Leeds & Partners - secrecy and cover up makes for bad regeneration...

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It's funny what you find out on a Saturday night that you didn't know about before. It seems there's a shadowy organisation called "Leeds & Partners" and it has something to do with promoting that city. All well a good and nothing to do with us here in Bradford except:

Leeds and Partners, which is a private company with ownership shared between the council and Leeds Chamber of Commerce, began operating in October when it succeeded the city’s former promotional arm, Marketing Leeds. Its remit has recently been expanded to include the Leeds City Region enterprise partnership which includes neighbouring councils Wakefield, York and Bradford.

So yet again we are reminded of just how unaccountable the delivery of regeneration has become - an organisation set up in Leeds, is funded by Leeds City Council and has just one publicly accountable person, a Leeds Councillor, on its board.

And the consequence of this corporatist, crony capitalism approach is just hwat you'd expect:

Lurene Joseph, who heads Leeds and Partners which is largely funded by Leeds Council, took the taxi from Leeds to her home in Buckinghamshire before taking another taxi to Heathrow airport later the following day at a cost of £57 and then flying out to Boston where she stayed in a top hotel for nine nights.

The total accommodation costs for the trip, which included another Leeds and Partners official, were £6,203 with a further £1,852 spent on flights. Ms Joseph took a taxi from Heathrow back home at a cost of £64.80 when she returned.

The first shocking - but not really surprising - thing about this revelation is that the Chief Executive (a full-time official) doesn't live anywhere near Leeds. And, like so many unaccountable officials, she seems to think that public money is there for her comfort and convenience.

However, the real shock (although again not a surprise) is that Leeds City Council is simply hiding behind "it's a private company":

Leeds and Partners only exists through council-funding which this year amounts to £2m, but the council - which has fielded virtually all media inquiries from the Yorkshire Post - said as it was established as a private company it did not have to provide a breakdown of expenses. Such information was “for internal use only”.

It might be that Leeds & Partners is doing an absolutely fantastic job - it's certainly racking up the air miles - and the City and City Region will be getting huge benefit from this work. But it would a lot better is the organisation was a little more accountable.

In the end, secrecy and cover up - this sort of 'we are untouchable' approach - makes for bad regeneration.

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Guilt by association...the Telegraph tries to skewer an MP on his predecessor's sins

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The Daily Telegraph reports on the success of Conservative MP, Stephen Phillips:

Stephen Phillips, the member for Sleaford and North Hykeham in the East Midlands, has reportedly been charging clients about £600 per hour in his capacity as a commercial lawyer.

He is believed to be the best-paid politician in Britain as a result, clocking up more than 1,500 hours of non-parliamentary work since July 2011.

Mr Phillips, 43, has received £922,380.20 in barrister's fees since July 2011, in addition to his annual MP’s salary of £65,738...

Now this seems to me wholly admirable. Mr Phillips points out that he does this work when the House isn't sitting (and that it's turnover not profit) plus mentioning how this provides him with a tentative link to the real world.

In my view we need more MPs like Mr Phillips who see it as public service rather than just a job (albeit a quite well paid job).

What I didn't understand, since no-one is accusing Mr Phillips of wrongdoing or dereliction of duty, let alone expenses fiddling, why the newspaper chose to conclude the article by talking about his predecessor Douglas Hogg. Seems to me that this is a rather unpleasant attempt to smear Mr Phillips by associating his working life with the moat-clearing expense of the man he succeeded as MP.

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Some MPs - including the speaker - just don't get it do they?

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This expenses thing - you know the one where they rent houses to one another. The public want to know about it - here's a poll in the Telegraph asking whether MPs should disclose whether they rent their tax-payer funded house to another MP:

Pretty simple really. We don't trust MPs not to fiddle so absolute transparency is essential.

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So doctors aren't in it for the money then?

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It seems that our noble doctoring profession - the one that wants to maintain cosy little local monopolies rather than expose itself to competition - has other ways for its members to make huge amounts of money at the taxpayers expense:

The taxpayer-funded “notional rent” scheme allows GPs to buy buildings for their surgeries which they then “rent” back to the Department of Health for more than the mortgage repayments, according to the report.

