Regular readers of these ramblings from the Borders will know that local statistics on homelessness recently showed the number of applications for help have risen sharply over the last two years, in defiance of the national downward trend in most of the rest of Scotland.
The latest revelation that the number of 'affordable' homes completed in the Scottish Borders Council (SBC) area in 2013/14 fell well below the required level will have done little to ease the problems of those classed as homeless and will have frustrated the efforts of the housing sector to bring about improvements in the supply of social accommodation.
A Borders housing strategy prepared by the council estimated our region would need 564 new homes in each of the five years from 2012 to 2017, including 103 in the so-called 'affordable' category. That figure represented a significant increase on the 81 social sector completions in each of the preceding five years.
But a mere 72 completions were achieved in 2013/14, according to a performance report from the council. Now SBC, which ceased to become a housing authority in 2003 and hadn't built a single council house from its formation in 1996, is to lead a housebuilding programme for 2014 to increase supply.
The 2003 sale of its 6,700 tenanted houses to Scottish Borders Housing Association means the council, together with five other local authorities who chose the stock transfer option, is not eligible for Scottish Government grant funding worth, in total, some £80 million. This enabled local authorities to build almost 3,300 new homes in a single year.
Meanwhile Scotland's Registered Social Landlords (RSL), including four Borders-based organisations, are finding it more difficult to borrow from the private sector to pay for housing programmes. Between them the 162 RSLs in Scotland have combined borrowings of £3.5 billion and are making interest payments of £120 million each year.
The increased cost of borrowing is said to be having a detrimental impact on the ability of RSLs to deliver sufficient numbers of affordable homes. So an increasing number of councils have been seeking permission from Scottish Ministers to borrow substantial amounts of cash to be "on-lended" to housing associations.
Loans totalling £13 million from SBC to local landlords are expected to pay for 160 homes for rent in several communities. And there could be more of this type of arrangement in future following a Scottish Government Finance Circular which means local authorities will not need to seek the permission of Ministers to on-lend to RSLs for affordable housing projects.
The sale of Borders council houses barely a decade ago resulted in the UK Treasury wiping out the £81 million of loan debt owed to the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) which financed their construction in the first place.
Now the resources of the PWLB are required to solve the latest Borders housing problems, and a council with no houses has been arranging the loans on behalf of third parties. We must hope there is a positive outcome for all concerned.
Sunday, 29 June 2014
Friday, 27 June 2014
Tweedbank and trains... the prequel
A few minutes after posting my last epistle on the subject of hubs and powerhouses I experienced an unexpected bout of deja vu: a strong feeling that the words I'd penned about railways and Tweedbank may well have appeared in print in the dim and distant past.
The uncertainty this planted in my mind kept niggling away. Should I remove my offering from cyberspace via the delete button? Had I just plagiarised another writer's work and claimed it as my own? I wrestled with my conscience, hoping against hope that I had not committed such a heinous "crime".
Then, suddenly, in a flash, everything became crystal clear as my often faulty memory took me back 44 years to a time when Tweedbank and trains were the main topics for a House of Commons adjournment debate soon after Dr. Beeching's cruel axe fell on the Waverley line, and the Tweedbank scheme was beset by legal wrangling, Court of Session actions and public inquiries.
In those days Tweedbank was described as a trigger rather than a hub or a powerhouse. The numbers living in the Borders had been decreasing for decades so the experts came up with a plan to bring 25,000 extra souls into the counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles to redress the population imbalance.
A Government White Paper published in 1966 contained proposals for a thousand houses and associated factories in the centre of David Steel's sprawling rural constituency. But the trigger to Central Borders prosperity could not be activated until the developers grabbed a large parcel of farmland near Melrose belonging to Ian and Constance Hamilton.
The Hamiltons were very unwilling sellers, and put up a strong and costly fight to hang on to their farm. Hence the aforementioned lawsuits and public inquiries which dragged on for years.
Tweedbank was afforded top priority status by local councillors and their officials, all of them keen to pull that trigger. But the issue appears to have been a mere sideshow for Westminster's politicians. Mr Steel and his fellow Borders MP John Mackintosh had to wait until fifteen minutes to midnight on 20 July 1970 to have their say. I'm willing to bet there were few honourable members in the chamber to hear our region's cry for help.
The young Mr Steel had been re-elected to Parliament a few weeks earlier after surviving numerous re-counts at a nail-biting counting of the votes in Jedburgh town hall. And Edward Heath, an advocate of development hubs in Central Scotland and on Tyneside rather than investment for rural areas, was the new Prime Minister.
"I wanted to know whether the Government regarded themselves as still committed to the Tweedbank Scheme", said Mr Steel. "No-one with any sense of public responsibility or social conscience could fail to recognise the need to get ahead with the development and to allow no further obstruction."
