for her brought him to a new home in West Lancashire and Westhead and his involvement with Our West Lancashire and this council.

Ian, I miss you already.  Your OWL colleagues miss you.   Your absence will be felt keenly wider still.  May you rest in peace. 

Why I couldn't vote to approve the Council Annual Plan Report

My speech at the West Lancashire Borough Council meeting 20th July 2022.  The vote at the end of the debate supported my position and the Council Plan Annual Report was not approved.  In my recollection a Council Plan Annual Report has never been rejected previously.  

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The Annual Report contains a positive record of the steps taken by the council over the past 12 months.  It reflects the hard work and efforts of the council’s staff and I want to thank them for that.  There are numerous achievements in the report about which they can be justifiably proud.

However, this year I cannot support the recommendations to approve this report, as I'll explain.

The current report is heavy on commentary but lacks measures of success in some areas.  Giving one example, it states that a series of mobile CCTV cameras for tackling fly-tipping and environmental crime were deployed but provides no measure of their impact.  Our West Lancashire have been asking for information on this for months with no substantive reply.

The format of the report is backward looking.  It gives the perception of being written after the event with positive successes included.  Sometimes repeated from previous year’s reports.  There will be a new Council Plan being formulated this year to commence from next April and it needs to be forward-looking, setting SMART objectives with the Annual report on the progress of the plan reporting against those objectives.

It is highly selective in its reporting not always acknowledging the challenges faced and the actions taken to remedy them.  No one reading the report where it says: “Development of our Local Plan 2023-2040 progressed with 291 respondents to the Issues and Options consultation that will inform the next stage of the Plan. A revised Local Development Scheme was approved in March.” Would know that the revised Local Development Scheme approved, had to extend the timetable for the adoption of the new Local Plan by 8 months because of the departure of the majority of the Planning Policy team with a deliberate decision to delay replacement of staff in some posts.  There is more that could be said on this in a confidential forum, but the Report before us does not even mention the delay. 

Another example would be in the finance section where there is no mention at all of the fact that the Council Accounts for the year ended in March 2021 – 16 months ago have still not been externally audited and where the external auditors are highly critical of the council’s performance saying they did not receive the council’s financial statements until November, and then due to long delays in council officers answering questions the external auditors had to pause the audit in March this year.  They had hoped to resume the audit by now, but our finance officers are still working on outstanding areas.

Our internal audit identified that no assurance could be given in relation to the financial controls relating to the procurement of refurbishment works here at Derby Street and at Robert Hodge Centre – this on a spend close to £1million.  Yet it is not even mentioned in the annual report.  Instead, we have a quote from James Pierce [the Council's Chief Finance Officer] on Page 18 of the report worthy of Dr Pangloss.  It is a pity Mr Pierce is not present tonight to justify his optimism.

Again, just this morning, I learned that the Local Government Ombudsman found maladministration by the council relating to two incidents last year.

I’ve been a councillor for 23 years.  Never in that time have I had council staff approach me on a confidential basis – whistle blowers if you will, until this year.  This year it happened twice.  I advised use of the formal whistleblowing policy in both instances.  I don’t minimise the enormous step it is for a council employee to contact a councillor about internal matters and so to say I was taken aback by this course of events is a large understatement.  It’s clear to me that staff morale is not what it should be and we all need to work to address that.  Indeed, staff turnover was very high last year and I know of more than one staff member who didn’t leave for better terms and conditions. 

An Annual Council Plan Report needs to be more than a PR document.  It needs to honestly reflect the challenges the council has and the corrective steps to be taken.  I am afraid this report does not do that.     

Why I abstained on Pride Flag motion last night

 I am acutely aware of how strongly people feel about this matter.  I am also acutely aware that a person's motivations can be easily misconstrued accidently, or in the field of politics, maliciously.  Therefore I wanted to set down my reasons for abstaining on last night's vote on a motion relating to West Lancashire Pride.

I abhor hatred and the actions which such an emotion often generates.  Everyone in our society, from the moment of conception to natural death has the rightful expectation to be treated with respect.  Equally, I consider I have a duty to show respect in my dealings with others, though I know I may
sometimes fall short.

I am Vice Chairman of the Birchwood Centre in Skelmersdale.  I am proud that we support those people who most need our help irrespective of their background or characteristics.  That includes LGBT young people. 

