Oct 032014
 

Previous administrations sold off property at a fraction of real value (funny, no one can find the details of the police investigation that was meant to happen – watch this space). They also wrote off £11 million in unpaid debts. Here is a snapshot of where you tax money was deployed last year. The trend of arms’ length bodies, quangos, quasi-charities, consultants and private companies hiving tax money off continues apace. Here is a small snapshot of where some of your money has gone. By Suzanne Kelly

brucepicCongratulations to Sir Ian Wood, lifetime achievement winner of a Northern Star business award. How wonderful.
A ceremony was held this past week; dignitaries ate dinners, media bodies were hired (Fiona Armstrong, compere) to appear and/or film this event, run by the Chamber of Commerce.

As self-congratulatory beanfeasts are concerned, this is not without precedent. But perhaps you should realise that you are helping to fund all these events at least in part, while being told there is little in the way of funds to keep schools open, to help the homeless, to provide round-the-clock care to those who need it and so forth.

Figures for this year’s awards are not made public, nor are they ever likely to be completely transparent, as there are now so many entities taking a slice of the pie.

Last year charity Station House Media Unit received some £2,300 for filming this event. The Chamber of Commerce has received a huge sum of money from us this year. During the Union Terrace Gardens referendum, it sent invoices between ACSEF unnamed contractors and the city council footed the bill.

When asked to name some of these suppliers – for instance whoever it was who received £150 (give or take) for a photo commissioned to show that UTG was ‘inaccessible’ (there is a huge sloping entrance by His Majesty’s Theatre), the Chamber wrote to say it was a private entity, and as such was not required to explain a thing.

A long, long time ago if you paid your tax, the government would directly use your money to buy goods services and employ people. Alas, this led to huge problems – such as your being able to clearly trace how much of your money was spent and where it went.

This is the age of the devolved responsibility entity, of quangos, special purpose vehicles and other entities which serve to obscure where your money goes and make salaries paid to those who act in these middle-man bodies invisible.

Tax money here in Aberdeen flows rather steadily to bodies such as Aberdeen Inspired, ACSEF, Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce, Station House Media Unit, and a host of consultants large and small.

While some of these bodies undoubtedly do good work – did they really provide value for money in 2013? And those that are social enterprises – does that put them above scrutiny? Does doing charitable work or providing training mean that any transparency as to how taxpayer money is spent should go out the window?

Here is a brief outline of how Aberdeen taxpayer’s money was employed in 2013 in a few situations.

A Tree For Every Citizen.

With great pride, Councillor Aileen Malone explained that this scheme had to be done in the most cost-effective way: it was only fair to the taxpayers seemed to be her approach. She was the convener of the Housing & Environment Committee, and pushed this scheme through claiming shooting the existing deer on Tullos was the only affordable thing to do for this great scheme (see Aberdeen Voice issues past).

In 2011 the taxpayer coughed up some £40,000 pounds to kill deer, raise fences and spray pesticide on the trees.

Here is a look at the invoices paid in 2013 for keeping the Tree for Every Citizen scheme going (note – this may not be a full list of costs):

Company/Consultant Invoice date Brief Description Amount inc. VAT
Bryan Massie 19/12/13 TFEC – Site management, weeding 2493.49
Bryan Massie (invoice 629) TFEC – Tullos maintenance 9,943.98
Bryan Massie 17/5/13 TFEC – herbicides – St Fitticks, Westfield, Seaton, Balgownie 4303.80
Bryan Massie 17/5/13 TFEC – Tullos ‘beating up’ and tree shelter 16,682.04
Bryan Massie 12/2/13 TFEC – Tullos 28,968.00
Sub Total 62,391.31
C J Piper / Chris Piper (noted for report claiming only a ‘vociferous minority’ objected to the TFEC scheme, said report not mentioning the tens of thousands of pounds he would be paid) 1/10/13 Preparation of strategy; time at £375 per day 12,000
C J Piper / Chris Piper 26/9/13 Scoping, survey, spatial plans 6,000
C J Piper / Chris Piper 26/7/13 Professional fees £950; travel 675 6,000
Sub Total 24,000
Minimum cost to taxpayer 2013 for Tree For Every Citizen Scheme 86,391.31

Combined with previous expenditures of £83,598 known to have been spent on the scheme, perhaps we could have let the meadow and the deer stay. (note: a petition asking for full disclosure of the costs, and a moratorium on shooting more deer until population figures are known at the least is awaiting approval from the city for its wording; it will be launched soon. This petition will also ask for a ‘comfort letter’ from the SNH/Forestry Commission: the city had to pay £43,800 back for the failure of Phase 1).

