Radford Unity Complex - A Solution?

With a bit of luck it seems that the groups based at the 'surplus to requirements' (but not actually empty) Radford Unity Complex will not be out on the street after all.

According to a NCC press release on its website -

"The new premises are at the former Douglas Primary School in Ilkeston Road, less than a mile from their old base. The building, which is currently empty, offers similar space to Radford Unity Complex and provides a large hall, catering kitchen, an IT suite, outside play area and off-road parking and is in better condition than Radford Unity Complex..."

I hope it is as wonderful as they claim.

But it raises questions as to why a building that was still in use was labelled 'surplus to requirements' when an apparently similar property, standing empty, was not. You also have to wonder at the mentality of an organisation that runs the risk of closing apparently popular groups serving BME communities, handing their political opponents a PR gift weeks before a general election before looking down the back of their metaphorical sofa and finding them a replacement which just happens to be perfect and not currently in use. A free PR tip guys (not to mention common decency), next time, do that last bit right at the start, you'll save yourselves a lot of grief.

If I was one of the Labour Party's East Midlands strategists I think I'd be having a quiet word with Collins and his numpty squad.

More Radford Unity Complex Fall-Out

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee is soon to discuss the progress of implementing recommendations made by its call-in sub-committee after JoCo (and presumably a number of others) ballsed up the handling of what to do with the Radford Unity Complex.

I reported in my previous post that Nottingham Studios had secured a lease on the Douglas School site. Well, it now seems that the wronged parties in all of this i.e. the occupants of RUC have now been engaged in negotiations for a Community Asset Transfer of the property.

Like with Nottingham Studios and the Douglas School site, you have to ask why this wasn't done
before. It was claimed at call-in that

"...the City Council had not been forthcoming with community groups about the possibility of pursuing a community asset transfer...". 

Essentially the response by JoCo et al was "...well you didn't ask...". I paraphrase but that about sums up the quality of the debate.

Another recommendation from call-in was that a review of the 'communications strategy' between NCC and RUC be carried out. The latest report states that -


"Since the call in the communication plan for the Radford Unity Complex Project has been revised. In particular new channels of communication have been established. The RUC groups have appointed a main spokesperson, with a deputy to cover in his absence and to support as necessary. The groups’ spokesperson is in direct contact with the Service Manager (Voluntary Sector Sustainability) who acts as a two way channel of communication between the RUC groups..."

(NCCLOLS translation service - "we went and talked to them". I love the way that NCC calls a spade a strategic multi-purpose manually operated granular materials moving device.)

Meetings have also been held concerning a further recommendation to 'develop transparent criteria for asset transfer to the community'. This is to avoid in future giving the impression that policy is made on the hoof when one of JoCo's mates rings him up and asks if there are any properties they can have. Which isn't what happened with RUC obviously.

Other fine measures include overhauling procedures to ensure that equalities issues are taken into account. The Equality and Diversity team's advice was to ensure the form has a question along the lines of 'have you taken into account equalities issues? Yes/no'. Worth their weight in gold that lot, that midnight oil wasn't in short supply there. Finally, never again must that embarrassing situation occur where officers send notice of eviction three months before the political decision to dispose of the property is made. It just makes everybody look silly and gives the impression of being disorganised.

All in all, that's quite a lot of changes and recommendations considering that call-in voted almost unanimously that nothing had gone wrong anyway. Welcome to the bizarre world of local government.

Closure of Radford Unity Complex

This is another of those 'coming late to the party' moments for me. I did see it but completely failed to take in its significance until yesterday.

Radford Unity Complex is an old Victorian school building in Radford. As well as housing some NCC staff it also caters for a number of BME voluntary projects including Nottingham Teaching College and the Sikh Community and Youth Service amongst others. The NCC staff are all moving out, mainly to the new NCC HQ at Loxley House.

Some of you might already see where this is going. Essentially, NCC saw an opportunity to save money and, via a portfolio holder decision by Cllr Jon Collins, they decided to close it down.

Now I did see this but, as I say, I didn't think much of it. After all, it's not that controversial for councils to consolidate their property portfolio and the report attached repeatedly states that the groups "can be relocated to alternative accommodation" with "better facilities". Naively, I assumed that this meant that alternative accommodation had already been found.

This turns out not to be the case. From 'Evening Post' articles here and here it seems that the groups were simply given 90 days notice to leave and it's very unclear exactly what support to find new premises is being given. What's more there appears to have been very little consultation with those affected, beyond establishing that they wouldn't have the means to take the building over as a community enterprise. It's worth reading some of the comments to the articles which appear to have been added by people connected with the groups, although you do have to navigate around the usual racist bollocks that the 'Post' insists on tolerating on its comments boards.

So, to my mind, the report supporting JoCo's decision to shut up shop is extremely economical with the truth and there seems to be quite a bit of spin going on. Plus ca change you might say.

