Daily Archives: 13 Dec 2016

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13 Dec 2016

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Accountability, Audit (EDDC), Developers/ Development, EDDC, Exmouth, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation, PegasusLife, Sustainability

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Knowle relocation: our construction expert writes … another £2 million down the drain?

The tender price index for British construction has risen 15% since EDDC announced the cost of the Honiton new build in March 2015.

Yet EDDC claim that the £669,000 increase in the cost of Exmouth can be absorbed within the overall budget of £9.2 million. We know that Exmouth was budgeted to cost £1 million, so the budget for Honiton was £8.2 million. We know that Exmouth has been subject to a 67% increase.

What can we expect for Honiton? Assuming that the costs will rise in line with the tender price index, the new cost will be £8.2 million, plus 15%. Which means another £1.23 million, totalling £9.43 million. It will, of course, probably go a lot higher.

Costs have therefore risen by £2 million since March 2015, but anticipated receipts from the sale of Knowle are unchanged. We appear to have lost £2 million – and we haven’t even started!

Will any of this figure in the debate? Probably not – our Tory councillors don’t enjoy discussing numbers that they don’t like!

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13 Dec 2016

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Accountability, Audit (EDDC), EDDC, Exmouth, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation, Richard Cohen

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Knowle relocation: more public statements come back to bite councillors on their …

This passage didn’t get much noticed at the time, in a report to Cabinet March 2015:

‘The market value of the Honiton new build is estimated to be £3.25m in 2017 and Exmouth Town Hall had a site value estimated in 2013 as £0.9m. The sites are determined primarily on the basis that they make better financial sense than the Knowle and are located for operational rather than investment purposes.’

This appears to confirm that the value of the new build is much less than the cost of its construction. Way less. Only £3.25 million, forward dated to 2017. So about £8 million less than the cost of build. Plus, don’t forget that the Honiton site, with or without the Business Centre, is worth at least £0.75 million, so the added value arising from construction, costing £11 million, is £3.25 – 0.75 million. Just £2.5 million. What a terrible investment.

Moreover, the sentence, presumably composed by Richard Cohen, seems to suggest that the Town Hall will not receive any benefit from the refurbishment, as it is deemed to have only ‘site value’ at £0.9 million.

Councillors … wool … eyes … pulled over?

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13 Dec 2016

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Accountability, Consultation, Health and Social Care (local), NHS (local)

How many complaints about North Devon home care project? CCG doesn’t know!

The Freedom of Information request below asked how many complaints CCG had received relating to the home care project in North Devon.

They said they didn’t know.

In which case, how can they say whether the proposal to roll this out to rest of Devon is safe or not?

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/375519/response/908878/attach/html/2/FOI1155%20Internal%20review%20final.pdf.html

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/n_devon_area_complaints_about_th

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13 Dec 2016

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Accountability, Asset sweating, Austerity cuts, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation

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EDDC: what’s more important: protecting essential services or losing money on relocation?

That’s the stark choice facing EDDC councillors tomorrow.

There is NO WAY out of the situation that, relocating to Honiton and Exmouth, will cost an enormous amount of money compared to refurbishing Knowle.

No matter how creative you get with the numbers and how much they are massaged – THAT is the reality.

This is a problem entirely of the majority party’s making:

It willfully neglected Knowle for at least a decade to justify its case for a move:

It deliberately withheld figures on running costs for Knowle to improve its case for a move;

It negligently refused to do a full structural survey on Exmouth Town Hall that massively understated the real cost of refurbishment;

It promised a ” cost neutral” move when that was patently impossible to achieve and where costs have spiralled out of control at dizzying speed;

It wants us to pay a 40 year loan for its new HQ that was never anticipated.

None of this would matter if EDDC was a rich council with vast reserves and a gigantic income.

It is not.

It is a council that is draining its reserves rapidly, selling off its assets at break-neck speed to fund day-to-day costs and whose income, thanks to government cuts, is precarious to say the least.

Yet, almost certainly it will close its eyes, hold its nose, cross its fingers and vote to continue down this path of profligate, ever-increasing expenditure because it is not big enough to admit it made a terrible mistake.

And who will suffer? Not the officers and councillors in their more-expensive-than-ivory tower.

We, the council tax payers, with a debt millstone round our necks for the next 40 years with our diminished or non-existent services.

Your call, councillors, your call.