So £83,598 added to the above £86,391 makes £169,989. How the procurement exercise for our experts was carried out likewise remains a mystery.

Fence-Sitting.

But if Aileen Malone insisted fences were too expensive back in the day she had the deer shot as being an economical solution (in logic defying animal welfare charities such as the Scottish SPCA and Animal Concern) – she did have a point: fencing is rather expensive. Here is a summary of invoices received from Alpha Fencing in 2013:

Alpha Fencing.

Invoice date Brief Description Amount inc. VAT
26/314 (included in 2013 accounts) Airyhall 20,333
26/3/14 8,205
30/8/13 Duthie 4,671
22/8/13 Glashieburn 2,185
4/2/13 8,939
12/8/13 7,875
Total 52,208

Perhaps there are other fencing contractors; Alpha catches the eye as they were involved in work on Tullos. If other fencing contractors likewise earned money from the taxpayer last year, perhaps we will be told what companies are involved.

Big Loser.

One area in which money was saved concerned the loss of the Big Partnership contract. Despite having operatives charging between £40 and £65 per hour, the invoices were not huge, and stopped c. May 2013.

Stewart Milne.

Stewart Milne’s companies have not done too badly out of the Aberdonian taxpayer. There was the small matter of land in Westhill sold to one of the Milne companies for a pittance, with the understanding that any profit would be shared with the city. That never happened and the Milne entity took the city to the highest courts in the country before losing (cost of this legal action unknown).

At the same time, the Milne machine won work worth nearly £10 million. In 2013 invoices submitted for contracts with Milne were as follows:

Brief Description Amount
Hayton Road 30,044
Bryon Park 47,130
Rorie Hall 28,097
Total 105,271


Aberdeen Inspired

Perhaps someone from Aberdeen Inspired will be inspired to share with the business rate payers – i.e. the consumers – precisely what it does with all of the money it is given from the council. We’ve had bunting; the city has stumped up extra money for those trash compactors dotting the street. (nb – is there no waste segregation in these bins and if not, are we not just adding to landfill by using them?).

Inspired has also decided to use mobile phone signals to trace our footfall in the area; tracking how much time is spent inside a shop for instance. Data protection lobbyists are very concerned about the technology involved; Inspired insists it is completely anonymous.

At any rate, what is kept secret is how much anyone connected with Inspired is paid, how their procurement process works, and who is making the decisions. In case you think there is nothing more to Inspired than small change for craft stalls and banners, here is what they received from ACC last year:

Invoice date Brief Description Amount inc. VAT
2/10/13 Bid Levy Collection, both outstanding and collection, plus VAT 148,326.32
2/7/13 715,292.94
14/2/14 (in 2013 accounts) 30,038.73
12/8/13 28,235.52
29/3/13 21,695.80
2/10/13 9,550.00
Subtotal re Bid Levy 953,139.31
4/12/13 Trash bins 18,489.60
25/10/13 Trash bins 18,489.60
(date unclear) Ice rink 12,000.00
(date unclear) ‘wayfinding project’ 31,830.60
Subtotal non Bid Levy 80,809.8
Total invoiced by Bid/Inspired to ACC 2013 1,033,949.11

It would be interesting to see where all of this money has been used, what the overheads including salary are, as the tattered bunting blows in the breeze. No doubt some good work has been done – but what is the cost, what has been done with this consumer-generated, taxpayer-supplied million pounds: and has it resulted in increased sales for those who voted the scheme into existence?

SHMU

Station House Media Unit engages in training, and helping disadvantaged area residents interested in the media; it publishes brochures for and/or with the council. Last year SHMU was criticised when it used photographs created by people who had not given advance permission and who had not been offered payment for their work – this would be a standard business practice for any publisher.

SHMU reacted badly to exposure of this situation; it may well be a charitable institution doing good work – but that does not put it above scrutiny.

Considering that so much of its funding comes from the public, it would be interesting to see what salaries are paid, what the overheads are, how procurement is done, etc, etc. – but again, this is a body that while funded largely by the public is not accountable to the public under Freedom of Information legislation.

Here is a selection of some of the funds SHMU received last year: the Council had 43 pages of documentation pertaining to funds sought / funds released to SHMU:

Invoice date Brief Description Amount
29/11/13 Pertains to community support fund grant offer; 1,624
31/5/13 Filming Start Awards (Chamber of Commerce award ceremony to business; Sir Ian Wood received a lifetime award in 2014) 2,300
Quarterly funding of 13,750/quarter 55,000
Winter 2013; Spring 2014 7 community magazines 11,929
4/12/13 Additional cost for 7 magazines 1,624
(date unclear) Training 8,500
7/12/13 Connecting communities through community media 16,750
Sub total for this selection of SHMU invoices 97,727

There were a number of youth employment-related invoices as well.