Finally, I was checking Twitter and I saw some references to the issue on Cllr Alex Foster's Twitterfeed, which I've reproduced below -

I was very interested to see the phrase 'first ever call-in sub-committee'.

Some background. In the year 2000 most councils changed their governance structures following an Act of Parliament. There were a number of possible different options but NCC decided to go for an Executive Board, comprising of a number of Executive Portfolio Holders. Essentially the idea is that, as full council is somewhat unwieldy it would be required to make only a small number of the most important decisions like approving the annual budget, other 'key decisions' would be taken by the Executive Board and most other decisions, defined by financial limits and other factors could be taken by Executive Portfolio Holders. The decision to close the RUC was one such decision.

However, such decisions are subject to 'call-in' where the Overview and Scrutiny Committee can set up a sub-committee to examine at the decision and ask the Executive to look at it again. It's all that exists in terms of checks and balances on these decisions and in fact it's pretty toothless because if the Exec decides not to change the decision there's nothing else that can be done. These arrangements have all been in place for 10 years.

Like I said, I was very interested in that 'first ever' bit. As you can see from the list of agendas for the call-in sub-committee, as Cllr Foster says, there has never been one before in 10 years. So much for checks and balances.

Back to the actual issue involved I was even more interested in Cllr Foster's report that Cllr Long had picked up that the groups based at the RUC had been given their 90 days notice BEFORE the decision to close had actually been made. That really does smell of a big piece of fish.

So, to sum up, jumping the gun re starting the eviction process, little or no consultation, somewhat uh, 'generous' NCC background report and the serious prospect of six community groups working with the BME community out on their ear. Very 'community cohesion'.

And all topped off with the revelation that the only check and balance on portfolio decisions has never been used before. Isn't local democracy wonderful?

[Interesting side note not specifically connected to NCC; a request for call-in has to be signed by three non-executive councillors and in this case it was three Tories. Now fair play to them for that but I'm just saying it's the first time I've seen the Tories on NCC get involved in any issue not connected with Wollaton Golf Club. And if you look across the river at the County you might well conclude that their party's reputation as community champions has yet to be firmly established.

Radford Unity Complex is of course situated within Nottingham South constituency which is a target for the Tories in the upcoming general election. By some extraordinary co-incidence, Tory PPC for Nottingham South has also been getting involved in the campaign too.

If you live in Nottm South (especially NG7 area, maybe not in leafy Wollaton), expect to see this issue feature in Tory election leaflets, coming through your door soon.]

It's That Radford Unity Complex Again

The 'drip drip' of information coming in on this continues.

I've managed to get sight of some of the emails that were exchanged between Nottingham Studios' representatives and NCC when negotiations started to turn sour. You may recall that NS were somewhat unhappy about having to allow some of the community groups to stay on in the building for an indeterminate period. NS were quibbling over the rent that NCC were going to pay on the groups' behalf.

One of the emails I've seen was from somebody called David Smith at NCC and it includes an extraordinary admission which I don't think has seen the light of day before, here's an extract -

"You will be aware that we have to address a Local Government Ombudsman case regarding the disposal of this building. The payment of a rental sum for accommodation within the property to a new owner will be viewed upon as most extraordinary, when the new owner is purchasing the property for an amount which falls well below the figure which the Council would expect to obtain, were the property sold in the open market, partcularly [sic] when an offer for the property has already been received at a figure close to the £350,000 at which it has been valued."

So NCC had received an alternative much greater offer for the building yet were still pushing for a sale to NS for a much lower figure, completion of which would have cost them even more for renting half of it back. The use of the word 'already' suggests to me that this higher offer predates the one from NS, which the council proactively invited. You can see why Mr Smith was worried.

As far as I know this fact of the alternative offer was never put before the call-in sub-committee. It would surely have put the handling of the sale in a different light if it had. It's still very much open to question how much JoCo knew about all this. At call-in it was said that he wrote to the tenants at RUC on 29 December 2009 to tell them that the building was to be sold, some weeks before he made the official decision.

In addition, one of the emails from NS' rep says -

"1. Last autumn the Studios group was invited by NCC to consider the purchase of Radford Unity Complex at a price of 150k. NCC indicated a valuation of 300k for the property but there was acknowledegment of significant potential remedial building work."

All this makes the Standards Committee's Assessment Sub-Committee's claim that the only thing Collins knew about the matter was what was in the report appended to his decision seem all the more extraordinary and unlikely. I've pointed this out to them in my request for a review of their decision not to investigate Collins' conduct at call-in.

I've been told separately that one of the groups based at the complex, who are affiliated to a national organisation, had made an offer for the building and I'm attempting to confirm whether that is the case and whether it was the same one that David Smith was referring to.

