Cuckoos In The Nest: Latest In Aberdeen Gardens War.

 Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion  39 Responses »
Jun 072012
 

What is the probability that the City Garden Project will actually happen? Mike Shepherd looks at some of the obstacles it currently faces.

The City Garden Project cannot proceed if £70 million of private finance is not in place to fund it:

utg1031_0
The nominal cost for the City Garden Project is £140 million, with £70 million each to be contributed from the private and from the public sector.
So far, only £55 million of private money has been pledged, although £70 million has always been the target figure. The project will stall if the full £70 million of private funding is not committed.

Aberdeen Council voted in January to agree the following:

“Instructs officers to enter into negotiations with a view to putting in place a development agreement with Aberdeen City Garden Trust (ACGT) and/or their representatives, which sets out the terms upon which Aberdeen City Council (ACC) would be prepared to make necessary Council owned land available, to realise the proposed development subject to;

“(x) Requires ACGT to confirm, in a legally binding form, that they have access to at least £70 million of private sector funds to invest in the CGP, prior to the signing of;

a. An appropriate Development Agreement, and

b. A TIF agreement confirming ACC’s ability to invest at least £70 million in enabling infrastructure related to the CGP.”
http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=18252

A council vote to give final approval to signing the Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) agreement will probably come up this summer. This is basically a request for a £92 million loan from the Scottish Government, £70 million of which would fund the City Garden Project.

The £55 million of pledged private money has been on the table since early 2010 and the full £70 million remains an unfulfilled aspiration two years later. The funding gap of £15 million will be difficult to make up.

One issue is that big companies who could afford to make donations on the scale of millions may be reluctant to get involved with such a controversial project.  They will not want to come under severe criticism from either the public or their workers.

Sir Ian Wood could come up with the extra £15 million, perhaps anonymously.  This would however be an admission that the project has failed to motivate the business community in the place where it matters: the bank vault.

The TIF business case is risky:

Noted academic Professor Tony McKay has criticised the business case for public funding through TIF as “the worst he’s seen this year”.

Claims that the project will create up to 6500 jobs and add £122 million per year to the city’s economic output are ludicrous, he says. He thinks that the Scottish Government will reject the application for a loan from central funds.
dailyrecord.co.uk/aberdeen-city-garden-business-plan-is-worst-i-ve-seen

utg1032
TIF funding is based on the idea that without the core project, new businesses will not happen. These are the “But For” criteria that give the green light for putting a new TIF scheme in place. The new businesses created provide business rates to pay for the loan.

The Aberdeen business case contends that much of the commercial activity in two new business parks in the north of the city, and in the city centre, will not happen without the City Garden Project.

I suspect that few truly believe this, as the new business parks will attract inward investment to the city on the back of a currently resurgent oil industry anyway.

Nevertheless, I suspect that the Scottish Government will give a few knowing nods and winks to the “But For” criteria here. They may be amenable to allowing new business rates to be captured to pay off the Council’s loan of £92 million for the proposed city centre redevelopment.

But will it be enough? The business case makes it clear that the revenue will pay off the £92 million loan and accrued interest with a small margin to spare after 25 years. And required to do this are 6,500 new jobs and £122 million added to the city’s economy each year for the next 25 years, a “ludicrous” estimate as mentioned previously.

Let’s take the lesser case whereby the city gets 5,000 new jobs and about £100 million per year of added value. This would also be miraculous news for Aberdeen if it were to happen, but it would be a disaster for Aberdeen City Council. The council would be left with a shortfall on a very large loan. It might have to sell off assets to pay the difference.

Audit Scotland was aware of these problems when it expressed concerns about the City Garden earlier this year, stating that “a key risk will be the affordability of the project and its impact on the council’s finances”.
[Audit Scotland: ACC Annual Audit Plan 2011/2012 p. 10]
http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=18879&txtonly=1

The land issues are complex:

At some point Aberdeen Council will have to approve a deal transferring property rights to the Aberdeen City Garden Trust (or its equivalent). This deal would be likely to involve assigning a long-term lease, and the council have said that they will not sell the land.