But far and away the biggest earners of the invoices examined were the Chamber of Commerce and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Secret Chamber.

The Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce acted as a de facto go-between during the Union Terrace Gardens referendum; ACSEF would commission work across a wide spectrum of services and price brackets. This would be invoiced to the City Council via the Chamber of Commerce.

Invoices of this type seen by Aberdeen Voice did not disclose who or what organisation performed the work undertaken. What procurement procedures were followed and if any ACSEF members directly benefitted from these invoices remains unclear at present: there seems to be no obligation ACSEF or the Chamber of Commerce to say how taxpayer money was spent.

Thirty one documents were presented by the City Council’s finance office covering invoices and funds paid to the Chamber in 2013. Some were for miniscule amounts such as breakfasts. Some were just a bit larger:

Invoice date Brief Description Amount
 29/11/13 Sponsorship of transport to Rio £542.48
30/4/13 2112.00
28/6/13 2112.00
13/11/13 324.00
29/11/13 542.48
18/6/13 Northern Star 7,800.00
1/10/13 Membership 2,838.00
6/8/13 Offshore Europe Breakfast 588.00
28/2/13 Research 4,560.00
31/12/13 Research 4,560.00
28/2/13 1080.00
31/12/13 540.00
29/11/13 2,160.00
29/11/13 7,020.00
20/2/13 1,140.00
Total for approx. half of the 2013 invoices £37,918.96


Beancounters Beanfeast.

The accounting firms have done quite well this year. KPMG made a tidy £10,740; this was positively modest compared to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

PwC may be remembered for its projections during the UTG referendum: its projections for the web’s construction and associated prosperity were, shall we say, enthusiastic. As per an earlier article on the subject:

“PricewaterhouseCoopers have come up with some grandiose projections including the creation of some 6,500 permanent jobs and £122 million flowing into Aberdeen every year until c. 2023: all because of the granite web. PricewaterhouseCoopers were first paid £41,000 and change for TIF-related work in March 2010. Other invoices followed, and so far I have been shown by Scottish Enterprise £71,000 worth of PwC invoices.”

The firm still enjoys the generosity of the Aberdonian taxpayer. Its consultants received hundreds of pounds per day each; its invoices covered a spectrum of services from the (scandal-hit) crematorium to fraud work. Here is a list of their 2013 invoices to ACC in round figures:

Invoice date Brief Description Amount
15/7/13 Pinewood 1,800
3/2 170,949
20/3/13 HMRC 1800
15/7/13 9,600
15/10/13 5,200
9/7/13 2,400
3/12/13 33,270
17/7/13 30,229
16/9/13 (included c £19K for crematorium) 78,142
15/4/13 165,889
18/12/13 59,281
21/11/13 86,540
8/11/13 13,678
1/5/13 2,940
29/5/13 11,206
6/8/13 Letter to HMRC 900
Total to PricewaterhouseCoopers 2013 673,824


Summing Up.

The city has joined the ranks of other municipalities that have ‘outsourced’ functions in order to save money. This growing trend does not always stand up to scrutiny. Consultants are needed to run services which, if were previously not-for-profit when in the public sector, need to be profitable for those who have chosen to run them.

In days gone by, the reason people paid tax was that there were some functions – education, good health care, etc. – which ideally should be free of the need to turn a profit. Our taxes were meant to benefit the people and the causes that needed help.

As more and more outsourcing is done, transparency moves away. The city’s accounts this year allude to an incident of fraud. Is it possible that the more people and entities that grow around managing services, the higher the chance there is of fraud? Does the increasing lack of transparency lend itself to those who would commit fraud?

Can a private company such as PricewaterhouseCoopers that stands to make money if (for instance) a granite web is built be entirely trusted to be 100% impartial on weighing up the practicalities of a project which would benefit its profit line?

Should the city weigh more carefully how its arm’s length bodies engage in procurement? From the 2013 figures, a case could be made that the city needs to look into its financial arrangements more carefully (and that’s before we look at the costs of outsourced health care).

Audit Scotland had some strong recommendations to the council several years back. If lessons have been learnt, let’s hope we get a clearer picture in the future of where our money is going.

  • Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.

[Aberdeen Voice accepts and welcomes contributions from all sides/angles pertaining to any issue. Views and opinions expressed in any article are entirely those of the writer/contributor, and inclusion in our publication does not constitute support or endorsement of these by Aberdeen Voice as an organisation or any of its team members.]