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13 Dec 2016

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Accountability, Affordable and Social Housing, Austerity cuts, Council tax, Health and Social Care (local)

Council finance officers say social care is under more budget pressure than housing

In CIPFA’s annual CFO confidence survey, 86% of chiefs polled identified adult social care as one of the three service areas under most pressure. Virtually the same percentage also named children’s social care (85%) as under the same pressure, while housing was the third biggest area (named by 41%).

The figures are published as reports indicate the government is set to allow local authorities in England to raise more though the social care precept, which is currently set at 2%.

Sean Nolan, CIPFA’s director of local government, said adult and children’s social care services were still facing the greatest budgetary pressures despite the introduction of the precept for 2016-17.

Powers to set a higher social care precept might come as a welcome relief to many councils, but there is concern that the benefits of the precept fall inconsistently, he added.

“[The] areas least able to raise revenue through council tax are often the areas that have the highest levels of need, and vice versa,” he highlighted. “The sticking plaster of the precept is, in any case, probably too little and too late to stop a major crisis in social care services.”

The survey also found that council finance chiefs are significantly less confident in the ability of their council to keep delivering services in the next financial year in comparison to this year. Over one third (38%) are ‘less confident’ in their organisation’s ability to deliver services in 2017-18, compared to 15% for 2016-17.

Nolan said the evidence CIPFA is receiving indicates that the continuing rise in spending on social care is putting a squeeze on other services.

“Councils can’t defy gravity, keep taking so much money out of the system, and expect all their services to stand up,” he warned.

“CIPFA believes that the government must take a strategic and long-term approach to funding levels for health and social care together, rather than continuing to rely on short-term financial fixes.”

CIPFA sent questionnaires to 443 local authorities in England. This includes councils, police and fire authorities, transport authorities, waste authorities and national parks. Overall, 227 questionnaires were returned giving a survey response rate of 51.2%.

http://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2016/12/cipfa-survey-council-cfos-highlight-social-care-pressures

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13 Dec 2016

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Accountability, Devolution, Golden Triangle LEP, Hinkley C, Local Enterprise Partnership, Scrutiny, Transparency

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The ExTorPly* LEP talks continue

ExTorPly = Exeter, Torquay, Plymouth. It gets complicated if it takes in more councils!

Owl suggests it might be called “Rip the Heart out of the South West LEP”, though the acronym RTHOOTSW LEP is a little clunky, even if it includes the word “hoot” in it. Still not happy about the “Golden Triangle LEP” for obvious reasons! But good to see (part of) Devon standing on its own feet, avoiding being sucked into an LEP where Hinkley C in Somerset takes most of the very little money on offer.

Council leaders in Exeter and Plymouth say they are convinced that a bid for devolution for Devon and Somerset is doomed to fail.

Fifteen councils across the region have been working on a joint bid to take over powers and funding now controlled by Whitehall.

But the Heart of the South West has reached a sticking point over the Government’s insistence that significant devolution will require an elected mayor for the region.

As we reported last week, Plymouth and Exeter refused to go along with a vote for all 15 councils to work exclusively with the Heart of the South West local enterprise partnership.

David Thomas, the leader of Torbay’s Conservatives, said later that they too would support a rival bid with Plymouth and Exeter.

The two councils said they had written to colleagues across the region “to assure them of their ongoing commitment to joint working to improve skills, productivity and infrastructure in the Heart of the South West”.

They said they were fully committed to working with the other 13 councils on a joint productivity plan – but would continue to explore other opportunities.

“We believe that there will be no significant devolution deal for tuhe Heart of the South West given the lack of a consensus on the issue of an elected mayor/leader with responsibility for receiving devolved powers and financial resources from Whitehall,” they said.

“The Government’s position on this has been very clearly outlined by the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid.

“We feel it would be remiss of us not to explore the sub-regional opportunities for further and faster delivery of economic growth with a deal that doesn’t rule out an elected mayor/leader as described above.”

A meeting of the Heart of the South West leaders’ and chief executives’ group on Friday heard that Plymouth and Exeter councils had met with Torbay to discuss the potential to work together on a sub-regional level to drive economic growth further and faster.

Today’s letter defends the “exploratory discussions”, which were not attended by Torbay’s Mayor, Gordon Oliver.

http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/plymouth-defends-secret-talks-over-super-mayor/story-29977395-detail/story.html