Grrr, I'm a Tiger baby

A copy of the English injunction is here, the last page being the most important and interesting, especially given that he hasn't sought an injunction anywhere else in the world.

The fable of Noah

It looks like the fable of Noah has been explained and debunked by science as this schema of the Mediterannean basin being broached at the Gates of Hercules (Gibraltar) explains.

Ah, the majestic power of science over magical belief....

Jim "Two bathrooms" Devine

So the Livingston MP has claimed for a new bathroom twice in one year.

Firstly when the flat was redecorated and secondly when the room was flooded and needed redecoration.

Seems reasonable you might think.

Pardon me, but where's the contents insurance cover for the flat?

With no possibility of loss - as Parliament will reimburse all the costs - are MPs failing to take out insurance cover or, Heaven forbid, are they claiming on the insurance too?

Expenses scandal gets worse

It appears that Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson is the focus of a renewed Parliamentary expenses scandal, when it was revealed today that he used his bus pass for free travel to Ministerial visits.

The other MSPs are scandalised that an opportunity to claim expenses was avoided and that their constituents might look at the lead being given by Mr Stevenson and expect them to follow suit by not wasting public money.

One MSP said, "I have already reduced my expenditure on Gaelic hair gel to under £1,000 per month by using Gordon Diesel's special offers."

One Scottish MP said, "I would never think of using public transport between my flat and the Union Jack Club, if there was some way to claim the taxi on expenses. Anyway, the Fees Office are there to complete my forms and sort it all out, and take responsibility if I they get it wrong."

How to deal with 'staff'

With the latest expenses claims for MPs now being available on the web, I took a look at those claimed by our esteemed MP.

There is barely a claim that has been properly completed or for which all the supporting documentation is in place, and the vast majority have had some amount (often quite large) disallowed.  The sheer shoddiness of the claims is appalling, and they clearly have been cast into the Claims Office for the minions to sort out.

Let's not mention the threats of legal action for non-payment of bills.

The best bit, however, is the very final document, which is an email exchange between MacNeil and the Fees Office.  It perhaps epitomises everything that is wrong with the current system, and just how the whole system went so badly wrong.

A rude and bullying email by our MP justifying why he doesn't bother to put his claims in by the deadlines (and why should he, he implies) is met with an obsequious crawling response from the officials, who duly interpret the rules in a more flexible manner.

It really is a shame that MacNeil has to bother himself to actually produce receipts to justify buying £158.50 of nice new bed linen from John Lewis, to replace the nice new bed linen previously claimed.  A king-size duvet cover at £58.50;  mmmm, nice.

I wish I had a job that paid those sorts of expenses......

Dysfunctional organisations

When the bosses lay down the rules for all their employees, but don't bother to adhere to those rules themselves, then you know that the public-sector organisation is highly dysfunctional.

That these rules were supposed to be enforced to make sure the organisation operated properly and had functioning internal controls, and were flagrantly ignored is a disgrace.

More to follow in the next few weeks, when I can go public with the detail.

"Expert" team

You just can't make it up, can you....

Bosses from some of Scotland's main energy companies are to advise the Scottish government on achieving its climate change targets.

The experts include:

• Ian Marchant (Chair), Scottish and Southern Energy
• Nick Horler, ScottishPower
• Gordon Grant, Ineos (Grangemouth oil refinery)
• Nicola Shaw, FirstGroup
• Brian Souter, Stagecoach

This new group brings together a wide range of expertise to examine in detail the actions needed across Scotland to meet our ambitious climate change targets.

Yes, but, with the Chair having such heavy vested interests in certain courses of action, is the credibility of the Group (Committee? Panel?) not already compromised.

As Alex Salmond says:

There should be no doubt climate change is the greatest environmental threat we face.

Can't argue too much with that, but that surely calls for decisive and urgent action, by the Government, and not the creation of another talking shop to confirm the vested interests of various industry representatives.