Dec 032012
 

Local authorities in Scotland must allow the public to look at their unaudited accounts, and Aberdeen City Council is no exception to this rule. In August 2012 this annual statutory period of time was granted for interested people to examine the city council’s financial year documents from 2011.
Paying Through The Nose: Part 1 looked at invoices Aberdeen City Council paid to Stewart Milne-related companies, the Wood Family Trust and the BiG Partnership. In the second and final part, Suzanne Kelly examines finances for the 2011 financial year relating to ACSEF, the Tree for Every Citizen scheme, foreign trips by city officials and more.

Tree for Every Citizen: A scheme and a half

In this allegedly environmentally-sound tree-planting scheme, the slogan A Tree for Every Citizen came first, and the science, economics and location for said saplings was a secondary concern. Tullos Hill was once a meadow filled with birds, plants, small mammals and deer.

Thanks to the interventions of a minority, the hill is now largely a scarred, haphazard wasteland.

Pete Leonard (Housing) and Aileen Malone (Lib Dem former convener, Housing & Environment Committee) promised councillor and citizen alike that their pet scheme was totally cost neutral. Who could object to a beautification project designed to combat Aberdeen’s large carbon footprint? Who could object to a scheme that wasn’t going to cost anyone anything?

More to the point – who actually believed a polluted, windswept hill which had thus far failed to sustain many trees was going to become a lumber-producing, cost-neutral success story?

The figures below were prepared by the city in answer to my query on the scheme’s 2011 finances: 

Expenditure £
Deer Management 6,748.54
Tree Planting including clearing 33,128.00
Fencing 13,812.97
 Total Expenditure 53,689.51
Income
Grant Income (13,891.10)
Net Expenditure 2011/12 39,798.41

 

This net expenditure was then broken down as follows:

Date Amount (note – these seem to be the net figures without VAT) Description (note – text was not complete on spread sheet I was given)   Supplier
15/6/11 (13,891.10) Grant – tree for every citizen
9/11/11 7,125.00 Unknown – tree for every citizen   Bryan Massie
19/3/12 3,840.00 Unknown – tree for every citizen   Highland estate services
20/3/12 7,500.00 Unknown – deer fencing for tre [sic]   Bryan Massie
23/3/12 16,150.00 Unknown – project management C   C J Piper & Co
23/3/12 6,221.31 Aberdeen City Council
28/3/12 6,273.00 unknown – application of kerb   Bryan Massie
31/3/12 (260.00) Date of supply 28th march 2012   Forestry Commission
31/3/12 6,312.97 Unknown – Tullos hill – tree for   Bryan Massie
05/4/12 527.23 Aberdeen city council
TOTAL 39,798.41

 

It seems just a little amiss that the word ‘unknown’ should appear so many times on a summary of expenditure. It also seems amiss that the breakdown includes only one of the two C J Piper invoices I was supplied. The Hazlehead costs seem to be left out of this equation – and yet cutting these trees at Hazlehead down was, according to sources, one of the ways in which the Tree for Every Citizen scheme was paid for.

Is the meagre £527.23 from Aberdeen City Council to the TFEC scheme related to the Hazlehead tree felling which earned Piper £1,422? If it is unrelated, then which city budget did this sum come from and what does it represent?

Like so many things under our previous council and under Leonard and Chief Executive Watts, these ‘cost-neutral’ claims were a far cry from reality. The total costs to December 2011 had already been released by the FOI office, and they were damning.

After a great deal of coaxing, Watts conceded that £43,800 had been repaid to the Forestry Commission for the dismal failure of Phase I of the scheme. All who wanted Phase 2 to go ahead blamed the deer for the failure, even though the FC said the soil and weeds were largely to blame. Still, no one would have kept making money had the scheme been scrapped. Least of all Chris Piper.

We Who Pay The Piper

Apparently a sole trader under the name C J Piper & Company, Chris Piper was the principal architect of this sorry scheme. I had asked for sight of Piper invoices ACC paid in the 2011 financial year; this is what was made available:

Invoice No Date Description   Gross Amount
ACC/0312/300 6 March 2012 PO A139378 – Implementation of the Tree For Every Citizen scheme, design and plant Ph II, prepare and submit relevant applications, liaison with Forestry Commission and other agencies and ACC officers; preparation of bills of quantity, commissioning of contract works on behalf of ACC, on site supervision, submission to woodland carbon code certification, PR/media strategy (mileage 2,778 miles £1,250), VAT £3,230   19,380,00
ACC/1111/298 30 November 2011 Woodland consultancy (No PO number quoted) as per finances & Resources  Committee Report December 2010 – thinning at Hazlehead Golf Course, preparation and submission of Forestry commission felling license, drawing up of standing sale particulars and circulation to the timber market, taking and assessing bids   £1,422.00

 

Getting sight of the Piper invoices was a long process; the FOI officers protected Piper’s identity at all costs for over a year, despite this being a person writing city reports which justified his further fees on this scheme, and receiving taxpayer money.