Mr Steel had played a major part in the unsuccessful campaign to prevent the closure of the Waverley rail line in 1969. He warned that if the railway formation land was sold off piecemeal, there would never again be any possible future use for this through route in the Borders region.
Now the northern section of the railway is about to be reinstated after costly compulsory purchase, and there's even talk of extending the line as far as Hawick, then on to Carlisle.
At midnight in the Commons, all those years ago, we almost had the first reference to Tweedbank as a hub or a powerhouse, but not quite.
George Younger, newly appointed Under Secretary of State for Scotland, declared: "The concept of a growth point in the central Borders is very much in our mind, and I can say without equivocation that we accept Tweedbank as the place most likely to succeed in this respect. Indeed, we want to see Tweedbank come about, and that as quickly as possible".
But the Minister went on to caution that Tweedbank should not be seen as the panacea to cure all of the Borders economic ills.
Mr Younger said: "It is essential that provision for the future should not stop short with Tweedbank and nothing else. It is perhaps not surprising that one tends to be mesmerised into thinking that Tweedbank is the beginning and end of Border development.Of course, it is nothing of the kind."
I thought those words sounded familiar, hence that recent uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. Will today's Tweedbank hub makers pay heed to a warning delivered 44 years ago or are they already mesmerised?
Tweedbank and trains: with us in 1970 and still hogging the headlines in 2014.
The uncertainty this planted in my mind kept niggling away. Should I remove my offering from cyberspace via the delete button? Had I just plagiarised another writer's work and claimed it as my own? I wrestled with my conscience, hoping against hope that I had not committed such a heinous "crime".
Then, suddenly, in a flash, everything became crystal clear as my often faulty memory took me back 44 years to a time when Tweedbank and trains were the main topics for a House of Commons adjournment debate soon after Dr. Beeching's cruel axe fell on the Waverley line, and the Tweedbank scheme was beset by legal wrangling, Court of Session actions and public inquiries.
In those days Tweedbank was described as a trigger rather than a hub or a powerhouse. The numbers living in the Borders had been decreasing for decades so the experts came up with a plan to bring 25,000 extra souls into the counties of Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles to redress the population imbalance.
A Government White Paper published in 1966 contained proposals for a thousand houses and associated factories in the centre of David Steel's sprawling rural constituency. But the trigger to Central Borders prosperity could not be activated until the developers grabbed a large parcel of farmland near Melrose belonging to Ian and Constance Hamilton.
The Hamiltons were very unwilling sellers, and put up a strong and costly fight to hang on to their farm. Hence the aforementioned lawsuits and public inquiries which dragged on for years.
Tweedbank was afforded top priority status by local councillors and their officials, all of them keen to pull that trigger. But the issue appears to have been a mere sideshow for Westminster's politicians. Mr Steel and his fellow Borders MP John Mackintosh had to wait until fifteen minutes to midnight on 20 July 1970 to have their say. I'm willing to bet there were few honourable members in the chamber to hear our region's cry for help.
The young Mr Steel had been re-elected to Parliament a few weeks earlier after surviving numerous re-counts at a nail-biting counting of the votes in Jedburgh town hall. And Edward Heath, an advocate of development hubs in Central Scotland and on Tyneside rather than investment for rural areas, was the new Prime Minister.
"I wanted to know whether the Government regarded themselves as still committed to the Tweedbank Scheme", said Mr Steel. "No-one with any sense of public responsibility or social conscience could fail to recognise the need to get ahead with the development and to allow no further obstruction."
Mr Steel had played a major part in the unsuccessful campaign to prevent the closure of the Waverley rail line in 1969. He warned that if the railway formation land was sold off piecemeal, there would never again be any possible future use for this through route in the Borders region.
Now the northern section of the railway is about to be reinstated after costly compulsory purchase, and there's even talk of extending the line as far as Hawick, then on to Carlisle.
At midnight in the Commons, all those years ago, we almost had the first reference to Tweedbank as a hub or a powerhouse, but not quite.
George Younger, newly appointed Under Secretary of State for Scotland, declared: "The concept of a growth point in the central Borders is very much in our mind, and I can say without equivocation that we accept Tweedbank as the place most likely to succeed in this respect. Indeed, we want to see Tweedbank come about, and that as quickly as possible".
But the Minister went on to caution that Tweedbank should not be seen as the panacea to cure all of the Borders economic ills.
Mr Younger said: "It is essential that provision for the future should not stop short with Tweedbank and nothing else. It is perhaps not surprising that one tends to be mesmerised into thinking that Tweedbank is the beginning and end of Border development.Of course, it is nothing of the kind."
I thought those words sounded familiar, hence that recent uncomfortable feeling of deja vu. Will today's Tweedbank hub makers pay heed to a warning delivered 44 years ago or are they already mesmerised?
Tweedbank and trains: with us in 1970 and still hogging the headlines in 2014.