On that basis I had no problem with supporting items 2, 3 and 4 in the motion (relating to hate crime reporting; hate crime awareness week and the use of council offices on the same basis as other community groups by the West Lancashire Pride Group).

My concern came with item 1 which sought to purchase and fly a Pride flag over the council offices every June.

I asked council officers what our flag flying policy is.  It appears we don't have one, as I haven't received a reply to my question.  We fly the Union Flag and the Flag of St George as our national flags.

When it comes to flying other flags I believe that the starting point would be to consult the public on a flag flying policy as other councils have done.  

There are considerations of fairness and practicality.  What about showing our support for people with disabilities by flying a flag?  Or Black Lives Matter?  Or what about support for women facing violence from men - topical in the wake of the Sarah Everard case?  Or more prosaically, the local heritage group or Association of local funeral directors?  How does the council decide if it doesn't first consult local people on a flag flying policy?   

Flying flags needs to be a source of cohesion.  In the run up to the Brexit referendum it would surely have been unwise for the council to fly the EU flag given the division in society?  Last night the council singled out one section of the community.  I am very aware of the abuse: verbal, mental and physical that people who are perceived as different have to face in our society and here in West Lancashire.  However, I'm not convinced that the decision made will help the situation of those members of the LGBTQIA+ community locally who suffer injustice and hate. 

There are some in favour of flying the Pride Flag whose views I would object to and equally there are some who oppose the flying of the flag whose views I find objectionable.  This blog post is an attempt to explain my reasoning and avoid others ascribing views to me that I do not hold.

Tawd Valley Developments - Taking from the Poor

Introduction and Constraints

I have put my name to a motion (18c) to wind down Tawd Valley Development Ltd (TVDL) the Borough’s Council’s 100% owned development company.  There has recently been some comment in the media – traditional and social – on this matter and I wanted to set down my reasons for supporting the motion. 

Most of the information has been determined to be private and confidential.  I disagree with this.  There are only small pieces of information that are commercially sensitive and they could be redacted.  Other information should be available to the public.  Nevertheless, I remain constrained in what I say and have erred on the side of caution in this blog piece and removed most financial figures.  However, all this confidential information is available to all councillors and much of it should be in the public domain.

How TVDL started

Firstly, it helps to understand the genesis of this Company.  Around 2016/17, the then ruling Labour Group started work on their now abandoned local plan proposals – the one that proposed 16,000 new houses many of them over West Lancashire’s green belt and to house many people from out of the area.  This was in line with central Conservative Government policy to build, build, build.  In fact, the Conservative County Council supported Labour’s local plan proposals.  So, it was no surprise that the council were able to get a Government grant to work up the idea of a Council Development Company to capitalise on all this expected house building with the new local plan.

Then our concerns grew.  The Council engages Savills to carry out the preparatory work for the Development Company.  Well, who should be a Director of the local Savills office at the time but Simon Waller who was also Lord Derby’s land manager?  The links between the local plan proposals and the Development Company were becoming clear.  My Colleague Ian Davis spoke publicly on the matter here at the time.  It was hardly surprising then that at around the same time the local plan proposals emerged which would have seen huge tracts of Green Belt released for Development much of it on Lord Derby’s land! 

The scene was being set for the Council to purchase land and then remove the land from green belt.  Following this it would grant itself planning permission and then, the icing on the cake, use its own development company to build hundreds of homes on this land.    Through OWL intervention, the proposals to appoint Savills personnel as non-Executive Directors on the Development Company was thankfully shelved. 

Opposition grows

However, this is where the well-laid plans started to go awry.  Firstly, there was opposition within Labour ranks to the formation of TVDL.  So, the decision to move ahead was delayed in October 2018.  By the time Labour had resolved their internal disagreements to approve the formation of the Development Company in February 2019 the local plan consultation had taken place and the opposition of the general public to the plans to build 16,000 houses was starting to become clear. 

Yet the business plan that councillors approved in February 2019 to establish TVDL was still working to the premise that the local plan proposals would go ahead and therefore a huge eight-figure loan facility from the Council to the new Company was approved in spite of opposition from myself and other councillors.  The business plan also approved the provision of a seven-figure sum in equity contributions straight from council reserves.  These are to cover the running costs of TVDL which are significant.  The MD post being advertised at a salary of £100,000 alone.  These equity payments are phased every 6 months for up to 5 years and so are a significant drain on council resources at a time when we have a significant budget gap.  My colleague Cllr Davis, a professional accountant and former MD of a listed Engineering PLC pointed out strongly that this was the wrong way to support the company as equity in shares is harder to extract from the company than additional loan would be.  