Piper, a Forres-based tree expert, is invited to come forward and explain his determination the scheme would work, and how he produced a report jointly with the city which recommended the TFEC scheme (calling the many opponents ‘a vociferous minority’).

How someone with a vested interest in a scheme proceeding can be allowed to author or co-author a report (no one at ACC put their name on the joint submission made to the FC) should be a matter for further investigation.

The soil (or lack thereof), the wind, the weeds and use of herbicides alone should have stopped the scheme. (Note: at present nothing like 89,000 trees have been planted on Tullos despite this being the plan. Originally, some 20 deer were going to be culled in the first year – we now know it was closer to 36: which we paid some £6,000 to eliminate).

No wonder the city and Piper were so keen to keep things quiet.

As a footnote to those who believe the tree scheme will eventually be a successful carbon capture system of some sort, there are a few points to consider. Firstly, tearing out the existing vegetation ruined what carbon capture had been in place, and the earth moving vehicles used assuredly had a carbon footprint.

Surprisingly formidable in terms of carbon footprint is the astonishing figure of 2,778 miles travelled by C J Piper, billed to the taxpayer at £0.45 per mile for a staggering £1,250. This appears on an invoice from May 2011 to 6 March 2012, totalling £19,380 inclusive of VAT. As green carbon capture schemes go, this scheme has a great deal to make up for (providing any of the trees, currently surrounded by weeds) manage to grow.

Odds and Ends

Bryan Massie Woodland Management Ltd did quite nicely out of the scheme as well, spraying herbicides. Anyone can see the chemicals did not exactly save the Phase 1 trees, and Phase 2 growth is already surrounded by high weeds.

Astute council observers will recall the blackmail deal offered by Malone: give us £225,000 for fencing, or we kill the deer. She insisted we had no money for fencing. The public were urged by all interested animal charities not to give into this blackmail and the precedent it would set. Somehow, money for fencing was found anyway – yet the deer were still exterminated.

Invoice No Date Description Gross Amount
483 27/10/2011 Spraying, planting and  tubing various sites 8550
520 09/03/2012 Herbicide application (various locations 7527
(unk) 09/03/2012 Deer Fencing at Tullos (first part) 9000
(unk) 38/03/2012 Deer Fencing (second part) 7575

 

Highland Estate Services were paid £480 per day to clear our gorse; their Invoice No. 547 shows them receiving £4,608 from the city.

Payback’s a B*tch

The city had to return £43,800 to the Forestry Commission for the dismal failure of Phase 1, but this seems to have no place in the 2010 or 2011 accounts. This figure was paid rather late; it was demanded of us in November 2010.

The Commission had to chase the city, which eventually paid in March 2011. Yet the sum was not reflected in accounts to December 2011 (received under FOI legislation), nor is this figure reflected in the 2011 scheme.

The council should explain where this figure appears in the books – it is clearly part of the tree scheme. If it were to be combined with the net expenditure recorded in 2011 of £39,798.41, then we have spent £83,598 (minimum) on a scheme opposed by 2,400 people, several community councils, and animal charities including the Scottish SPCA.

This should be a matter for serious investigation by Audit Scotland and Standards in Public Office. It has enriched a few businesses, served as a Liberal Democrat mantra and compromised what was once a rich meadow teeming with wildlife.

What the Forestry Commission wrote:

031/000390 – Tullos Community Woodland

“This is a failed WGS planting scheme. The scheme failed due to inadequate protection from deer and weeds. On the 4th November 2010 we issued Aberdeen City Council with an invoice for £43,831.90 – the reclaim of monies paid out under the above contract.

“This invoice was to be paid within 30 days. The monies have not been received. This invoice is now accruing interest and has led to a payment ban being put in place over your Business Reference Number”.

What Ms Watts eventually admitted: this money was paid in March 2011. She continues to deny the Tree for Every Citizen Phase 1 planting at Tullos and St Fitticks has any connection whatsoever to the Tree for Every Citizen Phase 2 planting at Tullos and St Fitticks. This is a nice bit of semantics, but would it stand up to an auditor’s scrutiny?