But essentially, it is clear that, even before the serious incompetence set in with legal services' failure to give the tenants proper notice, NCC was already nearly £200k down. For some reason, it seems that somebody high up really wanted the building to go to Nottingham Studios. I have no idea why but maybe there's a clue as to the who in one of the emails from David Hill, Nottingham Studios' agent on 19 March 2009-

"My understanding is that the Leader is very keen to see this sale go through and the resulting project to support artists.

I assume that any response to our final position will be endorsed by him."

Radford Unity Complex Sale Falls Through

Just a quick note to say that I've received word from the Audit Commission that the sale of the Radford Unity Complex has fallen through so they are suspending their investigation.

Where this leaves the tenants I have no idea. Presumably they're still on notice of eviction and NCC still presumably still sees RUC as 'surplus to requirements'. After all, the decision to sell couldn't have been due to any back room deals could it?

Coincidentally the minutes of the Call-in Sub Committee reviewing the decision are out in the wild. The explanations for the notices to quit predating the decision to sell are farcical.

So another resounding success for Leader Collins. Anyone want to give me odds on a 'redevelopment' resulting in the demolition of RUC being announced in the next six months?

Update on Radford Unity Complex

The 'Post' is reporting that, despite the first ever 'call-in' in 10 years of the existence of the procedure, the decision to close Radford Unity Complex will not be reconsidered.

In retrospect I should have headlined this 'Least Surprising News With Smallest Amount of Shock Value of the Year'. But then it is only March and that might have been a bit rash.

Interestingly, the 'Post' reports that NCC have found a buyer for the buildings but are refusing to say who it is.

Bearing in mind the speed with which it was all done, with allegations that the groups based at RUC were given notice before the decision was even made to close it, I think it would be very interesting to know when that potential buyer first arrived on the scene.

Radford Unity Complex - Reprise

Grief, this one just gets worse and worse. I thought the Radford Unity Complex issue was going to end reasonably happily but it really is going glands up.

The 'Post' is reporting on the latest developments which make pretty much everyone at NCC involved in this look like a bunch of twats, I think it's fair to say.

Apparently it has emerged that the previously secret buyer is a bunch called 'Nottingham Studios' who are so together that they don't even appear to have a website. The 'Post' says that they were offered the place last Autumn for the sum of around £150k. This is apparently around half its market value.

It also emerges that the council's Legal Services did not realise that the groups using RUC would be entitled to 6 months notice to quit, thus adding landlord and tenant law to the list of legal knowledge sets that they don't appear to possess, along with employment. So NCC is trying to get Nottingham Studios to let the groups stay on for a bit longer while, get this, NCC pays rent for them.

The latest fall-out seems to be over the amount of rent that will be paid, the council skillfully exploiting its 'over a barrel' negotiating position. As such Nottingham Studios' agent is singing like a canary saying -

"My understanding is that the Leader is very keen to see this sale go through."

as well as revealing the earlier-than-previously-admitted offer date. This is consistent with the fact that Collins made the portfolio decision.

On the bright side for NCC the Ombudsman is now apparently involved which usually guarantees a full exoneration.

So, to summarise -

• NCC secretly offers RUC to little known Arts group, several months before the poroperty was declared 'surplus to requirements'
• It is offered at around half its market value
• The tenants were served notice to quit in December 09, nearly three months before the decision was officially made to dispose of the building
• Legal Services failed to ensure that the proper notice was given (or maybe, hoped no-one would realise given the apparent rush to get shut of the place)
• NCC failed to make any meaningful attempt to find the tenants alternative accommodation until after everything had blown up in its face
• NCC will now have to pay rent to house the groups which will cut into the proceeds of the sale by about a third

Now, let's be clear, Jon Collins' grubby little paw prints are all over this one. The Post alleges that he even lied to a council committee (presumably the call-in sub-committee, the 'Post' doesn't say) about the low price the building was being sold at. Can't wait to see the minutes for that. And of course his name is at the bottom of the actual decision, which he seems to have made as little more than an afterthought.

This is quite serious stuff, certainly Standards Committee material (which of course is entirely unterrifying) but maybe even something he could be surcharged for.

Anyone might suspect that there could be some sort of undeclared relationships going on between JoCo and the people behind Nottingham Studios. But of course that couldn't be the case because the main players are named here and someone would be bound to go out and check. I'm sure there's nothing to see here.

Collins is of course refusing to comment and I'm not surprised. Frankly he's becoming a liability and if it weren't for the complete absence of gonads in the Labour Group I'd be predicting his imminent demise.

Canning Circus Creative Hub; The Next Radford Unity Complex?

Stumbled across a petition asking for support for the Canning Circus Creative Hub the other day, I'd recommend that you sign it.

The Hub is, in its own words

'... a hub for creative individuals and organisations, taking our name from the area of Nottingham in which we are based.

We are a collective of creative companies who work together to share resources and ideas. We represent a shared movement, intended to promote, inspire and create work we’re all proud to put our name to.'

