Could do better

Bolsover's auditors have just published their annual governance report, and for the third year in a row it puts Bolsover at the back of the class. It has no fewer than 17 recommendations, 13 adjudged to be of high importance and concludes that the Council has important weaknesses in internal control.

Here’s a few exceprts

• Fundamental errors in the total comprehensive income and expenditure; the movement in reserves statement and the cash flow statement.
• Ongoing capacity issues that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency
• 14 material errors and numerous non-material non-trivial errors theses issues could have and should have been identified by our own review processes
• Significant scope to develop your arrangements for securing financial resilience
• Critical that the Council takes action to move to a single fit for purpose asset register
• Significant governance weakness in contract arrangements
• A number of agreed recommendations that have not been implemented from previous audit letters and reports

Does it matter? - well when you can’t account for the assets you've got it's hard to inspire public confidence in the purchase of Clowne Campus. Other issues raised by the auditors include a £176K under provision of Council tax debts, £157K under provision for Housing Benefit overpayments, £98K of six year old debts that need to be written-off, a £256K provision for an equal pay claim and a £25K bill for all the extra work that they have had to do on Bolsover’s behalf.

Probably most damning of all is the observation that although the Council needs to make savings of £6.5M over the three year period 2011/12 to 2013/14 yet by Sept 2011 it would appear that all Council members had not received a comprehensive overview of the progress in delivering the agreed level of savings. That comment is wrong of course, it should now say November instead of September.

None of this is new, the red lights have been flashing for years. Last January when responding to the previous auditors letter, the Leader, Cllr Watts, said that he wouldn't accept another critical report pointing out that in times of austerity if your financial data is wrong you can make serious decisions to sack staff, or close services, when it is not required. Looks like he was wrong on the first point but right on the second.

Increasing the number of accountants is a necessary but not a sufficient response. The problem runs a bit deeper than that. Some acceptance of responsibility from the Councillors of the Cabinet and Audit Committee would start the process of change but a complete review of the political and leadership culture that has given rise to this systemic failure is long overdue.

Alkane

I normally talk about Bolsover issues here but having looked at the DT this week it seems I've now got strong competition!

So for Whitwellians and Creswellians I must comment on Thursday's public meeting of Whitwell Against Alkane. I had invited Tamsin Hart from the new landowners, the Homes and Communities Agency, following my meeting with her in September. I hoped she would deliver some long awaited good news and I wasn’t disappointed. In her own words Alkane are "off the table" and any, (repeat any, yes that means any - I checked) offers to buy the site will require approval from Bolsover Council.

Thanks to Kev, Julie, Helen, Naomi and all who have supported Whitwell against Alkane we have achieved a hell of a lot - as Tamsin herself said "I think you've frightened them" - not a bad tactics that - never doubt what a well co-ordinated public campaign can achieve.


Duncan

Comments Please

I've just found out that you can't post a coment to you own blog (or at least I can't) so here's a reply to a comment left by an annomyous person regarding my latest posting. Please feel free to add your own views.

Hi, thanks for contributing always good to debate - be better still if you were prepared to put your name to your comments.

On the  Cavendish family - the nuclear family (married double income two kids) is as much a minority as the elderly, disabled or people from an ethnic background. I just think the Council could explain itself better if it talked about services to all these groups rather than pandering to one stereotype.

More widely I have disagreed with Bolsover Councillors on the key issues of member’s allowances, closure of public toilets, public engagement, cuts in cleansing services, financial planning and on the purchase of the Clowne college site. You are perfectly entitled to disagree with me, but many people have also shown their support on these issues. Surely it is important to have a debate?

As the title suggests this blog is about Bolsover not Whitwell. I cover Whitwell in my newsletter and at my surgery. However as you ask I think I remain the only elected representative to travel (at my own expense) to Leeds to meet the HCA as soon as they became the new owners of the site proposed for the Alkane plant, make them aware of the extent of the opposition to their plans and invite them to Thursday's public meeting - I'll be there so if you are as well may-be we can have a longer chat. I’ve also arranged meetings with both Welbeck and Creswell Crags and met with the manager of the Leader project to explore the possibility of grant aid for Whitwell. In addition I have a long list of individual surgery issues that I have resolved for constituents.

As for being an MP, our candidates are selected  by Green Party Members. I had the honour of being selected for Chesterfield at the last election.  Probably one thing we can agree on is that from the Green Party perspective Bolsover as a target ward comes a long, long, long way down the list. We’ve fought hard to get Caroline Lucas elected in Brighton and she is doing an excellent job, but Dennis has one of the safest Labour seats in the country so I whilst it is heartening to hear you think that I am on the campaign trail the reality is more mundane I am simply challenging decisions which seem to me, and to many other people, to be wrong.

Finally I get the feeling that you don’t think I am tackling local issues. If that is the case then please come along to my next surgery outside the Co-op this Saturday at 2pm and tell me what these issues are.       