There's no timescale for action; no detail of when and how reports will be made; and no details of their remit. These may come out in time, but the lack of time is the key issue.

Next week, the Corleone family are advising the Government on crime policy.

Crisis - what crisis?

Good news emanates from Sandwick Road, as the budget process grinds its way slowly through the system.

As figures have started to firm up, it appears that the correctly held pessimistic views of the Director of Finance may have overstated the depth of the problem.

I am now told that the forecast deficit is significantly under £500,000 which is well within the levels that are manageable as it represents less than 0.5% of the revenue budget.

If this proves to be accurate, then it is good news indeed, and it will be very interesting to find just from where the extra income (or lower expenditure) originates.

My source suggests that additional support from central Government has appeared for this year, and if this is true then it is a welcome - if temporary - buffer before reality bites. I have previously expressed the view that next years settlement will be highly political, with the Holyrood elections just around the corner, but with the prospects of severe public sector cuts planned by Westminster after the coming General Election, then the planning for the savings has got to start now, so that the Council has a chance to deal with what will be a likely serious cut-back announced in 2010/11 for implementation in 2011/12, or before.

With friends like this.....

The supposed saviour of the Uist Rocket Range made an announcement today...

Robert Key, Member of Parliament for Salisbury since 1983,
will not seek re-election at the next General Election

So little chance of him influencing the next Defence Select Committee.....

An Lanntair

Anon wrote:

Any idea why 6 directors of An Lanntair resigned during November 2009??? Just how bad are the Management Accounts that they are running. And guess who has now been appointed as a director, the illustrious Brian Wilson :-)

Companies House shows:

25/11/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED, DIRECTOR CAROLINE MACLENNAN
25/11/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED, DIRECTOR FINELLA MORRISON
25/11/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED, DIRECTOR CALUM MACDONALD
25/11/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED, DIRECTOR RODERICK MACKAY
11/11/2009	DIRECTOR APPOINTED MR RODERICK MACKAY
11/11/2009	DIRECTOR APPOINTED CALLUM ANGUS MACKAY
11/11/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED, DIRECTOR ERICA MORRISON
11/11/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED, DIRECTOR ALEXANDER TEARSE
11/11/2009	DIRECTOR APPOINTED BRIAN WILSON
29/01/2009	APPOINTMENT TERMINATED DIRECTOR DAVID GREEN

I think that the appointment of Cllr Roddy Mackay on 11/11/09 is actually the backdated appointment from 2007 and I think Angus MacKay (WIHB) was appointed in 2008, but the forms just weren't submitted at that time.

The accounts are due to be lodged by 31 January, but hopefully the Council will seek public (!?!) explanations before pledging yet more finance.

Anyone know who the new directors might be?

The Independence Devolution referendum

The new Culture Minister, Fiona Hyslop, threw the following document out of her pram this morning, before being relieved of the Constitutional remit:

TOP SECRET: THE REFERENDUM QUESTIONS
FROM THE DESK OF THE FIRST MINISTER

After due consultation and debate over the next year, the following are the questions that will appear on the referendum ballot paper.

Complete this ballot paper by ticking only one box, preferably the first. We know where you live.

In order to make Scotland a land of Milk and Honey and not sponged off by the English, where the sun shines constantly and we all live happily and don't need to work, I want the Government in Scotland to be based on:

• Independence tick here ->
• Devolution max
• Devolution medium
• Devolution mini
• Devolution micro
• Devolution maestro
• Calman
• Calmac
• Calmax
• Calculus
• Cactus
• Status Quo
• Rolling Stones
• That Robbie Shephard always plays nice tunes
• Chan eil fhios agam

This ballot paper is available in Urdu, Hindi, Chinese, Polish, Zulu, Lallans, Braille, punch tape, machine code, Martian, Walloon, Pictish, talking dog for the deaf, Venezuelan, as an audio book for the illiterate, Pictish braille, hieroglyphs, ancient Incan, Elvish and Aberdonian.