Thursday, 26 June 2014
Hubbub over hubs and powerhouses
For long enough now those of us living north of Watford have complained bitterly that London and the south-east of England sucks the economic life out of the rest of the United Kingdom.
But it hasn't prevented successive Westminster Governments from concentrating capital investment, job creation, and all other forms of development in and around the capital city. None of the politicians have even tried to reduce London's magnetic pull, content to leave the rest of England, Scotland and Wales to their own devices.
So it came as a bit of a shock to me this week when Chancellor Osborne declared in a speech: "The powerhouse of London dominates more and more. And that's not healthy for our economy. It's not good for our country".
Mr Osborne's solution? To create what he called a northern powerhouse by linking together a number of cities in the north of England to provide jobs, opportunities and security for local citizens.
A flawed solution surely, for another buzzing metropolis will simply drain the lifeblood from communities not close enough to benefit, and that would include Scotland.
Perhaps we should become an independent nation before the Manchester-Leeds collection of super cities with its High Speed 2 connection starts to fire on all cylinders. But wait a minute, would that not mean an even bigger Central Belt of Scotland hub than we have now with the Glasgow-Edinburgh axis swallowing up even more of the meagre resources at the Scottish Government's disposal.
Hubs and powerhouses do more harm than good, or so it seems. Here in the Borders our collection of small towns and attractive villages get along fine without a hub although we appear to be in danger of having one, like it or not.
The policy makers are trying hard to create some kind of powerhouse at Tweedbank where a new train station will mark the southern end of the Borders railway line, due for completion in 2015.
There is talk of a Central Borders Business Park linked to the railhead with the creation of between 1,000 to 2,300 jobs over the next 15 years. The majority of new house-building could also take place in close proximity.
A report on the likely impact of the railway's return says: "The potential demand for high quality premises means Tweedbank would be a natural location for development and industry.
The business park will require £5 million of investment, and it's claimed the most effective way to deliver new employment land opportunities is to redevelop parts, or all, of the existing Tweedbank industrial estate. Many of the properties in this area are now due for replacement or major renovation.
The master plan includes the acquisition of key parts of the existing industrial area from the private sector. Planning and development officials believe: "This is an opportunity to create a flagship development on an attractive, high amenity site."
Tweedbank's status as a hub could be enhanced still further by another £5 million project aimed at bringing the Great Tapestry of Scotland to a permanent home by the railway station.
The close links with Galashiels, already the retail capital of the Borders and a place which seems to receive the lion's share of local investment, could well create a mini-powerhouse in the heart of our region to the detriment of communities situated more than ten miles away.
Is there a danger that the fragile prosperity of Hawick, or Eyemouth, Jedburgh, Kelso or Peebles could be syphoned off by the hub in our midst? It is an issue worth thinking about before we rush headlong into adopting George Osborne's solution for our economic ills..
But it hasn't prevented successive Westminster Governments from concentrating capital investment, job creation, and all other forms of development in and around the capital city. None of the politicians have even tried to reduce London's magnetic pull, content to leave the rest of England, Scotland and Wales to their own devices.
So it came as a bit of a shock to me this week when Chancellor Osborne declared in a speech: "The powerhouse of London dominates more and more. And that's not healthy for our economy. It's not good for our country".
Mr Osborne's solution? To create what he called a northern powerhouse by linking together a number of cities in the north of England to provide jobs, opportunities and security for local citizens.
A flawed solution surely, for another buzzing metropolis will simply drain the lifeblood from communities not close enough to benefit, and that would include Scotland.
Perhaps we should become an independent nation before the Manchester-Leeds collection of super cities with its High Speed 2 connection starts to fire on all cylinders. But wait a minute, would that not mean an even bigger Central Belt of Scotland hub than we have now with the Glasgow-Edinburgh axis swallowing up even more of the meagre resources at the Scottish Government's disposal.
Hubs and powerhouses do more harm than good, or so it seems. Here in the Borders our collection of small towns and attractive villages get along fine without a hub although we appear to be in danger of having one, like it or not.
The policy makers are trying hard to create some kind of powerhouse at Tweedbank where a new train station will mark the southern end of the Borders railway line, due for completion in 2015.
There is talk of a Central Borders Business Park linked to the railhead with the creation of between 1,000 to 2,300 jobs over the next 15 years. The majority of new house-building could also take place in close proximity.
A report on the likely impact of the railway's return says: "The potential demand for high quality premises means Tweedbank would be a natural location for development and industry.
The business park will require £5 million of investment, and it's claimed the most effective way to deliver new employment land opportunities is to redevelop parts, or all, of the existing Tweedbank industrial estate. Many of the properties in this area are now due for replacement or major renovation.
The master plan includes the acquisition of key parts of the existing industrial area from the private sector. Planning and development officials believe: "This is an opportunity to create a flagship development on an attractive, high amenity site."