There are major issues here, not least those arising from transferring what would be a property lease for public land, potentially worth millions, to a limited company.

Union Terrace Gardens lies on Common Good land and at some point the Council would have to apply to a Court of Session to allow development to take place.  Additionally, there are contracts in place for the use of Union Terrace Gardens as a park. A legal document from 1871 states that the area of  Union Terrace Gardens should on no account “be appropriated to any other use than that of a recreation ground for the public.”

The City Garden Project website mentions the following: 

“The gardens will be run on a not for profit basis. All income will be put back into the running costs for ongoing upkeep and improvement of the gardens. The City Gardens will be able to generate income through activities held within the park; exhibitions, conferences and returns from coffee shops and restaurants.”
http://www.thecitygardenproject.com/faq.htm

I’m not a lawyer, but these issues look to be somewhat contentious. The January council meeting approved the allocation of up to £300,000 of council money to be spent on carrying out legal due diligence for the City Garden Project. The council lawyers must be very worried.

The new council make-up is not favourable to the City Garden Project:

The last council progressed the City Garden Project through its voting procedure with a comfortable majority on most occasions.

utg1033
The new council looks to have an almost equal split between the ‘pros’ and the ‘antis’.
In addition, the Labour Party leading the new council administration has pledged to kill the City Garden Project.

There will be several votes to come, including a likely knock-out vote at the full Council meeting on August 22nd.

The City Garden Project will also need to survive the TIF business case approval, the development agreement and the planning submission.

This is an administration that will have other concerns. I’m told that central funding for Scottish councils is being cut by millions over the next three years, yet only 18% of the cuts have come through so far. The last thing any new administration will want is the divisive distraction of the City Garden Project and its potential to suck much-needed resources out of the council, for example the £300,000 on legal fees.

Council leader Barney Crockett is opposed to the City Garden Project. He has now been assigned as the Council representative on two bodies that support it: the City Garden Project management board and ACSEF. He will be a veritable cuckoo in what have previously been two cosy nests for the scheme.

The City Garden Project could itself be described as a cuckoo in the nest; its big yawning mouth crying to be fed with big gobbets of public money while other more deserving mouths lack succour. A hard landing beckons for this particular cuckoo.

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Union Terrace Gardens – The Big Picture

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Apr 062012
 

If you are of the opinion that the City Garden Project controversy was all about what flavour of city centre park Aberdeen should have – think again. There seems to have been a much bigger picture involved here, and the politics are murky.  Mike Shepherd writes.

The power of the print media in shaping opinion

utgsunsquarpic
The public referendum has been held, and the City Garden Project won by the smallest of margins: 52-48%. Feelings are still poisonous in the city, as it is clear that a marginal result was swung by dubious means.

On the City Garden Project side, unregistered groups spent a disproportionately large sum of money on campaign material, whereas the officially registered groups were restricted to spending about £8,000 only.

Some of the claims made by supporters of the City Garden Project were outrageous and substantially misleading. One newspaper advert is now being investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Even Aberdeen Council were responsible for punting a justification for the City Garden Project with the questionable claim that a new park could create 6,500 new jobs in the city.

The local papers showed a bias in favour of Sir Ian Wood’s project and framed their reports to show one side in a much better light than the other (“Yes, vote for change” or “No, don’t vote for change”). Ludicrous claims were accepted uncritically – such as oil companies leaving Aberdeen if the scheme did not go ahead.

I had been advised by an expert that:

 “Newspapers are very powerful at shaping public opinion”

and:

 “You will need the support of a PR company during the campaign.”

utgscreenpic
It was very good advice, but in practice not something that a campaign group of limited influence and funds could realistically put in place. Yet, it was clear from canvassing in the street that the combined effort of relentless advertising, the glossy brochures and the press bias was having an effect.
Whereas many would stop and give me a considered analysis of how they would vote, a large minority were reflecting City Garden propaganda back at me, phrases recognizable from glossy brochures or Evening Express headlines.