I can find no record of Pete Leonard going back to the Housing and Audit Committee and advising them the scheme which he promised was cost neutral would be nothing of the kind.

You might be forgiven for thinking an officer of the city should account to the relevant committee (if not the public) when his figures were found to be faulty. Whether the expenditure was £39,798, £83,598 – or considerably higher when taking into account the 2010 costs – this scheme was never going to be cost neutral.

Come Fly Away, Come Fly Away With Me

When a city is cutting services to the elderly and infirm, when a city wants to drop arts and music lessons, and refuses to maintain its pavements and roads, should it really be deploying its higher-ups to foreign countries for seminars? Aberdeen thought so last year:

Traveller Date Destination Flight cost subsistence Hotel cost Reason for trip
Gerry Brough 29/4 – 5/5/11 Houston Flights and accommodation arranged through group package 662.22 – returned 381 US Dollars OTC (Annual oil event)
Gerry Brough 5/11-9/11 Lyon/Grenoble 277 449.23 – returned 110 Euros 388.79 Invited to speak at conf/networking
Gordon McIntosh 3/12 – 7/12/11 Doha 671 529.72 Paid of City of Doha World Energy Cities AGM
Gordon McIntosh 6/11-15/11/11 Australia 1,518 1379.62 1,148.99 Economic Development Activity
Gordon McIntosh 17/1-25(?)/1/12 Ghana Paid UK trade & Inv 794 US Dollars 242.01 UK Trade & Investment Project
Gordon McIntosh 21/3-23/3/12 Nice 495 233.52 Launch of Hydrogen Bus Project
Gordon McIntosh 25/3-25(?)/3/12 Brussels 205 120.53 492.25 North Sea Commission 2020
Valerie Watts 27/9-30/9/11 Aarhus, Denmark 525 (?) 310.60 550.23 CPMR General Assembly
Lord Provost Peter Stephen 30/4-7/5/11 Houston Flights and accommodation arranged through group package 311.07 returned 40 US Dollars OTC
Lord Provost Peter Stephen 34/6-27/6/12 Nuremberg 314 242.45 Regensburg Burgerfest Festival
Lord Provost Peter Stephen 3/12-8/12/11 Doha 537 529.72 Paid of City of Doha World Energy Cities AGM

 

One hopes that the flight costs were reasonable; they were in many cases not disclosed. In terms of carbon capture, so important to Leonard and Malone when it came to Tullos Hill, perhaps we could have preserved the hill and lowered our carbon footprint simply by not flying these mandarins around the globe.

Perhaps attending our Oil and Gas event at the AECC would not have been sufficient to advise people Aberdeen has something to do with the oil sector. Perhaps nothing was more essential than the Regensburg Burgerfest Festival, or knocking around Australia for economic development purposes.

However, would it be more prudent and somewhat more in keeping with current austerity measures to do more teleconferences and cut out the air miles? Who knows? One or two events less and our former Lord Provost and his wife might have made some saving on their dress allowance, which of course comes from the public purse.

ACSEF: One Hand Washing the Other

ACSEF is an economic forum where our richest and most influential business people are supposed to give us an advisory forum. The quango, however, transformed itself from ‘forum’ to ‘future’, and this unelected body, existing to further business interests uber alles in our city, regularly gives advice to City and Shire governments, which are expected to rubber-stamp ACSEF recommendations.

Under the stewardship of chair Stewart Milne, ACSEF decided the city’s special area of conservation at Loirston should have been transformed into a ‘community’ stadium (and then somehow a private stadium which Milne would decant AFC into, turning AFC’s historic grounds into housing for his own profit).

How Mr Milne was able to wear his ACSEF, property developer and AFC Chairman hats without having any conflict of interest is unclear. It is perfectly clear ACSEF wanted a ‘spade in ground’ project at Loirston, coincidentally favouring its chairman’s business interests in the process.

If the taxpayer wasn’t paying for this blatantly self-interested lobbying, it might be funny. ACSEF cost the city £126,541 in 2011/12, broken down as follows:

Item Actual
Staff Costs 89,321
Premises Costs 5,484
Administration Costs 2,924
Transport Costs 927
Supplies & Services 119
Commissioning Services 7,927
Transfer Payments 19,839
TOTAL 126,541

 

Chamber of Secrets

The Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce submitted their Invoice No. 42810 dated 18 April 2011 to Aberdeen City Council – for ‘public relations services (ACSEF)’ – this bill has some of the familiar features of the invoices prepared by The BiG Partnership (its members no stranger to various quangos, boards, city groups) to the city for ‘AWPR’.