Changes of Direction and Delays

Looking back at that business plan is instructive because it shows how things have moved away from their original intention: 

·         The council report states that the first development was supposed to start in September 2019 and the first houses would be occupied in March 2020.  So called Phase 2 sites were due to commence on site in June 2020 yet none have yet started.  Those timescales were missed by a country mile yet officers have stated in a small section of another report to councillors this week that “all schemes on target to be completed within the agreed timescales”.  That is clearly inaccurate and has the effect of misleading newer councillors and the general public.  It’s not the only partial information provided in the public report to councillors as I’ll comment later in this piece.

·         The business plan said 29 of the Phase 1 homes would be for market sale, yet not one is being built because of concerns over risk.  Yet councillors are expected to believe that the risk equation will alter when considering officer forecasts for market sales in 2023 and 2024.  The officer forecasts in February 2019 were clearly awry.  They may be so again.

·         The business plan in February 2019 setting up the company approved unspecified Phase 3 sites which were clearly intended to be sites made available as the local plan proceeded.  Well things rapidly changed on that score.  When Labour saw the feedback from the public consultation on the Local Plan proposals in March 2019, they paused it.  When they lost 4 seats in the May 2019 elections, they ditched the Local Plan altogether.

This was good news in many ways but it left a Development Company without the much-needed flow through of development sites for market sale needed to cover its fixed costs and start to show a surplus.  By the February 2020 business plan, the significant delays from the previous year’s business plan were confirmed and the financial figures such as they were (no detailed profit and loss projection was provided) showed significance variance from previously and much uncertainty.  Later in 2020 the Company’s Chief Executive and Head of Development both left to be replaced.  Still the pattern of overpromise and underdeliver continued.  The business plan talked about sites for 369 houses in the Borough but 17 months later the number now being considered has shrunk to modest two figures and none of these have progressed to planning permission.  The April 2022 start date is impossible.

The better way to build council homes

So, we have a housing company with significant running costs being paid from the council’s general reserves and with wholesale change to the original concept and targets missed every year.  The original concept to build a mix of housing with houses for market sale in the majority has become a concept delivering solely 100% council housing.

As a Council Portfolio Holder, I delivered new council housing as part of the Firbeck Revival.  I delivered the new council homes at Elmstead (the first to be built for 15 years) and I started the Beechtrees revival.  All of these schemes were developed without the need for a Development Company – the council contracted directly with building contractors.  Indeed, the council has also delivered houses for market sale before the TVDL was established with the successful scheme on Walmsley Drive next to the Council Offices in Ormskirk. 

So, TVDL is not essential for the development of new homes in the Borough by the council, but worse still it is being set up to become a financial wheeze to siphon money from the rents paid by council tenants, typically among the less well off, to support the General Fund of the Council which provides services across the board benefitting some of the most affluent in society.

Taking from the Poor

How does this happen?  TVDL has no revenue source from outside the council.  Every incoming pound into the company is generated from within the council.  As TVDL is only building houses for the council then the funding for these houses is coming from the rents paid by tenants plus some modest funds from a small % of the proceeds of a council house sale that the council is permitted to spend in such a way.

There’s a document called the 30-year Housing Revenue Account Business Plan that officers have not shared with councillors [I have shared it with all councillors at the time of publishing this blog piece].  As a former Housing Finance Portfolio Holder, I knew of this document and had to make repeated requests, escalated up to the Chief Operating Officer before I finally received a copy of the current document just 24 hours before councillors considered TVDL’s 2021 business plan in February 2021.  It was clear when I received it why officers appeared to be so loathe to share it with councillors.  The business plan shows that there are available funds of between £4.5 million and £5.5 million every year in the Housing Revenue account.

Once rents are collected and all day-to-day housing revenue account expenditure is dealt with; and once the agreed capital programme for larger works to keep the houses maintained; and once the interest payments on our housing debt are paid, then there is around £5million available to spend.