Best wishes,

Duncan

Tears of a Cowne

I've sent this to the Derbyshire Times:

Tears of a Clowne

Amongst all the hype about the decision by Bolsover Council to purchase Clowne College Campus here’s a few facts:

1.       Morrison’s have not agreed to purchase Sherwood Lodge, nor have they applied for planning permission.

2.       Clowne College was built with public money. Bolsover residents are now being asked to buy-back what they already own.

3.       Bolsover Council is cutting its office use by 40% through new technology and won’t even need all the classroom space at Clowne let alone 12.5 acres of pitches, workshops, sports facilities, canteen and a nursery all of which it will liable for rates.

4.       Clowne Campus was built to a high spec because we need to equip young people with the best skills for them to succeed. Instead of stripping its assets, Bolsover Council should be campaigning to prevent its closure. A supermarket in Bolsover may be convenient but it’s training not shopping that will get our economy out of recession.

5.       Sherwood Lodge is not yet 20 years old, built by the same Labour Councillors who now complain that it is inefficient. But they haven’t told us the costs of the “extras” like providing the IT and telephony services along with reception areas and provision for public meetings in Clowne campus.

It has been suggested to me that having over-inflated their allowances Labour Councillors are adopting the same approach to their office requirements. However if they think that the recession has bottomed out, and now’s the time to speculate, then they must have more faith in the coalition than I do. Elsewhere other Councils don’t indulge in pipe-dreams but work with communities to create jobs by insulating cold Victorian homes, providing solar panels, paying a living wage, supporting local businesses, improving green spaces and keeping essential services, like public toilets, open. Bolsover should take note.

Eye, Eye

If you care to part with £1.50 of your hard earned cash you'll find that the decisions of Bolsover Council on Members allowances and closing toilets has justified its inclusion in the "Rotten Borough" section. No comment from me is required.....

Tale of two towns

This is a letter I have sent to the Derbyshire Times.

A tale of two towns.

Cllr Watts, leader of Bolsover DC says he hopes to turn Bolsover into the Bakewell of North Derbyshire. Well it’s fine to have a dream, but the real world is shaped by hard decisions and the simple truth is that better ones are being made by Derbyshire Dales Council.

That Council is opening, not closing, public toilets in Bakewell and they fund a ten day long arts festival in the town, (instead of our excellent, but limited, two day festival held in Shirebrook). We can only be envious of Bakewell’s swimming pool, Fairtrade status, funding for a hydro-electric scheme and better recycling record. However it is the relationships of the Council to its local business that is most enlightening. In Bakewell traders have told the Council that a new supermarket would not benefit their town, where-as in Bolsover, even before a planning application has been submitted, the Deputy Leader is “delighted” to announce that Morrison’s are coming without any apparent regard for the impact on traders.

Derbyshire Dales is far from perfect but at least they seemed to have grasped that the purpose of a Council is to work with, not against, local people. It’s no surprise that their Councillors accepted independent advice and take a basic allowance of £4,100pa, not the £10,000pa that the Labour group in Bolsover pushed through.

Since I was elected I have tried to encourage ordinary people to get involved in Bolsover Council meetings. It’s not easy, and Tim Levers was just the latest to experience the indifference and hostility shown to anyone who tries to engage the labour group in debate. However Tim was, and is, absolutely right to point out that public toilets are not a nicety but an essential service for the most vulnerable in our community. As the only Councillor to vote against closure I’m pleased to offer what support I can and am full of admiration for Tim’s actions. He is not alone, BADGL are also challenging the Council’s proposals to allow green space to be developed. All these people give their own free time, without any payment or expenses because they simply want to build a better Bolsover may-be that’s why the letters pages are so supportive of them. If we really want to become the Bakewell of the North the Labour group have to learn to listen, put all the information they hold in the public domain and engage residents in a proper debate before making decisions.

Cllr Duncan Kerr, Green Party

Thinking twice

I notice that the Derbyshire Times letters pages have been full of complaints about the decision of Bolsover Councillors to close the public toilets. For many of us this may be a minor inconvenience but for some of us it is a major health issue, as this letter makes clear:

Dear Editor,

As Chair of the IBS network, the National Charity for people with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, I know just how important toilet facilities are for anybody who suffers from digestive problems. A public toilet is as necessary for someone with IBS as a dropped pavement is for someone in a wheelchair. Six million people in this country have to live with the indignity of incontinence, the least we can do is to keep the few public toilets we have left open. According to a Help the Aged survey over 80% of elderly people already have difficulty finding a public toilet and as a result too many stay isolated in their own homes.

I understand that Bolsover has an ailing and elderly population and yet the council are planning to close their public toilets. Furthermore, I am informed that 800 people signed the petition against closure. I realise that councils are having to cut services, but it affronts civilised standards of our societies to withdraw such essential public amenities. I hope therefore that Bolsover Council will consider holding a public meeting so that they can hear the views of vulnerable local people before proceeding with such a damaging policy.

Professor Nick Read,

Gastroenterologist and Chair of The IBS Network

Lets hope that Bolsover Councillors at least listen to a Doctor