Our society today is witnessing a battle between democracy and political lobbyists / PR companies. Out of this, democracy is not doing that well. It’s a shock to see this writ large in Aberdeen, but at least the Gardens Referendum result has made this crystal clear to any thinking person in the city.

Local politics

After two years of campaigning to keep the Gardens, I have been able to observe how local politics works. It is clear that the current council administration is very business friendly and they will tend to make decisions that primarily favour business interests. At just about every council meeting you will hear the phrase “Aberdeen is open for business.”

Local democracy commonly involves a conflict between what business wants and what is in the interests of the general public. For example, if Aberdeen Airport is allowed to land flights at night, Dyce residents will get woken up by the noise. The conflict between business and public interests came to the fore after the consultation on Sir Ian Wood’s scheme two years ago. Over 50 local businessmen wrote to the council asking for the result to be ignored:

‘due to misunderstanding of the project among the public’

and an ‘inability’ to appreciate its impact. The council – to their shame – did this. The current Council administration (an SNP / Lib Dem coalition) appears to favour business almost every time.

There are a number of reasons why business gets its own way with the council. Many councillors are instinctively business friendly and will tend to support projects that are favoured by local commercial interests. This is certainly true of the Conservatives on the council and of many councillors from the other parties too.

There is also a powerful business lobby. Businessmen make up two thirds of the Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Forum (ACSEF), a “public-private partnership that drives economic development in the region”. Funded by both Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils, ACSEF is a non-elected body that have been given a significant degree of control over local economic policy. There is no doubt that ACSEF exerts power and influence over the activities of both councils.

  advanced societies work by a system of checks and balances between moneyed interests and the public regard

ACSEF were involved with the City Garden Project in the early days and described it as one of their flagship projects. Two of the board members, including the Chairman Tom Smith, are directors of the Aberdeen City Garden Trust, the group that organised the architectural competition and who hope to take the project forward to completion.

Extensive networking appears to go on amongst the “great and the good”. Politicians, local businessmen, council officials and senior figures in local organisations turn up and meet at parties, functions, charity events and business meetings. One Freedom of Information request gives an indication of how much hospitality is provided to council officials for instance:
http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/76531/response/199821

To the worldly wise, this will not come as a surprise. However, advanced societies work by a system of checks and balances between moneyed interests and the public regard. This does not appear to be working too well in Aberdeen.

The SNP and the City Garden Project

The SNP have been intimately involved with the City Garden Project since its inception. Alex Salmond was present at the project launch  in 2008.
http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx/933616

But only recently have both Alex Salmond and Callum McCaig, the SNP leader in the council, explicitly endorsed the City Garden Project.

Yet, the majority of SNP councillors have supported it throughout (the notable exception being Clr. Muriel Jaffray). This is clear from the voting records every time the project has come up for debate in the Council. The SNP support has been instrumental for the progress of the City Garden Project through successive council votes.

  Major businessmen such as David Murray, Brian Souter, Jim McColl and Martin Gilbert have now endorsed the SNP.

The SNP have a reputation for populist politics and it may seem surprising that they have embraced such a controversial project for the city. I believe that there is a much bigger picture here, and one that takes precedent over local politics. The SNP are essentially a single-issue party; they want independence for Scotland. The realpolitik of the SNP is that much of what they do is focussed towards this end.

A key aim for the SNP has been to secure the support of major business figures in Scotland. This is partly financial; the party has no natural source of funds apart from membership fees, but they are also trying to secure influence leading up to and beyond any independence date. Major businessmen such as David Murray, Brian Souter, Jim McColl and Martin Gilbert have now endorsed the SNP.

Sir Brian Souter, founder of the bus company Stagecoach, caused controversy when he donated £500,000 to the SNP in 2007. Shortly afterwards, the SNP dropped an election commitment to bus re-regulation, although they denied that there was any connection to Sir Brian Souter’s donation.

Sir Ian Wood has not given open support to the SNP, yet the SNP continue to court the billionaire’s favour. Not only has Alex Salmond given his own backing to the City Garden Project, the machinery of Government has also been used to bankroll the scheme.