They are based in buildings on Wollaton St which they rent from the City Council. The regular readers of this blog may already be able to guess the way this is going.

Yes, despite happily toiling away for nigh on 30 years, the council has asked them to leave. They have a press release which gives some background. As yet, NCC has just asked them to 'leave quietly' as opposed to serving a formal notice quit.

I've been in contact with a couple of people based at the Hub. Their feeling is that the situation has arisen due the City Council's failure to maintain the range of buildings it owns on Wollaton St, of which the Hub is only part, leaving them on the verge of being condemned. They have an 'amusing' story of NCC contractors bungling the fitting of fire doors so badly they had to redo it themselves. Redevelopment is clearly on the agenda, almost certainly via the private sector, but the Hub's residents were apparently the last to be told.

Broadly speaking, the businesses at the Hub are very happy with how things are going as they are. None of them are interested in expanding and none of them want to move, particularly if it means being dispersed around the City. None of them receive any grant funding. The impression I get is that the Hub is more than just the sum of its parts but is very much an interdependent community. Such things are hard to translate into cold business language and, as such, tends to get ignored.

As a backdrop to this we have the Radford Unity Complex debacle where NCC wasted gobs of cash trying to hand the building for a cut-price to an arts organisation called Nottingham Studios, completely disregarding the needs, not to mention the legal tenancy rights, of the community groups who were already using it. When that fell apart NS were handed another set of buildings to become 'Primary', ironically just round the corner on Seely Rd. We also have the planned 'Creative Quarter' in the Lace Market, whose 'ambassador' has apparently cited CCCH as a major inspiration.

Unfortunately, the CQ doesn't reach as far as Canning Circus so CCCH cannot access any of the mountain of funding from the City Deal if they want to stay where they are. Some of the residents have looked into relocating to the CQ but feel the properties on offer aren't suitable. And of course, everyone wants to keep their artistic community together which may not be possible if they do move.

As sort of an aside, CQ has launched a loan scheme to assist companies with the costs of relocating there. Now CQ is a separate body to NCC but they are clearly working closely together. Seasoned council watchers therefore may not be over surprised that the company who got the gig managing the loan scheme is First Enterprise, one of whose directors is one of NCCLols' very old friends, former councillor Hassan Ahmed. They were also mentioned as benefiting from the dodgy Future Jobs Fund allocations that Ahmed presided over. So I'm sure that's all completely above board then.

So, with all this past and future money flying around it seems somewhat unfair that at the first sign of panic about the state of their building, NCC's first reaction is to ask them to leave. Since then Cllr Nick McDonald has been quoted in the Post saying that 'no decisions have been made'. However that isn't really very reassuring because, technically speaking, 'no decisions had been made' when Nottingham Studios were invited to buy the RUC building from under the feet of its tenants. At least CCCH seems to have got a bit more warning than the RUC groups did.

We'll be watching this one closely.

Some More of My Opinions on the Local Elections

If anybody should care here are some of the issues that I believe are important when deciding how to vote in the local elections on Thursday.

My first thought is that, before deciding HOW to vote, it's vital to first decide TO vote. Local elections are notorious for their low turnouts and this is a serious threat to true democracy. Turnout in 2007 was 32.4%, up from 29.1% in 2004, an improvement but still nowhere near a majority of those eligible to vote. And that increase is more than explained by the increase in postal votes which bring in their own problems.

I have to say it, voting for someone is nearly always better than not voting at all in my opinion. Nothing encourages complacency, self-interest and downright corruption in our elected representatives than them knowing that they are in a safe seat and not enough people care about their poor performance in order to bother voting against them. Whatever your political views I firmly believe that just turning up for each election and voting against the current incumbent will improve the health of democracy, at least it would keep them on their toes.

So, presuming that you have decided that you are going to vote, my next piece of advice would be to be sure to avoid voting on national issues at the expense of local. It's tempting to assume that they are one and the same and, while there is clearly overlap, it's not necessarily so. For example, I believe very strongly that the biggest local issue in Nottingham City is the out and out corruption and cover up within the Labour establishment at NCC (housing scandal etc, see the blog passim) and voting Labour to teach the coalition will not solve this. I'm not necessarily saying that Labour in local government is intrinsically bad, and I'm certainly not saying that I would never vote for a Labour politician again, it's just that the current Labour establishment consists of three groups; a small controlling core that has no respect for democracy and due process, a small group of lickspittles desperately trying to get into group one and lastly, a larger group of useful idiots/vote fodder who do as they are told regardless.

Again, I should emphasis that this is not a syndrome that is exclusive to the Labour Party, I firmly believe that if the Green Party won three elections in a row you'd end up with a very similar situation but with different colour hats. You'd probably find a lot of the same names as the politicos changed allegiance to the party that could deliver them into power. The important thing here is that when these cliques do establish themselves the important thing is to bring them down.