Tweedbank's status as a hub could be enhanced still further by another £5 million project aimed at bringing the Great Tapestry of Scotland to a permanent home by the railway station.
The close links with Galashiels, already the retail capital of the Borders and a place which seems to receive the lion's share of local investment, could well create a mini-powerhouse in the heart of our region to the detriment of communities situated more than ten miles away.
Is there a danger that the fragile prosperity of Hawick, or Eyemouth, Jedburgh, Kelso or Peebles could be syphoned off by the hub in our midst? It is an issue worth thinking about before we rush headlong into adopting George Osborne's solution for our economic ills..
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
Borders council in the transfer market again!
Borders social care services - designed to serve some of the most vulnerable members of society - are set to become the latest segment of our local government set-up to be dismantled by councillors who seem more than keen on the concept of arms length companies and transferring assets to autonomous bodies.
As we have already pointed out in these columns, there was little hesitation when it came to selling off 6,700 Borders council houses for half their book value in 2003. Then the council could not wait to get rid of sports and leisure facilities to a Trust. And the arrangements which will see libraries, museums and halls leaving direct council control are all but done and dusted.
Now it is the turn of the Social Work department to feel the heat of reform following a £20,000 consultants' report which warns: "Doing nothing is not an option".
This week our councillors have been digesting the contents of the report together with a confidential business case recommending the transfer of over 1,000 staff and an annual budget close to £18 million to an arms length company known as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP).
The services involved relate principally to older people. Because so many Borders residents are living longer there is expected to be an eleven per cent increase in the demands of the over-65s by 2019. But impoverished Scottish Borders Council needs to reduce its social work budget by £5.6 million during the same time frame.
A list of valued services up for transfer includes residential homes for the elderly, day care, home care, extra care housing, night support and the Bordercare alarm system. Day services for those with learning difficulties and for individuals with mental health issues and physical disabilities will also switch to the LLP.
The report promises that staff would transfer to the new company on the same terms and conditions they have with the council, but work practices would be likely to change. What those changes might involve has not been outlined in the published report.
Care & Health Solutions, the Wolverhampton-based consultants commissioned by the council, have already been involved in a number of similar LLP projects, notably in Aberdeen and the south of England. Their report for Borders councillors is accompanied with a warning of the risks involved in adopting the LLP model.
"If the organisation should fail or if the council wanted out that risk is mitigated by the fact that the council owns the company", the report says. Should the LLP fail to perform satisfactorily or should it run into financial trouble then it could easily be brought back under full council control or "a controlled transfer to the private market".
No doubt critics of this latest cost-cutting exercise will warn of 'privatisation by the back door' and complain about the stress and upheaval for dedicated staff as the new regime beds in. But remember, just like the housing stock, the sports facilities and the cultural services..."doing nothing is not an option".
Limited Liability Partnerships are not covered by Freedom of Information legislation, so concerned or inquisitive members of the public will be unable to ask questions about the new company once it is up and running, probably in March 2015..
However, a monitoring group of councillors will meet four times a year to asses the LLP's performance. So that's all right then.
As we have already pointed out in these columns, there was little hesitation when it came to selling off 6,700 Borders council houses for half their book value in 2003. Then the council could not wait to get rid of sports and leisure facilities to a Trust. And the arrangements which will see libraries, museums and halls leaving direct council control are all but done and dusted.
Now it is the turn of the Social Work department to feel the heat of reform following a £20,000 consultants' report which warns: "Doing nothing is not an option".
This week our councillors have been digesting the contents of the report together with a confidential business case recommending the transfer of over 1,000 staff and an annual budget close to £18 million to an arms length company known as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP).
The services involved relate principally to older people. Because so many Borders residents are living longer there is expected to be an eleven per cent increase in the demands of the over-65s by 2019. But impoverished Scottish Borders Council needs to reduce its social work budget by £5.6 million during the same time frame.
A list of valued services up for transfer includes residential homes for the elderly, day care, home care, extra care housing, night support and the Bordercare alarm system. Day services for those with learning difficulties and for individuals with mental health issues and physical disabilities will also switch to the LLP.
The report promises that staff would transfer to the new company on the same terms and conditions they have with the council, but work practices would be likely to change. What those changes might involve has not been outlined in the published report.
Care & Health Solutions, the Wolverhampton-based consultants commissioned by the council, have already been involved in a number of similar LLP projects, notably in Aberdeen and the south of England. Their report for Borders councillors is accompanied with a warning of the risks involved in adopting the LLP model.
"If the organisation should fail or if the council wanted out that risk is mitigated by the fact that the council owns the company", the report says. Should the LLP fail to perform satisfactorily or should it run into financial trouble then it could easily be brought back under full council control or "a controlled transfer to the private market".