Have councillors ever been asked to have a debate on how this money is spent?  No.  Some will be needed for the building of new council houses – yes.  However, some is also need to commence a third revival project to follow on the successes of Firbeck and Beechtrees and some is also needed to improve the energy efficiency of our existing near 6000 council homes to reduce fuel poverty and take a big step to being a carbon neutral council by 2030.  Greater Manchester councils are launching an ambitious retrofitting programme on their housing stock.  We are not even in the starting blocks on the race to carbon zero. 

Neither a 3^rd revival or energy efficiency on homes has been getting a look in because all the £5million surplus is being pushed through TVDL to cover for the fact that the original concept for the Development Company was a cul-de-sac, and in an attempt to balance the books and cover up the embarrassment of senior people.

I have complaints from tenants in Birch Green and Ormskirk about significant damp and insulation concerns on their properties and they aren’t getting a decent response from the council because all the headroom £5million is being diverted through TVDL.

The bogus “profit”

TVDL charges a Developer’s fee of 10% on all developments.  As I point out above, this isn’t a route the council needs to take.  It built council homes at Firbeck; Elmstead and Beechtrees in the past decade without this financial arrangement.  So, we are getting 10% fewer council homes than we  need to, even if it is considered that all the £5million should go into new council house building.

TVDL’s 10% Developer’s Fee then becomes its “profit” (Remember that General Council Reserves are already covering TVDL’s significant running costs) and it is this “profit” that council officers trumpet will come back to the General Fund as a dividend from 2022/23 in their report on another part of the agenda for this week’s council meeting.  Again, this is a partial presentation of the facts.  Once the equity payment from Council Reserves is included the “profit” becomes a “loss” but councillors aren’t informed of this.

So, money is siphoned from the Housing Account to the General Account but the overall financial position of West Lancashire Borough Council is no stronger, indeed it is worse.  Council reserves are being ploughed in to cover TVDL running costs and incredibly if a dividend is paid in 2022/23 then because of the arrangement with TVDL, 19% of it will need to be paid to the Government in Corporation tax – all from a “profit” that has not been generated from anywhere outside the council and so is a financial loss to our area.

It is quite wrong to deal with council house tenants rent monies in this way.  There are strict rules to prevent the Housing Account subsidising the General Account.  Now, this may be a clever and legal “wheeze” around those rules – I don’t know, but it doesn’t make it right.  When I was Finance Portfolio Holder, I was faced with how the costs of grass cutting should be fairly split across the General and Housing Accounts.  We came up with a rule that, so far as I know is still in place, which ensured that whenever a council house was sold the amount charged to the housing account was reduced and to the General Fund increased.  This went down to changes of £100.  That’s how important it is that council house tenants are not paying for grass cutting in Rufford or bin emptying in Aughton – services that are to be funded from the General Account.  Yet through TVDL that is exactly what is happening to the rent money of tenants across the Borough.

This is the main concern I have and why I will be supporting the motion on Wednesday evening though I’ve listed many more above and there are countless horror stories of Council Development Companies around the country.  The motion is also welcome in pointing to an alternative approach in saying that we should build council homes directly and also by releasing £1.2million for energy efficiency measures on our existing housing.  I hope a third revival can also be started with a slice of that £5 million.

If the community aren’t involved in drawing up town centre development plans don’t be surprised when they get a big thumbs down

There is something drastically wrong with the way the Borough Council plans new projects for Ormskirk Town Centre.

Yet again this week, there has been a large public outcry to proposals to remove the ‘pagoda’ in Wheatsheaf Walk.  If this was a one-off then my opening paragraph is contestable, but it’s part of a pattern.

 

Last year, the council worked closely with a Developer and put out plans, as part of a planning application for a new 4 storey re-development of Ormskirk Bus Station.  The public were outraged as this was the first any of them had heard of the proposal.  There are two Our West Lancashire councillors in the ward covered by the Bus Station.  We knew nothing until the plans were published either.  The plans were later dropped.

 

Prior to that, stone slab seating which is cold and hard and unpopular was installed in the town centre without even the courtesy of my being informed, never mind being consulted.

 

The truth is that these projects for ‘pagoda’ removal; bus station re-development; and the like are dreamed up in a small office in the council buildings by ‘one head’ or at best, very few.  As they are not subject to the scrutiny of ‘many heads’ including the many residents with talents and professional skills who reside in West Lancashire, they land half-baked and the reaction of the public is a matter of luck.

