Ordinary day on the Internet: Japanese bloke in Jason-mask carves game characters with chainsaw. Bioshock's Big Daddy: http://is.gd/9ya5z
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RE: @jamesbarlow So far I've seen singles adverts, charities, something about climate change and a cheap car parts dir… http://disq.us/c9zcl
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Hengrove Park was a 76 acre patch of open ground. Originally Whitchurch Airport, it was given over to public use in the early sixties. Now, it is a mixed-use development. I wrote about it last year, when the budget rose unexpectedly by £5 million:
The Council are the owner of the huge swathe of open land at Hengrove Park, and along with the South West Regional Development Agency, have been putting together a huge plan to monetise that asset. Phase 1 includes a Community Hospital (not quite a proper hospital), the Healthplex (a swimming pool), the South Bristol Skills Academy (not quite a further education college) and a European Headquarters for Australian share-register Computershare. You can see the document from this time last year [2007] proposing the land sale.
The plan is terribly clever. Using a mix of borrowed money, private finance initiative funding and multiple development partners the council propose to “regenerate” an area of South Bristol with the mixed-use Phase 1 described above followed by 1200 new houses. Or possibly 690 houses, or indeed none; Phase 2 requires central government to find a large quantity of cash which they demonstrably do not have.
Unfortunately cleverness is not enough to overcome the poor state of the British Economy. Because the project relies on such a complicated web of partner organisations and financial funding sources, it is extremely important to all concerned that it maintains momentum; were it to be delayed for even a few months the whole deal could unravel, since any money brought to the project from the public sector (i.e. taxpayers’ money) is certainly being borrowed unsustainably, and might disappear like faerie gold.
Bristol City Council is set to pay out £800,000 to settle a dispute with a company that wanted to build the new £21-million leisure centre at Hengrove Park.
Surrey-based D C Leisure Management (DCLM) did not succeed in winning the contract to build the complex.
But the company has threatened to sue the council over the way the tendering process was handled. And rather than face a drawn out and potentially costly legal battle the city council are expected next week to offer the £800,000 settlement.
I have also previously written about the dark art of public procurement, and so it is no surprise that the competing demands of legislatory compliance and funding imperatives have resulted in problems. i.e. “We better build this thing fast before the money gets yanked by Whitehall; oh no, we’ve bolloxed up the procurement.”
It might at first reading appear to be a shake-down of the Council by a sly private operator, but in fact DC Leisure Management might have a basis for a legal challenge. In public procurement, the essence of the compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) philosophy is to ensure that everything is fair and open; particularly because responding to a tender is expensive.
The argument of DCLM (interpreted second hand) appears to be that the works that the winning bidder have carried out for Hengrove Park are substantially different than the the works requested in the tender. Thus, the tender was not carried out according to the rules, and they ought to get some money back to cover their tendering costs (reported as £1.3m).
There is no way to establish who is in the right on this matter, as it has all been solved out of court with a payment equivalent to about £4 from each Bristolian tax payer. So that presumably is the end of that.
But it does stick in one’s craw a bit. In my professional life, if I made an error that cost a client a big wedge of cash I could be sued personally, since I’m a member of a professional society (ish) and I maintain professional liability insurance sufficient to cover multi-million pound losses. (No claims yet!)
Will there be any repercussions for those Council Officers who administered this tender process? Who ran the tender? And if they are not to blame, who is? There are hundreds of £10m+ tenders carried out in the public sector every year in which the failed bidders are not given a refund.
One could argue – as it appears the current administration have – that it is better to pay this money now to prevent project delay, but then again last year the Sports Centre was due to open in April 2010, whereas this year it is due to open in the Autumn of 2011 (I love seasonal dates; very forgiving). The Pool/Sports Centre is already over a year delayed; if the council’s case was that strong, why did they not refer DCLM to the reply given to the plaintiff in the seminal case of Arkell vs Pressdram?
Note – BBC Bristol haven’t objected yet to me posting short segments of their programmes on You Tube as long as they are attributed; hopefully BBC Sheffield have the same view.
This is a segment of The Toby Foster Bigger at Breakfast Show from BBC Sheffield, in which Toby interviews newly elected Mayor of Doncaster, Peter Davies (Eng Dem). Please try not to gnaw through your knuckles when listening to this, as it really is quite painful. A full transcript is available at Luke’s Blog, which was originally published at Andy’s Org.
Doncaster, a city large town in the North of England, is one of relatively few local authorities in the country to have a directly-elected political chief executive – a Mayor. This is a good idea, and I prefer this model of municipal government to Bristol’s “cabinet+chief executive” model where an executive cabinet is formed from elected councillors and express their policy through an appointed Chief Executive.