So for me at least I will not be looking to vote against the Lib Dems simply to punish them for selling their national souls to a poor-hating disablist right wing government. Locally they have been effective constituency representatives and sources of opposition, their effectiveness limited mainly by their numbers. The Tories are a little different of course, while they have taken on certain issues such as the Radford Unity Complex but I'm quite sure that was for cynical electoral reasons as they were targeting the Nottm South seat in the general election at the time. If a comment on Alanadale's blog from one of the candidates in Radford and Park ward is anything to go by they still see some mileage in this issue yet. In power, the Tories wouldn't give a shit about RUC but most importantly, everybody who's nice hates Tories anyway, that's just a fact.

So, to be a bit more prescriptive and specific, I've made no secret in the past that I strongly believe that a Green Party presence on NCC would be a good thing and if you are lucky enough to have a candidate in your ward I would urge you to vote for them. Those against Tesco on Eastside might want to look at Dave 'Lord Biro' Bishop in Dales ward too. In Basford, former Labour councillor Mick Newton is standing as an independent and seems to be good at getting stuck in to local issues so he will probably get one of my votes.

But in the end I suppose that it is pretty much inevitable that there will be a Labour majority in the end so what to do? My personal opinion is that a 'decapitation' strategy is the best bet i.e. get rid of those who are at the top of the dodgy clique. Luckily, we have already seen the last of Hassan Ahmed for a while so the priority is to get rid of JoCo and Graham Chapman. If you live in either St Anns or Aspley ward I implore you not to vote for these two even if you are a Labour supporter, their removal will result in an immeasurably improved local Labour Party I'm certain. We can but hope...

So that's what I think, see you at the ballot box.

Standards Committee Fail

Here is the text of an email that I have just sent to Glen O'Connell, Nottingham City Council's monitoring officer concerning the consistent and ongoing failure of the Standards Committee to deal with complaints against councillors -

"Dear Mr O'Connell,

It is nearly two months since I last heard from you with regard to the complaints I have made against serving City Councillors and yet I have heard nothing further. Both of these go back as far as May yet as far as I can tell absolutely nothing has been done.

In addition I notice that complaints about other councillors appear to be making no progress and yet the Standards Committee appears to be repeatedly canceling meetings. Even if they do manage to get it together the agenda rarely seems packed. I think it is true to say that the Standards Committee have yet to hear any complaint against a serving councillor.

It is hard not to conclude that the internal regulation system for elected members' behaviour is collectively dragging its feet. At best it is utterly failing to do its duty to the citizens of Nottingham. I realise it would be politically embarrassing for the Lord Mayor, Leader and a Portfolio Holder to be investigated at the same time but I hope that this is not playing any part in the delay.

Please will you take this email as a formal complaint under Nottingham City Council's complaints procedure for the unacceptable delays in dealing with all complaints against councillors. As part of dealing with this complaint I would be grateful if you could provide an update to the cases that I have referred at least, however it would be preferable if The Standards Committee were to provide a public update on all cases. Nottingham City Council is quick to name and shame individuals when it sees fit and sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

The reference to cases that I referred concerns complaints I made in May in May about Cllr Ahmed's role in the decision to cut CEHRNN's funding and against JoCo for, ahem, 'making a mistake' when telling the call-in sub-committee that the sale of Radford Unity Complex would raise twice as much as he had already offered it for sale to a bunch of artists. In addition there is still the Cllr Grocock issue outstanding which is becoming farcical in the extent of its delay.

I can't help wondering if the agenda is to make sure that nothing is heard before the elections next year.

Update - no response by end of play Friday

Two Years of Blogging About Conniving Incompetent Twats Pt 2

Right! Now where had we got to? Ah yes...

June 2010

Lib Dem councillor Alex Foster attempted to get a resolution at council calling on Portfolio Holder for Adult Services and Health to lobby the blood doner service to allow gay and bisexual men to be allowed to give blood, which they are currently banned from doing so. Despite this the resolution was amended to remove any reference to gay men, with said Portfolio Holder apparently heard to say "I have gay friends, but..." Enlightened times. Serious criticism from the Audit Commission over NCC's subsidy claims for housing benefit and its administration of the Bridge Estate charity came to light and JoCo and his mates' continued appropriation of Notts Police Authority upsets a few more people.

July 2010

We find out that NCC's website is woefully unfit for purpose for those who want to conduct business with the council online, putting NCC in breach of an, admittedly obscure, EU Directive, we point and laugh at Comms Chief Stephen Barker getting his priority driven prioritisations, erm, prioritised and the world of politics is upended when the Labour Group torpedos a Tory motion to help rehabillitate offenders. Collins gets quite undone over the Parliament St sex shop attempting to renew its license while Cllr Cat Arnold outs herself as a former high class (self defined) escort, causing schoolboy sniggers over the fact that she is the 'executive assistant for leisure' and setting a wonderful example for the city's schoolchildren. On the plus side, it probably helped to sell her book which came out at the same time (currently available for £6 off at Amazon, if you're interested).

