Incompetence, sheer pathetic incompetence

The loss of the right to create a Scottish tax rate is unbelievable.

That such a loss came about because someone forgot to pay the bill is just jaw-droppingly pathetic.

With two-years notice now required, on top of the two/three years to get legislation drafted, voted upon and passed effectively rules out any use of the power inside a single term of a Parliament.

Hopefully, the SNP will admit just who was responsible for this stupidity.

Unless - of course - it was deliberate, to try and focus the debate on the extremes rather than all the possibilities.

However, it feels more like incompetence; but all the same, whose incompetence?

The royal engagement

Is it just me, or is the coverage just a bit too understated?

A big thank you...

...to whoever found my laptop, exactly where I left it in the back of the luggage trolley at the airport, and handed it in to the security staff.

ROK collapse

I've spent a large part of the past week helping companies and businesses affected by the collapse of ROK.

Apart from the obvious danger to the future of local business one theme has been coming though.

HIE = Highland and Islands Enterprise.

ROK get the contract to provide all building services to HIE, despite not then having a base in the HIE area.

The contract for the improvement to Arnish are awarded without the need for tender to ROK because of the insolvency of ROK urgency of the situation.

Wouldn't it have been more appropriate for HIE to encourage businesses in the HIE area by, er, funding someone in the region to gain the skills to compete for the tender, or alternatively to determine that a HIE area business has to win the contract for the very economic reasons that HIE advance for their very existence.

Regardless, I am picking up the crap that politicians issue inane press releases saying what they are thinking that they might think about doing something about.   I'm helping keeping clients in jobs. They are just doing their jobs with no regard for those affected. Grrrrr.

Council funding gap

Schools are being closed to try to bridge the Council's funding gap.

So where would the money come from to keep those schools open?

Job losses?

Well it looks like jobs and schools are to go, and the gap still isn't going to be bridged.

There's only one place the money can come from, and that is the Scottish Government.  Unless you know better.

Some of the redundancies are already agreed, and from those I about it is some of the best and most knowledgeable officers who are going to be first out the door.  Which is often the case when things go bad.

Leaving the Council worse off at every level.

Using public money for party political ends

Too much time on their hands, too little to do, and they are sitting there wasting your money....

A recent comment on the blog:

Anonymous said...

"I'm told that..." = "I made it up in my head that..."

12:34 PM

You may have noticed that Google comments are 1 hour out, due to the clocks having changed.

My goodness.  Which one of the MSPs multitude of staff was this, do you think?

Apart from being contrary to the rules, this follows on quite nicely embarassingly from the Police investigation into the self-same computers being used to smear the former Labour Candidate with libellous comments.


We'll be passing this to the Parliamentary authorities for their comments.  Was that you Kenny Flip?

You would be appalled at the amount of time that Parliamentary staff are spending on this blog, but I am sure you can guess which of the comments - all coincidentally supporting the SNP - have been made by them  :-)

How democracy works....

A recent email from the Chief Executive explains how the policy of transparent and open discussion about the budget priorities will be followed (my emphasis)....

Dear Councillor,
 
Everyone in the Comhairle, Member and employee alike, is fully aware, even in advance of the announcement of the financial settlement for Scotland, and the Comhairle's own allocation of the Local Government settlement, that next year's budget process will be singularly challenging for the Comhairle, and as the recent Budget and HR Strategy Seminars have shown, the Comhairle has resolved to commence preparations for next year's budget at the earliest opportunity.   The Comhairle's customary approach to budget setting has been, as you are aware, to debate the whole budget strategy through a series of seminars, culminating in recommendations to special meetings of Policy and Resources Committee and the full Comhairle in February of each year, with discussions as to service priorities, and individual budget lines, taking place at these seminars.  It is appreciated that Party Groups particularly, in addition to individual Members, may wish to discuss and present alternative budgets to the Comhairle, the details of which may take some time to prepare, particularly in current  financial circumstances.