BiG was at the time also getting the city to pay for ‘AWPR’ public relations services. This Chamber of Commerce invoice is for £1416 to cover ‘public relations services (ACSEF)’, ‘newspaper licenses and cutting service’, and (partially redacted) ‘photography, energy industry conference, town house’.

In summary, ACSEF’s PR services seem to be invoiced via the Chamber without the actual supplier being specified, much like the City Gardens Project invoices were.  BiG also bills the city via central government for ‘AWPR work’ as shown in Part 1.

The Chamber refused to say which organisations’ services it was billing the City for at ACSEF’s directions when it came to the City Garden Project. So much for straightforward, transparent procurement and invoicing. (See The Great City Gardens Project Gravy Train article for more on those City Gardens Project invoices from the Chamber to the taxpayer).

As well as serving as clearing house for City Garden Project and ACSEF-related costs, the Chamber charges £300 per year for membership – which the Kirkhill school paid via Aberdeen City Council, with a few hundred more for the city’s annual membership.

People might be forgiven for thinking decisions are made in Aberdeen by a network of powerful, self-serving individuals; there certainly is a smidgeon of evidence to support this view.

Observations

It is too late to get any of this 2011 money back. It is not too late to call to account those who may possibly have overstepped their remits, wasted public money, caused environmental damage, and who enjoyed clothing allowances, portraits, parties and foreign junkets while the rest of us were coping with bills and noting a downturn in city services.

It is down to the new administration to look at the past, stop that which should be stopped, and investigate what should be investigated. It is hoped the new council will give us a more robust financial accounting system going forward, one that spends wisely and respects the public, the environment and the public purse.

Comments enabled - see comments box below. Note: all comments will be moderated.
Nov 232012
 

In a move meant to demonstrate transparency in government, August 2012 saw the opening of a statutory period in which members of the public were able to view Aberdeen City Council’s financial year documents for 2011. In the first of a two-part investigation, Suzanne Kelly seeks answers but winds up with more questions.

In 2011 Aberdeen moved from being an SNP/Lib-Dem controlled city to an administration with a slim Labour majority.

Although drains on the public purse like the Tullos deer debacle and the development of the Granite Web’s TIF funding application were left behind, the public still had to bear the cost of the previous administration’s policies.

Staff at the ACC finance department were most helpful but the year-end document on display was not the detailed set of accounts I had hoped for.

The year-end statement made many claims about the city doing the best it could but most of the costs had already been lumped together and processed.  I wanted to see actual invoices and spread sheets from some of the year’s more contentious projects (or at least those I knew of).

I provided the list of invoices and accounts I wished to examine and eventually received the information collated and ready to inspect. I have to say seeing the various costs involved is a far cry from reading the wonderfully prosaic year-end statement, and though I am still sifting through documents looking for answers, here are some issues that emerged.

Stewart Milne

ACC and Stewart Milne are in legal dispute over land transaction issues at Westhill. The city sold land to one arm of the Milne empire at far less than its market value on the understanding it would eventually see a share of any future profit.

At the same time Milne companies were buying and selling land at knockdown prices, they were submitting bids for council projects (at very narrow margins compared to the competition), winning work worth approximately £10m. The courts – including the highest in the UK – sided with ACC and Milne should by rights be settling his debt to the city.

Despite Milne entities refusing to pay ACC its rightful share of profit on the land transactions, instead dragging ACC (and therefore the taxpayer) through the courts, Milne had (and may still have) preferred bidder status for council contracts. Milne is assuredly carrying out work for the city, which in 2011 was rewarded as follows:

In fact, the 2011 ‘self-raised invoices’ reflect the following monies paid to Milne:

Reference Amount
SB/P/10431 270,630.00
SB/P/10432 299,536.00
SB/P/10433 244,149.00
SB/P/10474 226,268.00
SB/P/10475 137,379.00
SB/P/10476 127,637.50
SB/P/10528 75,030.00
SB/P/10529 19,210.00
SB/P/10530 8,850.00
Job CH 12306 36,286.00
Job CH 12308 44,046.00
Job CH 2307 39,326.00
SB/P/10645 20,001.00
TOTAL £1,548,348.50

 

The paperwork I was given is intriguing, referencing neither particular jobs nor targets reached. Indeed, three of the documents entirely lack a second sheet containing supplementary information.

The cover sheets I did receive refer, for example, to Bryan Park and Hayton Road, but fail to indicate exactly what work is being paid for, or if any target has been reached. For the sums involved, one might hope sufficient documentary back-up evidence does exist.