August 2010

A slightly quieter month this one. NCC's planning section decrees that one type of solar panel is 'in character' with an Edwardian conservation area but another type isn't, Harold Tinworth is formally awarded a contract to do the work that he's been doing for the last four years, after a scrupulously fair and open tender exercise obviously, and NCC puts the kibosh on this year's East Midlands Vegan Festival by refusig to allow use of the Council House on spurious 'wear and tear' grounds.

September 2010

That decision to award Tinworth the contract was subjected to 'call-in. We went beyond the call of duty and went to observe the meeting which was as dull as you'd expect and just as much of a blatant cover up. After having initially lied about not employing consultants to sort out the lifts maintenance problems NCC suddenly remembered that in fact, yes they had done after all. Michael Williams bids a tearful farewell, inadvertently exposing the complete lack of thought in NCC's senior management restructure last year and we are heartened by an apparent outbreak of good practice at One Nottingham. I did say apparent...

October 2010

The Post reveals the shocking misuse of confidentiality in local government rules when Harold Tinworth's offer to provide political advice at public expense to Labour councillors is exposed following the call-in meeting, Cllr Mick Newton gains my respect by outing himself as a mental health problem sufferer (next month - he loses it again), NCC's reasons for not allowing the East Midlands vegan Festival to be held at the Council house start to unravel and we have some fun chatting to some councillors for Local democracy Week. We end the month with the Information Governance team clamming up because there's some information that NCC wants to keep secret but they're not sure if the law allows them to do so.

November 2010

The Standards Committee stretches credibility beyond the call of duty by ruling that JoCo has no case to answer over his misleading the call-in sub-committee over the selling price of Radford Unity Complex. We get hold of pretty good evidence that oh yes he bloody does have a case to answer and demand a review of their decision. Don't hold your breath. Just show there's no hard feelings we give JoCo valuable advice as to how he could still make it to MIPIM despite NCC's lack of enthusiasm to fund it any more. In 'that took longer than I expected' news, Nottingham Equal is given an amount of funding suspiciously similar to the amount taken from CEHRNN earlier in the year and NCC admits that CEHRNN would have been a competitor for such funding streams had they not been sabotaged. My local councillors disappoint, but don't surprise, me again by steadfastly ignoring my emails and One Nottingham destroys our illusions that they might actually be jolly good chaps by deciding not to cough up about how Nottingham Equal got their money and by installing JoCo's mate as Chief Exec without so much as expecting him to apply or attend an interview.

So, that's my second year of blogging. Obviously I wrote about a few more things than the lowlights above, partly due to lack of energy and partly because I don't get to find out about everything. Readers can help with the latter of course, we are always looking ou for disgruntled NCC, One Nottingham or even voluntary sector employees with information to share. Check my prfile for an email link.

Will we last for a third year? Will NCC's secret agents* 'take us out' or will we simply lose the will to live? Tune in regularly to find out.

*It's alright, I don't really think that NCC has secret agents.

Audit Commission Looking into Radford Unity Complex Sale

Just heard that the Audit Commission is aware of the RUC issue and is looking into some aspects of it.

The organisation's remit is financial irregularity and efficiency so they will only be looking into the sale below market value aspect and possibly the need to pay rent for community groups that has arisen due to the incorrect notice. As such it probably won't be much direct help for the tenants themselves.

But unless JoCo's got a very good explanation for his behaviour I suspect his star will fade considerably. And it's a lot of baggage to be carrying into a PPC selection process.

Always Happy to Help...

I've been getting a small number of hits from a Nottingham City Council address via a Google search for

"Prepare a brief report identifying the main business activities of nottingham city council"

Rather looks like someone's going for an internal job application doesn't it?

By an extraordinary coincidence the 'Appointments and Conditions of Service' committee is meeting to discuss the recruitment to the Corporate Director for Communities post which emerged from the top level restructure that has already done for Sallyanne 'Shit for Brains' Johnson and Barry Horne. The post has been caretakered by Michael Williams who, pre-restructure, was known as the Corporate Director for Community and Culture. His role included, among many other things I've no doubt, making a brief but costly and pointless appearance at my employment tribunal hearing.

Ok, I'm obviously linking the two purely for the purposes of humour but the mental image I have of Williams trying to fill in his application form via google just wouldn't go away and the resulting fantasy that he found stuff here to use made me giggle.

So I'm concluding that Williams is being required to apply for his own job, the background being that a colleague jumped before she was pushed and another failed to make the grade. He might be excused for feeling a little edgy. Do you think this has anything to do with Mr Williams' sterling support for JoCo at the recent 'Call-in Sub-Committee' hearing into the Radford Unity Complex fiasco?

Collinsblog

Blimey, JoCo's got himself a blog.