If it is your intention to prepare and submit an alternative budget, even in outline, pleasse (sic) let either Robert Emmott or me know as soon as possible, in order that Robert and his team can arrange the necessary support and advice.  It is quite possible that it will not be possible or practicable to discuss significant strategic alterations to the budget late in the process, for example, in the hours and days before the budget setting meetings, and any such discussions should begin well in advance of the end of this calendar year.

Kind regards.

Malcolm
Malcolm Burr
Chief Executive

So, if you went to one of the public events where you expressed your view on a particular aspect of how money should be spent or saved, you are not going to have an opportunity to hear any discussion (or even know if there was any discussion!) as the members will debate this in a seminar, which is held in private, and for which no minutes or records will be kept.

The deals done behind closed doors will then be placed into public for ratification - not discussion of anything important - and the public will remain in the dark as to why A was cancelled whilst B went ahead.

Seminars should be to improve understanding of the issues, and providing a general direction to the process, with the real debate held in public.  The only reason for not doing so can be fear of having the decisions scrutinised.

Most bizarrely, with the seminars to decide upon strategy timetabled for next year, anyone with a different view on the final budget is asked to flag up their changes before the end of the year.

We know it is going to be a tough process, just please let the public see how tough it is, rather than giving the perception of a cabal stifling real open discussion.

Interconnected scrapped

The announcement that SSE are withdrawing the connection only to reapply later is a bitter, bitter,blow to the communities and economy of the Western Isles.

Where now for community schemes?

Where now for wave power development off the west coast?

Where now for the economic future of the islands?

Any re-application for investment might take another year, they say, but in reality it is going to be 5-10 years before anything come of it, buy which time the developments will have passed us by.


And, yes, let us point the finger at those whose opposition to the developments has been vociferous, systematic and pervasive; and which failed to even consider discussing the big picture in favour of a blanket unthinking nay saying at the highest levels.

And who refused to discuss anything beyond outright uncompromising opposition to wind power, whilst trying to pretend that community schemes could somehow justify a cable?  The same people who are happy to support pylons to carry the output from wavepower across the islands, but completely opposed the same pylons for windpower.

The same people who repeatedly refused to meet with the Council to discuss any sort of compromise support for modified Council aspirations, or try to find any middle ground between complete support and complete opposition. 

I refer, of course, to our MP and MSP who have sacrificed Galson, Pairc, probably Storas, Tolsta, Shawbost and Point on a course of action they wouldn't debate because they didn't want to understand it.  And I know, because I was there when they flaunted their prejudice and ignorance when workable middle-way solutions were proposed.

I am - as you might tell - disgusted, but the chickens have come home to roost, as I - and many other Councillors have warned.

Hopefully, I can be more optimistic about our future when I next blog.

Emergency Tug provision

Angus MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar, Scottish National Party)
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what steps he plans to take to ensure adequate marine emergency coverage for the Highlands and Islands following the removal of the Anglian Prince tug boat in 2011.

Michael Penning (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Roads and Motoring), Transport; Hemel Hempstead, Conservative)

holding answer 4 November 2010

The current contract for the provision of emergency towing vessels at public expense will not be renewed when it expires in September 2011. Between now and the end of the contract, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency intends to work with the shipping and wider maritime industries, and also with local interested parties, local authorities and the Scottish Government, to explore options for ensuring the effective operation of commercial arrangements could operate in the future.

----

Good question, detailed (if unsatisfactory) response.  Now can someone keep me appraised of what actually happens and who actually meets with whom.  Is it all bluster and waffle, or is there a cunning plan?

Scottish budget

It is going to be a budget offering only severe cuts, as John Swinney finds himself boxed in with expensive promises that cannot be undone, and with a real terms cut in cash available.

Money cannot be created from nowhere - although there may be an attempt to (falsely) claim that that could so easily be the case in an independent Scotland - and if you want to spend somewhere then it has to come from cuts elsewhere.

The reported change in policy from revenue to capital expenditure is not quite a case of deckchairs on the Titanic, but is not far off.  To the ordinary Council tax payer, there isn't much of a difference between repairing a mile of road and building a new mile, but for the bookkeepers it moves the expenditure.  And somehow the economists reckon that the later will create more jobs by virtue of a higher multiplier.

