Another one from Cllr 'Trembling' Trimble.
He's authorised a contract with 'Large Creative Ltd' to do the branding for Nottingham's leisure centres. Not sure what that actually involves but it sounds less important than, say, not cutting a couple of youth worker posts or improving the actual facilities.
Sneakily, the decision doesn't say how much is being actually spent but a supporting document does say that it is above the EU lower limit for tenders, which is £156,442 for the life of the contract and elsewhere it says that the contract is to run for three years. This means that it will average at least £52k per year.
NCC's financial rules state that at least three tenders must be INVITED for contracts of this size, although not necessarily received. However, following the Harold Tinworth saga the Overview and Scrutiny Committee made a recommendation that every effort should be made to OBTAIN three tenders. Obviously such major changes only happen slowly...
Interesting that the main thing that the branding exercise is supposed to accomplish is to "give brand recognition, corporate identity and familiarity to customer[s] and associate the facilities as Nottingham City Council owned and operated..."
ReplyDeleteIt seems that those great big green signs on all the leisure centres saying 'Nottingham City Council' aren't doing the trick then.
Yep.
ReplyDeleteAnd spending this much money at a time of cuts (including to the concessions scheme for sports and leisure) is scandalous.
And why has the city chosen to use a particularly awful shade of green for its signs? The old "municipal green" may have been staid but at least it kept my breakfast down.
ReplyDeleteIt's because they hate you. And the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteNow just hit the Evening Post.
ReplyDeleteI thought NCC did a good enough job with the corporate branding though I agree Janet the chartreuse is a bit much ;)
"It was simply a procedural requirement" - to renew signs? I'm yet to be sold as to how the current signs need replacing , and certainly not for £150k.
I fed the story to them. they were supposed to give the blog a mention.
ReplyDelete