If you would like a pre-completed form in this or any other language, please contact the independent organisers at SNP HQ.

Town Hall refurbishment

Have a look at the application here, and the detailed plans, and be prepared to be shocked....

You can also use the on-line site to submit comments. I would strongly suggest that to make these as effective as possible, you do refer to planning matters, rather than just general abhorrence of the scheme.

The balcony remains, but the seating is to be removed and the floor levelled to create a Gallery and 'Flexible Function Area' (Doc 8).

The stage goes to create an 'Exhibition Area' with another 'Exhibition Area' under the balcony.

There is potentially to be a Cafe, although this doesn't appear on the plans and searching the online planning system is less easy than it should be, but I have one serious, major, concern about the whole scheme.....just what are we going to show in this new Exhibition Area?

I went to An Lanntair over the weekend and it was quiet, deadly quiet, just as it seems to be on the occasional instances that we go there for a drink. With the Council already making very, very, substantial deficit support payments for the facility, are they now going to create a competing space that will also require revenue funding, and a cafe that will compete with the cafe in the library (proprietors Comhairle nan Eilean Siar) as well as all the hard-pressed businessmen in town?

Or are they just going to approve the alterations and leave us with a building that doesn't deliver the purposes for which it was intended?

An Lanntair should - and must - make a profit from the commercial activities to put it on a level playing field with private business. It must do that for it's own sake, and to prove to the sceptical taxpayers that it can, before the Council provide another space for Gaelic Mime Artistes or for sculptures made of Mars Bars wrappers and engine parts to undermine a struggling business.

Or they could reinvent the Town Hall as a public space, for the public of the islands.

The plans need Listed Building Consent. The absence of public consultation on the most historic and significant public building in the Western Isles should be enough to delay or refuse the application, and allow us a chance for some say in what happens to this fine building.

No doubt the Stornoway Historical Society will have something to say about these plans, and no doubt the Councillors who are members of SHS will take due attention to what SHS has to say. ( I've lifted the picture off their excellent and informative website.)

Schools funding debacle continues

The more I asked around, the less I was able to learn about the surprise decision to provide £3m of funding for a new primary school in Daliburgh.

Firstly, we should be glad to see that the poor state of the school has been recognised and that some funding has been provided to renew the building. All sums gratefully received.

But it is the background to this largesse that is the most intriguing and confused aspect of the whole affair.

As far as I can determine, the Council have (repeatedly) submitted a list of the schools that need rebuilding, together with associated estimated costs, to the Government to try to get a coherent strategy for rebuilding agreed. The decision to award funding to Daliburgh, and Daliburgh alone, came a bit out of the blue and leaves the Council in a real dilemma. The award is being described as 'political' rather than 'educational', with a desire to see as many Councils as possible benefit, rather than the educational issues of each being properly addressed.

With the consultation on the future of Daliburgh Secondary to be re-established and with the need to review the entire future of Secondary education across the islands, the award is being perceived to be a sign that the decision to close the Secondary has already been taken and that any consultation will be a sham.

You can understand why some people are thinking that, even though I genuinely don't think that that is the case.

But the real problem is: just how will the Council fund the other £3m of building costs?

All capital expenditure is already (over) committed to the new schools project and the budget cuts are going to place further strain on resources. The one option is to use 'prudential borrowing' or HP as the rest of us know it, but that then committs another chunk of the Education Department budget for the subsequent 25 years, allowing even less flexibility.

The Chair of Education is already talking about adding Daliburgh Primary onto the new schools project, obviously to see if there are some economies of scale that can be achieved. That makes sense from her budget viewpoint, but just means that another big piece of work is being passed off-island when it could be potentially done by some of the local contractors and provide more local work.

The Council have been placed on the horns of an educational and financial dilemma by the Government, and I'm not sure how they are going to get out of it.

First of many...

It was absolutely inevitable that an aide to an MSP would be caught smearing opponents.