There is no dispute that it increases the national balance sheet, which is A Good Thing.

Personally, I think that slimming the bureaucracy and using the savings for actually doing things is actually likely to produce a better economic result, than some kind of financial juggling.

But it is the impact on the other public services that has to be considered.

With Nicola Sturgeon apparently having bargained for Health to be ring-fenced from cuts, then the other services were facing significantly larger cuts.  Yesterday's announcement that students are going to have to pay more for their education (for that is what it is) is just a taster of the extant of the savings that have to be made, and the kind of policy changes that are being considered.

Being in power can sometimes be even more frustrating than being in opposition, as the SNP are finding.

I predict a centralisation of funding, with revenue being cut from all public services (except Health) and channelled into a more centralised capital pot to be administered and distributed by the Government into both large national schemes and smaller local ones.

Cue cries of "favouritism", "political bias" and "power-crazed Stalinist ministers" as the pot is distributed, just ahead of the election.

It is going to be a deeply unpleasant few months for the SNP as they try to wrestle with the responsibilities of office, and justify successful small businesses paying no rates whilst home care services are being cut.

Oh! For a coherent rural policy

I've spent the past few days trying to help various relatives who are affected by the schools closures to work out how they can oppose, reverse or just object to the closures.

My message to them has been quite blunt: the battle was fought a few years back, and you lost.  You just didn't know or realise it.

Of course, I'm not quite that heartless, but I'm not giving false hope, as I am most definitely not in a position to do so.  But it is still quite difficult telling people that they are almost certainly going to lose.

Some years back the Council made a strategic decision based upon class numbers, depopulation and a big bag of money dangled by the Government.  The Council was offered two choices (a) brand new shiny schools part funded by Government, or (b) find your own money to maintain dilapidated and largely-empty schools.

An invidious choice, but such is the nature of politics.

And time moves on and the new SNP Government pledges that no rural schools will close with the approval of the Minister and only after proper consultation.  Which has the effect of dragging out the process, rather than actually changing the outcome.

And all the time the Government(s) came the major changes in land ownership and the absolute support for rural communities to grow thrive and, er, educate their children in far off places.

Why are crofters being encouraged to buy their own crofting estates to regenerate their communities, when with the other hand the Government is forcing - through financial mechanisms - the closure of the schools in the area?  And the care units will follow shortly in the name of rationalisation.

Now, I am not one to back limitless public spending, but you cannot deliver on a policy that you deliberately undermine.  That is not a policy, it is a press release.

A Councillor gave me some insight into the issues.

Moves to try to keep some of the rural schools open - in exchange for modifications to the centralising impact of the new schools project - were stymied when the MSP refused to get involved in negotiations with the Government.  As the Education Minister is his former boss, the tone of the MSPs banal, and utterly hollow, press release decrying the closure decision betrayed a total lack of interest in the issue.

I am told that three years ago he was asked by the Council to help broker a deal that would have saved some rural schools.  The MSP declined, and backed the Government financing and closure package against the Council.

Hence where we are today.

Good to know who your friends are.

Thousands join march to support RAF Lossiemouth

Anyone see any similarity between the massive SNP campaign to retain RAF Lossiemouth attended by the First Minister and supported by numerous SNP Governemnt press releases and the way the Range Hebrides campaign has had to plead to get access for an SNP Ministerial hearing, far less get any level of active support?

Could it be anything to do with the level of importance/ability of the different SNP representatives in the minds of the SNP Government?

Electricity boosts numeracy

As the Independent put it:

A tiny electric current applied to the back of the head can significantly improve a person’s mathematical skills for up to six months, a study has found.

A senior Council employee has advised that the Council has approved the purchase of 31 new chairs to assist with the Annual Council Budget process.

"Cut some street lights and just use my glowing head"

Managing the public cash

The Council has many different sources of income, so of which it earns, so of which comes as automatic grants and some of which it has to request.