Scottish Enterprise funded the public consultation two years ago and also allowed grant money to be used for the technical feasibility study. Although the public rejected Sir Ian Wood’s project in the consultation, it didn’t stop Scottish Enterprise from giving Aberdeen City Garden Trust £375,000 of public money from its available funds for major infrastructure projects.

Another niggly problem has been the concerns of Audit Scotland

The Scottish Government are keen to provide investment money for the project through TIF funding. Yet it has been established that the initial proposal did not rank very highly by comparison to other investment and infrastructure projects elsewhere in Scotland.

The Scottish Futures Trust, who carried out the ranking, has refused to make their calculations public in spite of Freedom of Information requests to do so. Another niggly problem has been the concerns of Audit Scotland, who have questioned the long term capability of the indebted Aberdeen Council to pay back a risky loan for the project.

The proposed use of valuable investment and infrastructure funds for something as trivial as building a new park is shocking. The business case is dubious and the council can’t afford the risk. Political considerations seem to have taken precedence to a strict business evaluation on the Aberdeen TIF case.

Sir Ian Wood discussed independence recently and gave an indication of what he wants from the Scottish Government:

“The Wood Group will not endorse a Yes or No vote on independence. But Sir Ian added: “What’s key is the extent to which our clients, and to some extent ourselves, anticipate that a Scottish Government would continue with a similar oil and gas policy to the UK.

“The suggestion right now, from the discussions I’ve heard, is that there’s a lot of overlap between the present Scottish Government’s thinking on the development of the oil and gas industry and the UK government’s thinking.”

He went on:

 “What’s important – and I think the First Minister realises this – is that they must provide as much clarity as possible over the next two years towards the vote in 2014, so that we minimise the uncertainty.”
http://www.scotsman.com/captains-of-industry-and-finance-join-clamour-for-clarity

I have no doubt that this will happen.

The SNP are hoping to secure a majority at the council elections on May 3rd. This is possible, but as a one-issue party they tend to do better in national elections than local elections. They are also heavily identified with the Union Terrace Gardens issue and this appeared to have cost them votes in the Scottish elections last year.
https://aberdeenvoice.com/2011/05/the-election-the-utg-effect/

If they do not get a majority, this raises the intriguing possibility of an administration run by a Labour-SNP coalition. The Lib-Dems are likely to see their vote collapse outside the West End of the city. The Labour group are vehemently opposed to the City Garden Project and it could be that a condition for agreeing to form a coalition is that the scheme is dropped.

The “Union” in Union Terrace Gardens refers to the union of the United Kingdom and Ireland in 1800. Perhaps it is ironic that the park has ostensibly become a pawn in the big game of Scottish independence. It would be immensely sad if this was the case. Aberdeen’s heritage could end up sacrificed for the sake of political wheeling and dealing.

This would not bode well for a future Scotland. As Paul Scofield, playing Thomas More, said in A Man For All Seasons:

“I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

02.03.12 – A Black Day For Aberdeen

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Mar 092012
 

The black calendar of Aberdeen’s civic history has a new entry: 2nd March 2012, the day that its citizens, evident sufferers of apathy and myopia, handed both its natural heritage and its economic future to a cabal of businessmen.  Arthur Taylor writes.

utg2011pic

The fight to retain and improve Union Terrace Gardens hit the buffers on that day when the public – or rather 27.5% of them – voted to support the plans to destroy this unique piece of the city’s heritage and replace it with a concrete monstrosity – presumably confused by the smoke and mirrors of the PR campaign which branded it “The Granite Web”.

Whether the battle turns into a war, protracting the debate, and driving further wedges between parties already badly divided, remains to be seen, but it is hard to see a rapid healing of the wounds that this process has created.

It is also difficult to stop the passion that fuelled the Retain campaign from dissipating, before all avenues of challenge are exhausted against a process labelled as democratic – but which in reality has been anything but that.