It is just as inevitable that Parliamentary computers will be found to have been used for those purposes - in other words that you and I are paying for a 'civil servant' to sit in front of a computer and to misuse these facilities for party ends.

Mike Russell MSP, the erstwhile employer of said anonymous blogger, commented:

"There is no place for anonymous, despicable commentary of this sort in politics and the person no longer works for me. It shouldn't happen in any party. I hate the fact that this has happened."

"I am happy that this is the end of the matter - the person has paid the ultimate price, he no longer works for me."

I am sure that all MSPs will take the same attitude, and will vote to allow a thorough investigation of the misuse of Parliamentary computers for party ends by their employees. Or indeed by the MSPs themselves.

I'm happy to hand over the logs that I have showing that Scottish Parliament computers were used to make offensive - and potentially libelous - comments on this blog about a certain Labour politician; and to make others in a deliberate campaign to try to cause problems for me.

Global financial crisis

The news that sovereign state is applying for a Creditors Voluntary Arrangement is as predictable as it is shocking.

Dubai's economy has gone belly-up and it's main investment arm (which is the Government by any other name) has suddenly decided that it can't afford to repay the debts it has incurred.

It is not about lack of income coming into the organisation, as the oil price is continuing to support the planned investments, but is is everything to do with the inability (or unwillingness) of tenants to pay the landlords any rental income.

In simple terms, you are using your excess salary to fund the purchase of new buy-to-lets whilst the value of the existing properties crashes and the rental income doesn't cover the mortgage. Oh, and by the way the value of the properties is less than the outstanding mortgage.

It's around this time that the IMF usually in and instruct the country on how to recover, but somehow I think that Dubai may be too proud to allow this to happen. Yet.

But it bodes ill for other investments that they have made across the world which may need to be realised quickly and may drag down other companies.

Allied to the surreptitious loans to the Scottish Banks and a pattern of covert financial disaster becomes apparent. Dear God, what have the Governments brought us to?

Just back in the land of the living

...after a 36 hour bug that left me totally wiped out, feverish and unable to rationalise.

(Situation normal, I hear you cry!)

Housing problems

Perhaps the solution to the local housing shortage lies closer to home than we like to admit....

The number of vacant properties in Scotland has soared to a four-year high of 103,000, (4.2% of the total), a Bank of Scotland survey has shown.[...]

In the Western Isles 1,850 homes were unoccupied - 13.2% of all properties.

Yes, they may be the family homes that Mary in Glasgow (or Brisbane, or Texas) was born and brought up in, but if they are empty 11 months of the year, they are not helping the local situation except by the smallest margins.

Discuss.

Withdrawal of BP Fuel Cards

The story on Hebrides News about the partial withdraw of the BP Fuel Cards starts off fine....

Many employers in the Scottish islands are facing a massive threat when an oil giant withdraws a vital fuel discount.

Island businesses warn around 20 jobs could go in the Western Isles as BP bans the use of its discount card - which provides fuel at 7.5 pence a litre cheaper - at some independent filling stations in the islands.

The islands affected are Lewis, Shetland, Skye and Arran where filling stations are not run under the BP brand. The discount stops in four weeks and some island firms say their costs will soar by up to £30,000 annually as a direct result.

So far, so reasonable and you can see why the hauliers are up in arms.

It could cost the economy of the Outer Hebrides half a million pounds it is said.

Whooaa! That doesn't seem right.....

This is a very serious matter which deserves serious consideration, but let's try and get the numbers right and substantiated.

• Assume that the hauliers fill up on the mainland any lorries that are running across the Minch
• The hauliers use a mix of large lorries and small vans
• The discount is only available to the larger businesses, so the smallest hauliers are excluded
  

Now comes the maths, and please let me know where I go wrong.