It's not rocket science to have a list of tasks which includes VAT Returns every quarter, PAYE every month and claim for grants A-Z on whatever cycle makes sense.

Some of these claims are annually, others monthly, others when something passes a milestone.

Why then, have claims for 2010/11 not been lodged for the Fuel Duty rebate that the council gets for every mile that the buses run, or for the subsidy that the Council gets from the Scottish Government for running the public bus services?

I'm told that the unclaimed amounts are in the region of £150,000, and whilst it only (only! hah) affects cash flow, it shows a lack of focus on what should be being done by rote.

[The solution will probably be to employ another member of staff, rather than to deal with the underlying omission]

Perhaps someone on the Finance Committee or on the Commercial Operations (sic) Board might like to ask what else hasn't been done - I have a list - and why not?

Rural schools and teachers

The Council spends 42% of it's budget on Education.

Many of these costs are fixed - teachers' jobs and salaries are secure, and teachers can only be sacked in exceptional circumstances - and few significant costs can be changed in any meaningful time scale.

The closure of the rural schools became inevitable as soon as the Council decided to build the new schools.  The centralisation of education is not new, as the empty derelict schools in Uist will testify, but is an inevitable result of a declining school roll in every area.

Stop: yes some areas seem to have some growth in pupil numbers, but the supertanker that is the education system doesn't react to annual or quinquennial changes, but to long term trends.  And they are all down.

The battle was lost when the previous Labour Government decided that the new schools had to be one building project and funded by PFI.  At that point the die was cast.

The current SNP Government have promised to protect rural schools, whilst simultaneously approving a Council funding package that explicitly included the closure of rural schools as an approved element of funding the gap between capital costs and the grants/loans from Government.

There will almost inevitably be a symbolic call-in of one or two of the 11 closures, but as the Government have already told the Council how they must re-consult to meet the Government's requirements for approval, it is nothing more than window dressing.

Have the Council made the right decisions?  I don't think that they had any choice but to make the decisions they have made as they were constrained by past decisions, funding problems and Government instructions.

I look at some of the Councillors who voted for the overall strategy, but most certainly not the schools in their own areas, and shake my head in disbelief.

The Council is not the bad guy in this decision.  The blame lies with successive Governments - including the current one - who have failed to stem the economic decline of the islands, and who have failed to find the mechanisms to retain the people in the islands to secure the schools, the economy and the future.  Despite the promises they all churn out at election time.

The islands population may be stabilising; but that is only because we are gaining retirees to replace the young we are losing.  But that isn't going to fill the schools, or keep a maternity ward in the hospital.

Cllr Angus Campbell once proposed a bounty be paid for every child born in the islands, to which I would add that a further one be paid at entry into Primary school and again at Secondary school.  That might encourage the parents, and the challenge then lies with encouraging the children to remain or return and to - in turn - fill the maternity wards and the schools.

New schools project

As the new schools near completion, the Comhairle has an open day for parents, teachers and pupils to show them the new classrooms.

A spokesman later brushed aside complaints saying that it was as a result of "A breakdown in communications resulting in the contractor - Kennels & Cages plc - misreading the plans."

He later whinged that "It is not fair to blame the Council for work we designed, commissioned, supervised and approved, when clearly we have our heads up our backsides."

Fabrication and lies?

Much as the Council may 'apologise' for the 'misunderstanding' of the contractor in building a cage for an autisitic boy to play in, I understand that the reality is slightly different.

I am told, by a source I believe knows, that the area was build exactly as instructed by the Council.

A Councillor suggests that I do an FoI request.

Is there any Councillor out there with the balls to actually go and look at the specification that was issued by the Council?  Before the papers are lost....

It might be worth cross-checking with the contractors that you have the real story, before coming to a conclusion.

It appears that the specification may have been wrong because of a failure of communication inside the White House, but that doesn't stop the blame being sprayed around like fertiliser on a field. 

It's not the mistake; it's the lies to cover it up.  Be brave enough to face it.