To avoid further confusion – the concept of an elected Mayor is distinct from (e.g.) the civic office of Lord Mayor of Bristol, which in our city performs the honorary role of “first citizen” and the legislative role of chairing meetings of the full council.
Anyhow, on June 4th, the voters of Doncaster elected Peter Davies of the English Democrats. Interestingly the election used the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, and Mr Davies squeaked through ahead of an independent on the basis of second preference votes. None of the major national parties were even close to being in the running.
Followers of Bristol politics may recall that the English Democrats were the party that hijacked a popular local Facebook group and turned it into a campaigning platform.
The best one can say about this interview – being extremely charitable - is that perhaps Mayor Davies was ill-prepared to discuss detailed policy points. Perhaps he was expecting something a bit more light hearted - "getting fitted for chains of office" and "settling in to the office".
Regardless - the key learning point: there is no such thing as a friendly media interview if you're nominally right of centre. Prepare for the worst.
Some of his points did actually have a reasonable argument behind them. There is a good rationale for getting rid of "diversity" departments, but employment law, contracts of employment and public sector unions all mean that it is not just a case of pointing at people Alan-Sugar-style and yelling "You're fired".
The interviewer also offered a non-sequitur that for a Council to cut in-house translation services "is, under the European Court of Human Rights it’s illegal." But this is simply incorrect. There is no legal obligation from the ECHR or anywhere else to translate routine local authority publications and documents into non-native languages, although there is one relating to criminal charges. Regardless, such a service could be offered more efficiently - on-demand telephone translation or even with Google Translate.
Bristol City Council are concerned that you might be experiencing financial difficulty due to the British recession (now in its sixth month by some measurements). They're not so concerned that they propose to reduce your Council Tax or generally stop throwing money at vanity projects, mind you. So what is the Council's reponse to your hardship?
Council tax statements in Bristol start to hit doorsteps this week (week ending March 13th 2009) - and this year they’ll be accompanied by a leaflet providing useful advice and information to those residents who may be struggling due to the economic downturn.
The aim is to ensure that people facing financial difficulties know what help is available and how to protect themselves. The leaflet contains contact details for organisations that offer support and advice on a range of related matters, including debt, benefits, jobseeking and training.
West at Work is a partnership between a number of agencies that aim to support the economy by making sure that local people have the skills that employers need.
The partnership also supports businesses directly by offering a variety of services to help companies during times of change (such as economic downturn or developments within specific industry sectors).
The project is steered by the Employment and Skills Board, which is made up of public and private sector organisations from across the West of England.
Someone may be steering, but it would appear there's no fuel in the tank. Fortunately for them, the "business support" sector is probably immune to recession as it is largely paid for by taxpayers through central grants. But as to whether all the overlapping providers and their touchy-feely services will be used by local business to produce any real effect, I am highly sceptical.
Consider the following services:
Business health check
A review of all aspects of your business with links to local and national business support networks.
Skills analysis
Identifying current skills and what [sic] will be needed in the future.
Innovation grant
Information about how small and medium sized businesses can gain finance for the research and development of technologically innovative products and processes.
Business forums, information and events
Links to networks and events aimed at helping improve your business.
Skills development and training
Information about leadership and management courses, Apprenticeships, NVQ Level 2, 3 and 4, the Skills Pledge, short programmes in business systems, sales and marketing, finance and much more. Advice is also available about free or subsidised courses.
Skills broker
Free organisational needs analysis and links to funding (such as Train to Gain), specialist industry support and training.
These sort of vague propositions might get picked up by enthusiastic management and buoyant start-ups in the good years, but they will be harder to sell when every penny of expenditure is being reviewed. I'm amused to see that one of the services on offer is a central government scheme called "Real Help":
Financial help[:] Through its ‘real help’ initiative, the government can offer help to viable businesses with temporary cash flow difficulties. This supplements existing support already available.
Well if that's real help, then what sort of help are the other services?
Still, if you see any value in any of that for your business, and if you can find them, then maybe you'll get some sort of benefit out of "The West at Work".
West at Work is a business led [sic] partnership which includes the following organisations: the South West Regional Development Agency, Learning and Skills Council, Jobcentre Plus, Business Link, Connexions, Nextstep, Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bristol City Council, North Somerset Council, South Gloucestershire Council, South West TUC, ACAS, City of Bristol College (representing all local training providers) Government Office South West and the West of England Partnership.
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