• 7.5p a litre costing £500,000 to the economy, equates to 6.7m litres
• As I can't do the modern stuff, that's about 1.46m gallons
• With the mix of vehicles, an average mpg of 10 is probably on the low side, but that gives us 14.65m miles pa
  
• I estimate that the three big hauliers in Stornoway have perhaps 20-25 vehicles on the go on the islands at any time
• Add on other businesses that may qualify and I estimate perhaps 50 lorries are on the go at any time (Full Time Equivalent)
• That implies each lorry travels 293,000 miles per annum
• Or 5,635 miles a week
• Or 940 miles per day (6 days a week)
• At an average speed of 20mph (town deliveries, starting and stopping etc.) that means that they are operating about 47 hours per day, which is good going by any reckoning, but must play havoc with the tachograph.

So let's do it the other way, with what I guess might be more accurate figures.....

50 lorries/vans working full time 10 hours a day at an average speed of 15mph, getting 15mpg, five and half days a week, 52 weeks per annum = 143,000 gallons per annum. That's about 650,650 litres, which at an additional cost of 7.5p per litre gives an additional cost of £48,800 per annum. Even allowing for a huge error in my assumptions, it looks like £100,000 is a more accurate top line figure.

Unless you know different.

Sorry about being a pedant, but I do like numbers.

500,000 thanks

When I first started blogging it was as a way of letting-off steam that I expected to be read by family and a few random visitors.

Nothing much has changed, except that over 500,000 page views later I have you, dear readers, to berate, abuse and occasionally praise me.

Thanks for putting up with me.

HHP, Stock Transfer and the Council

What an unholy mess we find ourselves in with the apparent near collapse of the funding package for HHP.

Having been party to the discussion of the Stock Transfer inside the Council - and following SNP policy, having opposed it as being anti-democratic and unnecessary - I know a fair amount about how the deal was structured and how it was likely to progress.

My take on the news that the Council has had to 'bail out' HHP to the tune of £1,000,000 is that the real issues are being missed in much of the criticism.

That the terms of the deal are being kept secret (presumably due to 'commercial confidentiality') is a complete and utter disgrace, when such large sums of public money are being dished out to other public bodies. I don't care that they are a registered Industrial & Provident Society; they are still a body controlled by the public and the only ones who can build houses in the Western Isles. If they take the money, then they have to be prepared to let the public see where it has gone and what it is being used for, and the Council need to justify why such a sum is being given to the organisation instead of into Care Homes or pavement repairs.

The same principle should apply to all other public bodies who receive soft funding from the Comhairle, and if anyone can pass me the papers, I will make sure they are put in the public domain.

But back to how it happened....

My understanding is that HHP made applications to Scottish Homes (or whatever they are called this week) for the permission to undertake certain developments.

Permission was granted and the business plan was worked up on the basis of the then current grant levels that would be expected.

Housing association grants were slashed resulting in a shortfall in funding.

Now, at the last minute, the Council have agreed to bridge the gap after a crunch meeting with the Minister, who in turn has allowed 'more flexibility' over the use of the funds.

So what does all that actually mean, when you cut through the rubbish and verbiage?

Well, the feared clawback of the bulk of the Housing Grant won't happen, because the Government will give HHP more time to get the funding for the new houses sorted; but, only because the Council is finding £1m to cover the shortfall in funding caused by the Government.

Result? Not quite, we a £1m worse off - on top of the other cuts the Council will have to make - and the Government walks away from the blame for precipitating the problem in the first place.

It is undoubtedly a better outcome that all the other options, but that like praising the the chiropodist who was treat an ingrowing toenail for only amputating your lower leg by mistake.

The matter was raised by the Council as long ago as January, and on many occasions since we have heard muttered concerns about the house building programme.

There is still an unanswered question about how HHP reacted to the change in the Housing Association grant levels. But if they put forward proposals which were approved by the Government on the assumption of a certain level of grant support, then I believe that there is a moral obligation of the Government to stick to the level of assistance, not to try and back out and lumber the taxpayers of the Western Isles with the costs of their policy change.