Modestly titled 'Leading Nottingham', he's used his first post proper to label housing minister Grant Schapps as a 'fool' and Eric Pickles a 'buffoon'. Powerful stuff that's got the Post in a lather but is this really the sort of language that a politician who wants/expects to be taken seriously should use?

Don't get me wrong, I can't fault Collins' assessment of these two Tory twats but last time I used words which could be described as "personal, derogatory comments" about some of Collins' colleagues I got a letter from the City Council's legal department. He presumably has no problem with using council officer time "trawling the internet to find these stories" when it's used to threaten local bloggers with an implication of legal action. My subsequent complaint about this was first ignored then flatly rejected.

Anyway, it keeps him off the streets I suppose and it's probably no coincidence that the local elections are coming up. I'll add him to the blogroll so we don't miss out on any future giggles.

(Hat-tip, Ben Barton)

Update - I made a comment on the latest post this morning but, funnily enough, it has yet to make it past moderation.

Updateagain - as it's still not made it up here's my comment -

"Except of course you won’t be in the same position as FoI because you build the financial reporting into ongoing systems so it’s done routinely. You might actually save overall because fewer FoI requests will need to be made because the information is already out there.

You don’t help yourself when you’re publicly going up against one of the few ideas the Tories have had, and with your record of backroom deals (Radford Unity Complex) and secret/illegal spending (Harold Tinworth) the City Council is badly in need of more accountability."

Snippets

A few odd bits and bobs that I found recently (and in most cases missed when they actually happened) -

It seems that Cllr Aslam's threat to appeal the employment tribunal decision in favour of former Chief Exec of Notts Black Partnership Aneela Asim was more than hot air. There was a hearing before the Employment Appeal Tribunal on 5 March (scroll to the end) (update; the judgment has now been handed down and Cllr Aslam's appeal was successful. That's not the end of it though as the grounds of appeal were somewhat technical around things like the burden of proof so the case is to be heard again from scratch by a new Employment Tribunal).

JoCo takes over the world pt 58. He's only gone and got his hands on the Crime and Drugs Partnership ain't he? Although it's claimed that it's just an interim measure until an Independent Chair can be found.

It's a good job that One Nottingham changed the governance rules for 'theme partnerships' (of which the CDP is one) to allow NCC Portfolio Holders to be appointed as chairs or he wouldn't be allowed to (see item 7).

JoCo takes over the world part 59. He's got himself onto the shortlist for Nottingham East. One way of looking at this is that, if he wins, he'll probably have to resign as leader and councillor and Nottingham East could therefore be said to be taking one for the team. Another way of looking at it is that he's got his fingers in so many pies he still won't be out of our hair and his ginning mug will be popping up on Parliament TV on a regular basis. Gawd help us all.

CEHRNN Chief Exec Afzal Sadiq was voted out of the BME rep post on One Nottingham's board in January. The election was co-ordinated by Nottingham Equal (prop. Cllr Hassan Ahmed). Just sayin'.

I decided to be a bit cheeky and emailed one of the people involved in 'Nottingham Studios', the possible new owners of Radford Unity Complex. I asked a number of questions about what they knew about the property's true market value, whether any of them had any connections with JoCo and whether it was him who made the initial approach to them.

Here's the reply I got -

"At this stage Nottingham Studios is not in a position to answer these questions.

Best wishes"

Hmmm.

Calling (In) Mr Tinworth

Three Tory Councillors have invoked the 'call-in' procedure on Hassan Ahmed's portfolio decision to award Harold Tinworth the £30k contract for 'Executive Development'. The Overview and Scrutiny' Call-In Sub-Committee will consider the request on 8 September.

The 'call-in' procedure is the little used means by which a portfolio holder's decision can be examined by councillors. Following a good old chinwag, absolutely bugger all happens due to Labour members resolutely refusing to ever challenge the leadership. It's only the second time it's ever been used, the first being the decision to sell Radford Unity Complex. At that one, Councillor Jon Collins, he of 'Leader of the Council' fame, sold the committee a porkie regarding the sale price. Hopefully the Standards Committee should be looking into his conduct there but they're probably desperately trying to think of a way to avoid doing so. Certainly you shouldn't hold your breath.

You may remember that the 'Executive Development' gig was formally put to tender following the District Auditor's failure to do anything significant about the seriously dodgy way that money was finding its way to Tinworth without any formal sanction.

Collins Cover Up #1

Before Christmas I received notification from NCC's Monitoring Officer Glen O'Connell that a Standards Committee Review Sub-Committee had confirmed that no further action is to be taken against JoCo over his 'erroneous' claim that Radford Unity Complex would raise over £300k for council coffers when it had already been offered for sale for £150k.

The Assessment Sub-Committee had previously found that JoCo couldn't have known about the lower sale price. However, for the review sub-committee I had managed to get hold of emails that demonstrated that Collins had involvement in the matter for some considerable time, making it somewhat unlikely that the only things he knew were what he had been told in reports from officers.