No doubt critics of this latest cost-cutting exercise will warn of 'privatisation by the back door' and complain about the stress and upheaval for dedicated staff as the new regime beds in. But remember, just like the housing stock, the sports facilities and the cultural services..."doing nothing is not an option".
Limited Liability Partnerships are not covered by Freedom of Information legislation, so concerned or inquisitive members of the public will be unable to ask questions about the new company once it is up and running, probably in March 2015..
However, a monitoring group of councillors will meet four times a year to asses the LLP's performance. So that's all right then.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Homelessness..Borders bucks the trend
While Scotland as a whole recorded an eight per cent reduction in applications under homeless legislation in 2013/14, the numbers seeking assistance in the Scottish Borders increased for the second year in a row, and now exceed 1996/97 levels.
When last year's statistics on homelessness were published by the Scottish Government they showed a massive 17 per cent hike in Borders application from 542 in 2011/12 to 638. At the same time the national numbers tumbled by 13 per cent.
But when the Border Telegraph reported the local figures on 12 August 2013, the Galashiels-based weekly paper was told by Scottish Borders Council: "the statistics indicated a much higher homelessness rate than is actually the reality". Apparently, the council had changed its approach with the introduction of a dedicated prevention team in 2011, and there had also been alterations to the authority's IT system in terms of how statistics were "drawn down".
There were also claims from social housing landlords that they were working in partnership with the council to increase the supply of affordable housing and reduce homelessness.
So it will be interesting to hear the explanation for this year's six per cent increase in applications from 638 to 673. The equivalent number for 1996/97 was 639.
In 24 of Scotland's 32 council areas the number of applications fell, and the increase in the Borders figure was the fourth highest in the country.
The number of assessments made by the council's homelessness service also increased rapidly from 402 in 2011/12 to 496 in 2012/13 and up again to 560 in 2013/14. These percentage increases in assessments were 23% and 13% respectively while Scotland's total of assessments went down from 35,708 to 29,326 in the same period.
Meanwhile the number of Borders households living in temporary accommodation also increased slightly from 89 in March 2013 to 94 in March of this year.
The housing charity Shelter Scotland warns there are growing signs of affordable housing shortages in the Scottish Borders area.There were 11,843 social rented sector homes in the region in 2012/13. But Shelter adds: "Right to Buy resulted in the loss of 1,055 affordable homes in the ten years from 2003 to 2013. Scottish Borders needs more affordable homes". Shelter also points out that 31,000 properties in the area fail the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.
Councillors surrendered their control of rented housing in 2003 when 6,700 homes with a book value of £56 million were transferred to a housing association for £23 million.
Five years later a report from the Scottish Council for Single Homeless described homelessness services as an afterthought in council areas where housing stock was being transferred.
Researchers scrutinised four councils following stock transfers: Argyll & Bute, Scottish Borders, Glasgow and Inverclyde. With the exception of Argyll & Bute, they found councils gave little attention to how homelessness would be managed after transfer.
The report concluded: "In most cases, the situation for homeless people appears worse [after stock transfer]..due to a combination of poor planning for homelessness services after transfer, alongside the reduction in the importance placed on housing and homelessness services within local authorities".
Things may have improved on that front since 2008 when the report was published. But the latest statistics would suggest the Borders still faces a major problem in dealing with homelessness.
The recent proposal by the council to borrow money in a bid to build 200 affordable homes may help the situation if the houses can be delivered. Maybe they should have held on to their housing powers and the ownership of the properties they sold when stock transfers were being touted as 'the only game in town' by the Lib/Lab Scottish government of the day.
When last year's statistics on homelessness were published by the Scottish Government they showed a massive 17 per cent hike in Borders application from 542 in 2011/12 to 638. At the same time the national numbers tumbled by 13 per cent.
But when the Border Telegraph reported the local figures on 12 August 2013, the Galashiels-based weekly paper was told by Scottish Borders Council: "the statistics indicated a much higher homelessness rate than is actually the reality". Apparently, the council had changed its approach with the introduction of a dedicated prevention team in 2011, and there had also been alterations to the authority's IT system in terms of how statistics were "drawn down".
There were also claims from social housing landlords that they were working in partnership with the council to increase the supply of affordable housing and reduce homelessness.
So it will be interesting to hear the explanation for this year's six per cent increase in applications from 638 to 673. The equivalent number for 1996/97 was 639.
In 24 of Scotland's 32 council areas the number of applications fell, and the increase in the Borders figure was the fourth highest in the country.
The number of assessments made by the council's homelessness service also increased rapidly from 402 in 2011/12 to 496 in 2012/13 and up again to 560 in 2013/14. These percentage increases in assessments were 23% and 13% respectively while Scotland's total of assessments went down from 35,708 to 29,326 in the same period.
Meanwhile the number of Borders households living in temporary accommodation also increased slightly from 89 in March 2013 to 94 in March of this year.