Surgeries are then sold off when the GP retires and they are allowed to keep the profits from the sale of the building.

A nice little earner I think this is called:

The NHS paid GPs £630m in rent for their privately-owned surgeries last year, an increase of 70 per cent since 2004, when the figure stood at £370m.

The total cost to the Department of Health in the past five years has been £2.5bn.

But, as we know, the doctors aren't in it for the money - this is just a way of getting better premises - or so say the Department of Health (should we not rename it the department of making doctors even richer?):

"This system incentivises GPs to expand and improve services so that people have proper access to modern facilities. It represents the cost to GPs of renting or owning the premises, and is a cost that would met by government direct if GPs did not." 

So we pay more than the borrowing cost to GPs and allow them to keep the capital gain - all sounds a bit like how another "professional" group feathered their nests!

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Welcome to the "Eric Illsley Defence"

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Some people really don’t get it do they? Here’s Eric Illsley on his trial, punishment and (brief) imprisonment for fraudulent expenses claims:

“My case shouldn’t have been brought before the court,” said Illsley. “There are so many others who have walked free and nobody is going to say a dickie bird about their situation.”

It seems that Mr Illsley believes that because some others – in his opinion – have “got away with” the same crime, he shouldn’t have been punished? Imagine the next of Barnsley’s burglars up in court:

“M’lud, I shouldn’t be in court because my mate Wayne is also a burglar and he hasn’t been charged.”

That would work now wouldn’t it?

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The Burning Issue....

It was a burning issue. Everyone was talking about it - the heads on the telly, the disembodied but clever sounding voices on the radio - everyone. When I went down to the Co-op for a pint of milk and twenty fags, every pair of chatty old ladies were holding forth on the subject - loudly so the world might know their opinions. When, eventually, I made it to that familiar perch at the left hand end of the bar, the pub chatter (what little is left since the puritans and nannying fussbuckets set about the boozer) was all about this dreadful event. What do do, whose fault it was, whether hanging should be brought back to deal with it and even if drawing or quartering might be a worthwhile enhancement to this fitting end.  And everyone agreed - it was a terrible thing. The men and women responsible were vile, the spawn of Beelzebub, future denizens of hell's torment. Even me - contrary, cussed old me - agreed. Had there ever been an issue blessed with such universal agreement?

But then. Then I heard it. A voice from down the bar - a voice of disagreement. A stunned silence fell onto the audience - pints, small glasses of scotch, red wine schooners and tumblers of rum and coke were placed quietly on bars, tables and windowsills. We listened to the voice:

"I don't know what the fuss is all about. We're all on the take, fiddling and claiming things we shouldn't have. When I worked at Smalltrees, every rep and every buyer had a slush fund - we got our house carpeted and our kitchens furnished off the back of it all. Can't see what the problem is myself. There's much more important things we should bother about."

A hushed moment followed as we looked around for the brave soul who would respond - put this sinner back on the path to righteousness. A voice was heard:

"Er, Steve? Can I have a pint, a vodka and orange, and a packet of pork scratchings."

The spell was broken. The burning issue was extinguished.

...and we went back to talking about football, road directions and the weather.

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Getting paid more than Gordon - as if!

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The PM gets paid £197,000 (I hesitate to use the term “earn” in this case) and various pundits are frothing about the fact that some people in the public sector get paid more than this. Like so what?

Leaving aside the fact that my cat could do a better job of PM than Gordon for the cost of a bowl of IAMS and a soft bed, we shouldn’t be comparing the pay of politicians with the pay of officials. Moreover Gordon gets two free houses, fed and watered, ferried around everywhere – I doubt that beyond indulgences, Gordon has any of the outgoings you and I have.

So lets assume that we spend a third or our income of housing and 25% on essential spending (food, drink, travel, etc) – for ease of estimation we’ll call that 60%. Since Gordon doesn’t have this expenditure his real salary is somewhere in excess of £300,000.

That’s more than the head of the civil service, any local council chief executive and most of the quangocrats. After all from their bloated salaries they have large houses, foreign holidays and school fees to pay – without the access MPs have to an expenses free-for-all.

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