Business development

Every week seems to offer more proof of the opportunities that can arise for the Western Isles in certain sectors if you use a bit of innovative thinking and have the skills to deliver a service.

Google Adwords has been driving at least £1,000 of new business to us each and every month for at least the past year from all across the UK, at a cost of under £50, which is great as it helps us to secure and increase employment in our office and spreads the risk of any local recession on our staff and business.

As a consequence of the growth in some of our specialist sectors we opened an office in Aberdeen a few months back.  "An office" sounds very grand, as it is really more of an outreach point for clients in that area, but it has already proved its worth in securing business.  After all, perception is vitally important.

We can offshore the work from the high-cost Aberdeen area, whilst offering personal contact, and last week alone we secured enough work to keep one member off staff busy 50% of their time for the next 2 years, minimum.  Having doubled our staff in the past year, we hope to do the same agaain next year, and all our staff are doing a fabulous job in absorbing and dealing with the growth.

Now to knock on some more doors, physically and virtually.....

Who guards the guardians?

The manure is obviously meeting the air conditioning:

18. The Director of Finance and Corporate Resources submitted a
report in relation to an investigation into the award of Accountancy, Audit and
Advisory Services by Sgoiltean Ura LLP.

It was agreed:

(1) to note the Report; and
(2) that the Chief Executive submit a Report to Audit and Scrutiny
Committee seeking to establish a Scrutiny Panel to examine the issue arising from the Report.

One has trust that the Scrutiny Panel will look carefully at the role of the Chair of Sgoiltean Ura LLP.
Not that one wishes to prejudice the situation, but if it true that Councillor Norman MacDonald has refused to meet with the Internal Auditor to discuss the investigation and answer the auditors' questions about his actions, and those of the LLP, then he needs to consider his position. As the deputy to our Glorious Dear Leader, if he is refusing to meet with the internal auditors', then he cannot continue in that position, as he is undermining the work of a key element of Governance of the Comhairle.

One has no doubt, that the Panel will also consider the actions of the Chief Executive's Department in providing legal advice to the LLP whilst participating in all the relevant meetings.  However, with the Chief Executive's Department providing the remit for the Panel, and providing the legal advice as to what can and cannot be considered, it would be unfortunate if a conflict of interest at the highest levels went unacknowledged, and the Panel were not allowed to consider all relevant matters.

Is it true that the Court papers included very specific evidence of corruption and malpractice, and that these papers have not been seen by any Councillors?

Barra and Mingulay SAC proposals

The Scottish Government sneaked out the Economic Impact Report into the above without any announcement or linkage to any other documents.

Any guesses why that might be?

The value of catches in the proposed dSAC in the Sound of Barra is £787,000 and in East Mingulay is £86,000.

Para 3.5.8 summarises the restrictions likely to be placed on new developments:

In summary, any aquaculture development proposed in the Sound of Barra and East Mingulay is likely to be affected by SAC designation due to the potential impact on the integrity of the sites. However, harvesting of seaweed is unlikely to be affected.

Para 3.8.5 and 3.8.6 summarise the position for offshore renewables:

The precise nature of short and long term impacts of noise and vibration on some of these receptors (dolphins, whales, seals, otters) is poorly understood at present and would need to be factored in all applications using a precautionary approach as well ensuring adequate research into the topic.

In summary, while there are currently no proposed offshore renewable developments planned or proposed in the vicinity of the two dSAC, any proposals for future marine renewable development in or adjacent to the Sound of Barra and East Mingulay could require HRA but this is already likely to be required to satisfy protection requirements of existing Natura sites.

Which in plain English means that any offshore developments that might affect seals will need to operate on the precautionary principle, and subject to veto by SNH.  As I guessed.

And sub-sea cables will be forbidden, so say goodbye to broadband cables.

Overall the expected impact of the proposals are a loss of £2,180,000 to the fishing sector and a direct cost of £836,00 to the Government if both areas are closed.  That will result in the loss of 58 jobs.  And you can guess where these jobs will be lost.

Perhaps others can read this report and take something better out of it, but it is a bigger kick in the teeth than we thought.