The housing charity Shelter Scotland warns there are growing signs of affordable housing shortages in the Scottish Borders area.There were 11,843 social rented sector homes in the region in 2012/13. But Shelter adds: "Right to Buy resulted in the loss of 1,055 affordable homes in the ten years from 2003 to 2013. Scottish Borders needs more affordable homes". Shelter also points out that 31,000 properties in the area fail the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.
Councillors surrendered their control of rented housing in 2003 when 6,700 homes with a book value of £56 million were transferred to a housing association for £23 million.
Five years later a report from the Scottish Council for Single Homeless described homelessness services as an afterthought in council areas where housing stock was being transferred.
Researchers scrutinised four councils following stock transfers: Argyll & Bute, Scottish Borders, Glasgow and Inverclyde. With the exception of Argyll & Bute, they found councils gave little attention to how homelessness would be managed after transfer.
The report concluded: "In most cases, the situation for homeless people appears worse [after stock transfer]..due to a combination of poor planning for homelessness services after transfer, alongside the reduction in the importance placed on housing and homelessness services within local authorities".
Things may have improved on that front since 2008 when the report was published. But the latest statistics would suggest the Borders still faces a major problem in dealing with homelessness.
The recent proposal by the council to borrow money in a bid to build 200 affordable homes may help the situation if the houses can be delivered. Maybe they should have held on to their housing powers and the ownership of the properties they sold when stock transfers were being touted as 'the only game in town' by the Lib/Lab Scottish government of the day.
Monday, 23 June 2014
Millions spent on agency staff in wake of exit strategy
The hard-pressed council taxpayers of the Scottish Borders, whose cash helps to fund their local authority's annual staffing bill of £180 million, have been assured the recent spate of sizeable exit packages for departing workers would deliver worthwhile savings for the public purse. But have they?
In the two-year period between April 2011 and March 2013 the princely sum of £5.467 million was spent on 213 redundancies. If my dodgy arithmetic stands up to scrutiny that works out at £25,666 for every head that rolled. A significant number of packages were well above that generous average figure.
However, according to last year's audited accounts the 75 packages agreed in 2012/13 would generate annual recurring savings of £1.454 million. So it seems on the face of it the workforce and the wage bill are shrinking in line with service cuts.
In recent days the Scottish Government has released the latest statistics on local government staffing levels in each of the country's 32 local authorities. Separate totals are given for so-called full time equivalents (FTE) and the actual headcount, taking into account full-time and part-time employees.
The Scottish Borders Council headcount to the nearest 100 for the first quarter of 2014 was 5,500, exactly the same as it was in the third quarter of 2012 when posts were being axed under the so-called exit strategy. And in the last twelve months that same headcount has decreased by a mere 1.6%.
The table for FTEs shows 4,400 posts in 2012, and 4,400 again in 2014. The change in the number of FTEs in the last twelve months is given as 0 (nil) although in percentage terms the number is said to have fallen by one per cent or considerably less than 100.
Explanatory notes accompanying the figures tell us the statistics on staff numbers are based on the number of employees with an employment contract who are being paid by the councils. Agency workers are EXCLUDED from the tables.
Just as the Government released its data Scottish Borders Council responded to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking for details of agency staff used by the local authority since 2012 when employees with contracts were being paid off.
This set of figures reveals that from April 2012 up to the beginning of June 2014 the council spent an impressive £2,352,571.29 on staff recruited from employment agencies. The largest sums were for work in the Chief Executive's department (£800,677) and Social Work (£845,916). Other services to plug gaps in the workforce by using agency staff included Technical Services (£192,597) Vehicle Maintenance (£46,014), SB Contracts for roads contracts delivery (£167,697) and Protective Services for refuse collection, street cleaning and maintenance of public toilets (£251,656).
Unfortunately the council could not tell the FOI requester how many individual agency workers had been used in the course of running up the bill of more than £2.3 million. So did the total equal or exceed the number of employees who left with exit packages?
The council explained: "Without an examination of each transaction we cannot break down the above expenditure to agency used, number of staff or staff grading group. But most of the spend will be upon management/professional/administrative staff."
Under FOI rules a public authority can declare information exempt if the cost of researching and assembling the facts exceeds £600. In this particular case SBC claimed it would cost above the £600 fees limit to examine each invoice in detail, so the number of posts has not been disclosed..
Does all of this mean our local authority got rid of too many staff under its exit strategy, leaving too many empty desks and too many unfulfilled tasks in the process? Were those who remained in post asked to shoulder an intolerable burden of extra duties after losing so many colleagues? Should the actual number of employees at SBC be adjusted upwards when agency personnel are included? Has there been in significant reduction in staffing levels? And should spending on agency staff be deducted from the estimated savings resulting from redundancies?