Yet the review sub-committee decided that 'no additional information' had been provided.

I'm going to stick my neck out here but that is bollocks on stilts and wearing fire-engine red lederhosen. My conclusion of all this therefore is that this is a cover up and the Standards Committee is corrupt.

"I Knew Nothing" Says JoCo

Funny isn't it? You send email after email and you are ignored. Write some stuff on a sweary blog that's read by a few hundred people and suddenly you get a response.

I've now had a reply from NCC Monitoring Officer Glen O'Connell including the Standards Committee's Assessment Sub-Committee's deliberations on my complaint about JoCo's conduct during the Radford Unity Complex fiasco.

Essentially I complained that JoCo appeared to have misled the call-in sub-committee over the amount that RUC was to be sold for. The minutes record him claiming it would fetch £320k whereas Nottingham Studios had already been offered it for £150k.

And yet, the Standards Committee said -


"4) ...that the Portfolio Holder Decision and supporting documentation had been prepared by professional officers and the Subject Councillor was entitled to rely on their content when taking the Decision and when participating in the Call-In Sub-Committee meeting on 4 March 2010;

(5) that there was no evidence before the Sub-Committee to suggest that the Subject Councillor was aware of Property Plus negotiations at the time of the Call-In Sub-Committee meeting on 4 March 2010..."

In other words he didn't know.

Now, what we need to remember here is that this is an assessment sub-committee. Its role is to decide whether there is a case to investigate. It's totally disingenuous to state at this stage that there is 'no evidence' that he was aware of 'negotiations'. That's what you do investigations for, to see if there is evidence.

And yet there was evidence that JoCo was quite involved in the matter. The Post quotes Nottingham Studio's agent telling NCC in an email -

"My understanding is that the leader is very keen to see this sale go through."

Now that's not proof that he knew every in-and-out of what was happening but it does suggest that he was maintaining a close interest. There are other potential explanations too but then, in order to discover which explanation is the correct one you carry out an investigation.

The Assessment sub-committee is effectively expecting me to prove the case before it will even agree to investigate. That is a perverse outcome. I have the right to request a review of the decision and I intend to do so but first I am going to see if I can get hold of any more evidence. I have one or two lines of inquiry but if anybody can help with this please email me via the link in the blog profile.

Nottingham Studios Given a Home

Nottingham Studios last came to our attention when it emerged that they were intended as the beneficiaries of the decision to offload Radford Unity Complex due to it being 'surplus to requirements'.

Initially, NCC proposed to offer the RUC tenants the (genuinely) surplus Douglas School site but that wasn't suitable and, as the legal quagmire deepened the sale of RUC fell through.

In a twist of fate it now seems that Nottingham Studios is to be offered a lease on the Douglas School instead which you can't help feeling would have been a good idea at the start. Not that we get to see the terms of the lease mind, that's 'exempt' from publication.

It seems that NCC doesn't see it as being in our interests to examine whether our assets are being disposed of in a way which provides value for money.

Nottingham Plays 'Pin the Red Rosette on the Donkey. Any Donkey'

Well it's pretty clear that nobody listens to me.

Whatever your views as to which party is best for Nottingham I defy you to argue convincingly that the virtual removal of all opposition to Labour on NCC is a good thing.

As you probably already know the Lib Dems have paid the ultimate price locally for their national leadership's hunger for power. Former Leader Gary Long has made no secret as to what he thinks the solution is, although he's apparently bottled out of repeating that on the national stage too knackered to do Newsnight. The loss of decent campaigning councillors like Tony Sutton and Alex Foster is a real source of regret and gives the impression that voters don't want to know about corruption in the council and will punish you by voting you out if you wake them from their slumbers.

There are still five Tories which means that Nottingham's golf courses continue to have their advocates in the city, although they will have to find a new leader as Andrew Price got his marching orders.

In my ward the odious former 'high class' (self defined) escort Cat Arnold kept her seat. My bet is that she'll be on the new Executive as she's been crawling up JoCo's arse for years. Mick Newton, who ran as an independent, didn't make it which I think is a shame. Again, a red rosette means more than a record of actually getting out into the community and doing your job it seems.

It has to be said that, despite some best efforts, the corruption issues haven't gone away. The District Auditor is set to report on alleged Future Jobs Fund dodginess, the Harold Tinworth affair is still ongoing (and hasn't he earned his money) and as Tony Sutton has a bit more time on his hands I suspect he won't let that go. I've got FoI requests regarding the funding cuts to CEHRNN and whatever went on between NCC and Nottingham Studios over Radford Unity Complex. These issues could be embarrassing for JoCo and his sidekick Chapman. Could there be resignations?

Addendum - nearly forgot, the NCC website has a rather impressive results information portal. It's only missing turnout figures so far (as a %) but the votes cast numbers indicate a much higher turnout than 2007.