What is clear is that events from 2008 to now should be reviewed and recorded for posterity, so that future generations when looking back can seek to understand a number of things:

  • why we allowed our heritage to be given away to a clique of egoists and nepotists, who deluded the public and maybe even themselves into believing that they were altruists and philanthropists
  • why the local authority whose primary function is to act in the citizenry’s best interest handed control to an unelected quango, immune from public scrutiny
  • and why we allowed the city’s future to be mortgaged on the most questionable of business cases, flagged up as high risk by Audit Scotland in the final days of the campaign – when most votes were already cast.

Not that this was a revelation: Friends of Union Terrace Gardens had identified the risk months before, but their claims were played down in the media.

The last two months have seen a referendum conducted by a returning officer who sought to have the campaigns run to a fair set of rules.

The dominance of the local print media in forming and steering public opinion, and its incestuous relationship with local business, is deeply concerning.

While it appears that the retain groups stayed within their £8000 budgets, the pro groups – aided and abetted by the collaborators in the local media – spent an estimated £1,000,000 to buy the votes of the people of Aberdeen. Their cynical campaign saw radio adverts dressed as public information broadcasts, and a drip-fed daily editorial in the local press, with each day’s evening paper offering more extravagant promises than the last, as part of a fawning hysterical clamour.

That the retain groups, variously composed primarily of grey-haired men, beardies, tree-huggers and an enthusiastic schoolboy, ran the referendum right to the wire, losing by such a slender margin, is testament to their energy, enthusiasm and resourcefulness. That they did this against a campaign co-ordinated by the BIG Partnership, Scotland’s largest PR agency, is little short of a miracle.

The dominance of the local print media in forming and steering public opinion, and its incestuous relationship with local business, is deeply concerning.

The public need a source of true facts rather than propaganda dressed as objective reporting.

That said, there have been two positives to emerge from the press coverage of the campaign: the amusement derived from watching the Evening Express contorting itself like an India-rubber prostitute in a bid to champion the development, while not entirely abandoning its habitual council-baiting; and the emergence of the STV Local site as a place where all parties can present their voice without editorial bias.

It is hard not to see the future of local journalism as lying in hyper-local online spaces, as counterpoint to the shrinking of print to the point of complete insignificance.

the dead-eyed, gape-mouthed novelty-seekers who lurch zombie-like through the malls

Returning to the proposed development itself, it should be remembered that Union Terrace Gardens is the only part of the city where one can see the original topography of the land on which the city is built.

Sadly the local authority in the last century has allowed almost all traces of the city’s history to be erased like some embarrassing legacy instead of retaining and celebrating its character. Compare this with Edinburgh’s old town or York’s centre.

We are now confronted by the effacement of the final part of our history in order to satisfy the dead-eyed, gape-mouthed novelty-seekers who lurch zombie-like through the malls that have brought about the systematic homogenisation of the city centre and obliterated all individuality and character.

If we do not continue to challenge this proposed act of civic vandalism, by:

  • opposing the planning application,
  • challenging the use of Common Good land,
  • exposing the business case as one which will leave the city bankrupt (as it was last in1817)  when the TIF scheme plays out as feared,

then we should at least ensure that we record for posterity the names of the businessmen who proposed this vanity project; note the politicians and faceless unelected quango-ists who eased its path to realisation; and ponder the many, many idiotic consumers who swallowed the hype, without challenge or analysis.

If we do nothing else, we should record those names on the black calendar’s page for 2nd March 2012.

FOI Prevails: The Quest For Milne Property Deals

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, News, Opinion  No Responses »
Dec 152011
 

Voice’s Suzanne Kelly provides further detail regarding The Scottish Information Commission’s decision on Aberdeen City Council’s handling of FOI requests regarding  sales to and contracts won by Stewart Milne related companies.

 

Town House From Castlegate
This week the Supreme Court sided with Aberdeen City Council and rejected Stewart Milne’s appeal concerning profit-sharing on a land deal.

Milne bought land from Aberdeen City Council (property worth some £5 million was sold to him for c £375,000) with a clause stipulating Milne had to share any related profits with the seller, Aberdeen City Council.

After lengthy appeals, the Milne Group must pay £1.7 million pounds to Aberdeen City Council (legal costs are at present unknown).