 

It’s time we started to approach these projects in a more inclusive way.  There is the old idiom that ‘a camel is a horse designed by committee’, but this has always struck me as a silly phrase.  If I was in the desert, I’d much rather be riding a camel.  I prefer ‘many heads are better than one’.

 

A new process needs to be devised by the council to include a wider range of views at an earlier stage when concepts for new developments in our centres (this applies to Skelmersdale and Burscough as much as Ormskirk).  For changes in Conservation Areas, the council ran an Advisory Panel for many years.  It wasn’t perfect, but such a panel looking at concepts for Developments in our town centres might be worth considering.

One thing’s for sure.  The residents of Ormskirk care passionately about what the council proposes in the town centre.  Residents still raise the demolition of the King’s Arms more than a half-century later.  Council officers and the current powers-that-be would do well to remember that memories last a long time with these matters and adopt a less high-handed approach in future.

How NOT to make a decision and NOT bring the public, staff and traders along with you

Seldom can I recall a council decision so poorly made and so poorly justified as the council’s planned changes to the operation of Ormskirk market from April.

I’d much prefer to be able to show you the officer report which went to the council’s cabinet and critique it, but the report is private and confidential and it seems from the reaction of the council since then, that the attitude of “least said, soonest mended” prevails.  Unfortunately for the council, public disquiet understandably continues, so I will try to shed some light on the matter.

The decision was taken by the council cabinet (7 Labour councillors who hold the senior decision-making positions) in June last year to approve changes to the operation of the market from April 2020.  The report before councillors gave the impression that the changes were required to save money and that the market traders had been widely consulted and were in favour of the changes.  The report was passed by the councillors on cabinet in less than 1 minute with no questions asked or comments made.

Our West Lancashire wanted to ask the officers who wrote the report some questions at the subsequent scrutiny committee, but no relevant officer attended the meeting.  This pattern of rapid decisions by cabinet followed by no chance for effective scrutiny is a sustained pattern at the council.  The first three questions I asked at Overview and Scrutiny Committee this year received the answer “We don’t know” from the officers present. 

So, in Our West Lancashire we set about our own investigations.  We discovered financial inconsistencies in the reported financial position of the market.  The report to cabinet in June presented a financial position based on budgeted figures for the current year, not the previous year’s actual figures.  Expenditure is usually overestimated.  In addition, the financial figures presented to cabinet included costs for “pilots” involving gazebos that the council stated in the same report would end.  If that was the case, those costs should have been removed from the figures presented to councillors.

We carried out a survey of market traders.  It was clear that there had been no meaningful consultation with the traders by the council and the council subsequently confirmed to us that they have never asked the market traders if they are in favour of the proposed changes.  Our West Lancashire asked and found that only 1 in 5 traders supported the changes.  

An inclusive, self-learning organisation involves, consults and seeks improvements from its employees.  I will be careful what I say here, but I can say that the council employees who put up the market stalls were not involved in the proposed changes and their ideas were not sought by their managers.  Up to sixteen of these staff face receiving redundancy notices in the coming weeks.

So, in the autumn, Our West Lancashire started raising concerns with council officers and cabinet members.  We raised the profile of the matter through press releases and Facebook postings.  Throughout, the council has deemed that it does not need to comment on or justify its actions in any way.  This is not the sign of a organisation confident in its rationale at the service of its population.

We asked for information on the financial inconsistencies.  It was finally received only after repeated requests and many weeks late.

Residents contacted Labour cabinet members asking for an explanation of the changes to be made.  Those residents have not received substantive responses after several months.

We raised questions with the council’s health and safety manager.  After two weeks he went away on holiday with the questions unanswered.

I raised concerns with the portfolio holder, Councillor Yates in November.  He promised to keep me updated about his discussions with officers.  Nothing.

I asked questions of the Council Leader, Councillor Moran in the council meeting in December.  No answers.

I corresponded again with Councillor Yates at the beginning of January… well you can guess the result.

There are aspects of the council’s plans for the market that make good sense to me, but others raise real concerns.  It’s difficult for me to talk about all those in detail because the report is private and confidential, but the council could easily release large parts of it into the public domain without breaching commercial confidence.

If the council think that least said, soonest mended will continue to stand them in good stead they are mistaken, they will pay a price.  In the meantime, they could start to rebuild some trust by fully answering the questions put to them and justifying the decisions they have made.