In the two-year period between April 2011 and March 2013 the princely sum of £5.467 million was spent on 213 redundancies. If my dodgy arithmetic stands up to scrutiny that works out at £25,666 for every head that rolled. A significant number of packages were well above that generous average figure.
However, according to last year's audited accounts the 75 packages agreed in 2012/13 would generate annual recurring savings of £1.454 million. So it seems on the face of it the workforce and the wage bill are shrinking in line with service cuts.
In recent days the Scottish Government has released the latest statistics on local government staffing levels in each of the country's 32 local authorities. Separate totals are given for so-called full time equivalents (FTE) and the actual headcount, taking into account full-time and part-time employees.
The Scottish Borders Council headcount to the nearest 100 for the first quarter of 2014 was 5,500, exactly the same as it was in the third quarter of 2012 when posts were being axed under the so-called exit strategy. And in the last twelve months that same headcount has decreased by a mere 1.6%.
The table for FTEs shows 4,400 posts in 2012, and 4,400 again in 2014. The change in the number of FTEs in the last twelve months is given as 0 (nil) although in percentage terms the number is said to have fallen by one per cent or considerably less than 100.
Explanatory notes accompanying the figures tell us the statistics on staff numbers are based on the number of employees with an employment contract who are being paid by the councils. Agency workers are EXCLUDED from the tables.
Just as the Government released its data Scottish Borders Council responded to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request asking for details of agency staff used by the local authority since 2012 when employees with contracts were being paid off.
This set of figures reveals that from April 2012 up to the beginning of June 2014 the council spent an impressive £2,352,571.29 on staff recruited from employment agencies. The largest sums were for work in the Chief Executive's department (£800,677) and Social Work (£845,916). Other services to plug gaps in the workforce by using agency staff included Technical Services (£192,597) Vehicle Maintenance (£46,014), SB Contracts for roads contracts delivery (£167,697) and Protective Services for refuse collection, street cleaning and maintenance of public toilets (£251,656).
Unfortunately the council could not tell the FOI requester how many individual agency workers had been used in the course of running up the bill of more than £2.3 million. So did the total equal or exceed the number of employees who left with exit packages?
The council explained: "Without an examination of each transaction we cannot break down the above expenditure to agency used, number of staff or staff grading group. But most of the spend will be upon management/professional/administrative staff."
Under FOI rules a public authority can declare information exempt if the cost of researching and assembling the facts exceeds £600. In this particular case SBC claimed it would cost above the £600 fees limit to examine each invoice in detail, so the number of posts has not been disclosed..
Does all of this mean our local authority got rid of too many staff under its exit strategy, leaving too many empty desks and too many unfulfilled tasks in the process? Were those who remained in post asked to shoulder an intolerable burden of extra duties after losing so many colleagues? Should the actual number of employees at SBC be adjusted upwards when agency personnel are included? Has there been in significant reduction in staffing levels? And should spending on agency staff be deducted from the estimated savings resulting from redundancies?
Surely all of these issues and questions require detailed explanations and answers.
Saturday, 21 June 2014
Fans with microphones...a disservice to sport
We've been warned that if Scotland votes to go it alone in the September referendum the country may be unable to watch popular BBC television and radio programmes such as East Enders and The Archers.
I'm convinced this is another scare story put about by the No side, although I have to say I wouldn't mind having selected chunks of BBC output blocked by technology. In particular, the near fanatical English bias displayed by many of its sports commentators.
Perhaps you're old enough to remember the days when the chaps covering a Test match or a game of football were content to describe the action without forcing their views or prejudices down the throats of their audience. The likes of John Arlott could bring the cricket to life with his wonderful turn of phrase, and Peter Jones was my idea of a top soccer commentator.
The Scottish Borders gave the world Bill McLaren, the finest TV commentator bar none, who deserved the title The Voice of Rugby. He may have been a Scot with a fierce passion for his country's rugby team, but he never showed it on air, even when the Scots were competing for the Calcutta Cup against the Auld Enemy.
It is such a shame that commentators nowadays are allowed to blatantly support their favourite club or country. And when they lay down the microphone for their half-time pie and Bovril the viewer or listener is confronted by a panel of 'experts' who proceed to analyse and dissect every kick or handling move.
The BBC's coverage of the 2014 World Cup of Football has been completely ruined for me by the almost one hundred percent concentration on the useless, third-rate English team by a veritable army of posers and pundits, despatched to Brazil at huge expense to licence payers. I'm sure the bloated TV team from Gary Lineker down (or should that be up) were convinced Rooney, Gerard and company were coming back with the trophy.
Meanwhile Radio Five Live have been broadcasting twelve-hours-a-day coverage, much of it concentrating on England's team selection and subsequent failings on the field of play. The post-mortem which followed the defeat at the hands of Uruguay (population 3.5 million, or the same number of people who live in Wales) lasted several days.