Wood Family Trust

The Wood Family Trust (WFT) is listed as having paid £160,000 towards the CGP referendum. The taxpayer chipped in £40,000.

The city also paid the WFT £22,000 for an educational pilot scheme involving Kincorth Academy ‘per contract’. What contract ACC and the WFT have entered into will make interesting reading. Perhaps other charitable trusts have contracted with ACC – but why a charity should be engaged by contract on an educational scheme is at present unclear.

https://aberdeenvoice.com/wp-content/gallery/images2/wood-family-trust-get-22-k-from-acc-nov-11.jpg

BiG Invoices

It was a good year to be in PR. Well, it was if you were a certain BiG name agency. There was the unofficial campaign for the Granite Web – when print media was sent to every household in the city on at least two occasions (and lest we forget, in error to the shire on one).

BiG was involved in other areas, though at present we don’t know which PR agency the city paid when the Chamber of Commerce (Chaired by Bob Collier) billed ACC for work ordered by ACSEF (Tom Smith) in support of the Granite Web scheme.

Smith is, of course, better known as a director of the Aberdeen City Gardens Trust, a private company to which the management of the web and UTG was to be handed without recourse to a tendering process or checking either man’s expertise in the rather narrow field of constructing concrete webs.

But, getting back to BiG: readers may be interested to know ACC has paid monthly invoices to BiG for various PR services, storage, servers, altering maps, expenses, photos and a trip to Glasgow. Below is a short summary of selected BiG invoices, interestingly enough all addressed To AWPR – Scottish Executive, which reference A-AWPR, and seem to have been paid by ACC:

Invoice No Date Description Amount
17801 30/3/11 Info packs and inserts (what project? – SK) 10,802
42810 18/4/11 Expenses, press cutting services, photos, PR 3,416
17848 31/3/11 March PR, storage (nb seems to be £120/month) 1,022
18072 30/4/11 April PR, storage 2,076
18080 30/4/11 Website servers for PLI and AWPR 700
18320 31/5/11 May  PR, storage 2,045
18567 30/6/11 June PR, storage 2,968
(not clear) 31/7/11 July PR, storage 1,762
19062 31/8/11 August PR, storage, travel to Glasgow 6,307
19308 30/9/11 September PR, storage 5,013
19533 31/10/11 October PR, storage, amendments to AWPR map 2,434
19770 30/11/11 November PR, storage 1,858
20033 31/12/11 December PR, storage 1,493
20254 31/01/12 January PR, storage 3,492
20509 29/02/12 February PR, storage and handover re. K McKee 8,788

TOTAL

54,176

 

The BiG Partnership billed ACC for £54,176 in the last fiscal year: was the AWPR acronym used in the invoices referring to the Western Peripheral Route? Other possibilities seem slim, but why ACC should have engaged a PR firm (let alone paid it storage fees or for website servers) in relation to this project is not clear.

Issues so far

a) ACC regularly deals with a company holding preferred bidder status, a company that has not only reneged on a profit-sharing scheme but dragged the city through every court in the land. How much was lost on the initial transaction? How much is the city incurring in legal fees, and which side picks these up?

Why is the Milne group apparently saying it wants to negotiate when the courts have already found against them? Have Milne companies retained their preferred bidder status? If his companies were enjoying profits from a favourable land deal, while at the same time entering low bids for contracting work, is this ethical, fair, and completely within tendering guidelines?

b) Should the referendum have been financed to such an extent by one of the interested parties? Was there even a slight possibility of psychological influence over those involved in administration of the referendum by the fact the costs were picked up by the web’s main proponent? At one stage we were told the entire costs were being met by Wood – why did the taxpayer pick up a £40,000 tab?

c) ACC seems to be paying a billionaire’s trust for an educational pilot – and has entered into a contract. What is the nature of the contract, and in what way can the services performed be described as charitable?  An overview of the charity seems to indicate no money is received by the Trust from government. I wrote to WFT and received this reply:

“The funds received from Aberdeen City Council were a relatively small contribution to an Enterprise in Education programme, which was delivered as a partnership project with the local authority and carried out at two schools in the region, with the balance of the funds coming from Wood Family Trust. I can only assume that the reason the Scottish Charities Register indicates WFT received no money from Government is that this doesn’t cover funds received from Local Authorities.”

d) Has the city paid for public relations for the AWPR?  If so, how was the contract for the work tendered? Was BiG given favoured status in obtaining this work via its involvement with ACSEF and the CGP?

 

Coming soon in Part 2

The Tree for Every Citizen Project – more revelations, CJ Piper, Bryan Massie

A Scottish Enterprise invoice or two

Further observations

  • Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.