Irishman Alan Green, one of the English fans with a microphone, seemed convinced there was nothing to prevent his favourite team from progressing into the last sixteen and beyond. He had strong backing from a support team which featured the awful Robbie Savage and the ranting Chris Waddle.
But even when it became mathematically impossible for England to get out of their group we continued to be bombarded with endless drivel by legions of presenters and their guests ensconced in a cafe-bar on Copacabana beach. Money no object it would seem when others are footing the bill. The entire motley crew should have been forced to watch a boxed-set of Bill McLaren commentaries to show them how it should be done.
The situation has been no better at the now completed three match rugby Test series featuring New Zealand and England. It was bad enough having to suffer another season of Six Nations matches listening to Brian Moore spouting his pro-English propaganda.
This month if we wanted to hear the match on the car radio it was Scotsman Ian Robertson screaming like a banshee every time England got anywhere near the try line. His biased patter even extended to goading his fellow commentator Murray Mexted, the former All Black, whenever England were ahead on points.
"You must be worried now Murray", Robertson quipped on more than one occasion. But, of course, Murray had no need to worry for New Zealand (population a mere 4.433 million) triumphed in every encounter, thrashing England by half-time in the third Test.
There isn't enough space here to discuss the shortcomings of Adrian Chiles and the other English fans covering the World Cup for ITV. And there are numerous examples of English bias elsewhere in the broadcast media.
Perhaps the Bill McLaren Foundation could sponsor or organise courses for budding sports commentators so that the highest professional standards as practised by the much loved and much missed Voice of Rugby might be resurrected and carried forward for the benefit of future generations of sports fans.
I'm convinced this is another scare story put about by the No side, although I have to say I wouldn't mind having selected chunks of BBC output blocked by technology. In particular, the near fanatical English bias displayed by many of its sports commentators.
Perhaps you're old enough to remember the days when the chaps covering a Test match or a game of football were content to describe the action without forcing their views or prejudices down the throats of their audience. The likes of John Arlott could bring the cricket to life with his wonderful turn of phrase, and Peter Jones was my idea of a top soccer commentator.
The Scottish Borders gave the world Bill McLaren, the finest TV commentator bar none, who deserved the title The Voice of Rugby. He may have been a Scot with a fierce passion for his country's rugby team, but he never showed it on air, even when the Scots were competing for the Calcutta Cup against the Auld Enemy.
It is such a shame that commentators nowadays are allowed to blatantly support their favourite club or country. And when they lay down the microphone for their half-time pie and Bovril the viewer or listener is confronted by a panel of 'experts' who proceed to analyse and dissect every kick or handling move.
The BBC's coverage of the 2014 World Cup of Football has been completely ruined for me by the almost one hundred percent concentration on the useless, third-rate English team by a veritable army of posers and pundits, despatched to Brazil at huge expense to licence payers. I'm sure the bloated TV team from Gary Lineker down (or should that be up) were convinced Rooney, Gerard and company were coming back with the trophy.
Meanwhile Radio Five Live have been broadcasting twelve-hours-a-day coverage, much of it concentrating on England's team selection and subsequent failings on the field of play. The post-mortem which followed the defeat at the hands of Uruguay (population 3.5 million, or the same number of people who live in Wales) lasted several days.
Irishman Alan Green, one of the English fans with a microphone, seemed convinced there was nothing to prevent his favourite team from progressing into the last sixteen and beyond. He had strong backing from a support team which featured the awful Robbie Savage and the ranting Chris Waddle.
But even when it became mathematically impossible for England to get out of their group we continued to be bombarded with endless drivel by legions of presenters and their guests ensconced in a cafe-bar on Copacabana beach. Money no object it would seem when others are footing the bill. The entire motley crew should have been forced to watch a boxed-set of Bill McLaren commentaries to show them how it should be done.
The situation has been no better at the now completed three match rugby Test series featuring New Zealand and England. It was bad enough having to suffer another season of Six Nations matches listening to Brian Moore spouting his pro-English propaganda.
This month if we wanted to hear the match on the car radio it was Scotsman Ian Robertson screaming like a banshee every time England got anywhere near the try line. His biased patter even extended to goading his fellow commentator Murray Mexted, the former All Black, whenever England were ahead on points.
"You must be worried now Murray", Robertson quipped on more than one occasion. But, of course, Murray had no need to worry for New Zealand (population a mere 4.433 million) triumphed in every encounter, thrashing England by half-time in the third Test.
There isn't enough space here to discuss the shortcomings of Adrian Chiles and the other English fans covering the World Cup for ITV. And there are numerous examples of English bias elsewhere in the broadcast media.
Perhaps the Bill McLaren Foundation could sponsor or organise courses for budding sports commentators so that the highest professional standards as practised by the much loved and much missed Voice of Rugby might be resurrected and carried forward for the benefit of future generations of sports fans.
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