Precisely how and why the cash-strapped City Council made this deal still remains unclear.  Once acquired, the property was sold from one arm of the Milne group of companies to another, and on this basis, Milne’s position was that there were no profits to share.  The Courts have disagreed.

This issue spurred a freedom of information request to the City Council.

What land had been sold to Milne-related companies?  What contracts had been awarded to the Milne companies?   Was a group of companies receiving preferential treatment by being sold public assets without the assets going on the open market to the highest bidder?  Was a construction firm buying land at considerable discount with one hand, and at the same time under-bidding competition to win work?

It is a year (and a few days) since the initial FOI request was lodged with Aberdeen City Council.  Late replies, denials that information was held, assertions that information was too difficult and costly to obtain were some of the obstacles in the way of obtaining information.

If not for the Information Commission, there would be no chance of this information – concerning public assets and the public purse – coming to light.  As it is, the City has until 23 January to finally comply.  At that time it must either disclose the information or lodge an appeal against the decision.

The decision will be disclosed to the public  around 16th December.  In the meantime, here are some of the important issues and facts to emerge from the Information Commissioner’s decision.

On 10 December 2010 a FOI request was sent to Aberdeen City.  Such requests are to be answered within a specific time frame and are backed up by legislation.

The City failed to respond in time. Aberdeen’s representatives said the information was not easy to obtain, would cost over £600 pounds to collect, and that some of the data was immune from disclosure.  When the request was largely turned down, an internal investigation by ACC into its handling of the affair was requested as the law permits.  The City was sorry it was late in responding, but it was not going to release the information.

Findings:

The Information Commissioner’s office was supplied with the entire (lengthy) chain of emails from the first request through the refusal and the internal investigation.  The Commissioner will soon release its report into ‘Case 243/2011’ and these points are among the findings:-

  • ACC FAILED to comply with Part 1 of the Information (Scotland) Regulations 2002 (FOISA)
  • ACC  FAILED to comply with the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004
  • ACC FAILED in dealing with the request by wrongly claiming that section 12(1) of FOISA was applicable to the request
  • ACC FAILED to provide reasonable advice and assistance under Section 15(1) of FOISA.
  • ACC FAILED to meet statutory timescales for handling the request

Background:

The comprehensive decision from the Commission covers the history, legal issues and relevant points of my request.  The Background section covers my initial questions to Aberdeen:

1. List of property (including but not limited to land, buildings, building services, material goods, etc.) Aberdeen City sold to the Stewart Milne Group, Stewart Milne Homes and/or any associated companies, and/or directly to Mr Stewart Milne. List to show property name/description, date of sale, sale price, minutes/reports of the City Council approving/recommending the sale, and if available the market value at time of sale.

2. List of property or services (including but not limited to land, buildings, building services, material goods, etc.), the Stewart Milne Group, Stewart Milne Homes and/or any associated companies, and/or directly to Mr Stewart Milne sold, managed or built for Aberdeen City Council. List to show property name/description, date of sale, price, reports/minutes of the City Council recommending the purchase, and if available the market value at time of sale.

If any aspect of this request is not clear, then please contact me directly for clarification.

I was asked to clarify what I meant by Stewart Milne associated companies, and on the same day as the request was emailed to me, I sent this list from Companies House:-

05232604

D

 STEWART-MILNE CATERING LIMITED Dissolved
SC305012 STEWART MILNE CENTRAL LIMITED
SC152943 STEWART MILNE COMMERCIAL LIMITED
SC083265 STEWART MILNE CONSTRUCTION LIMITED
SC054259 STEWART MILNE DEVELOPMENTS LIMITED
SC191167 STEWART MILNE (GLASGOW) LIMITED
SC057709 STEWART MILNE GROUP LIMITED
SC132524 STEWART MILNE HOLDINGS LIMITED
SC137803 STEWART MILNE HOME OPTIONS LIMITED
SC065403 STEWART MILNE HOMES LIMITED
SC096898 STEWART MILNE HOMES (SOUTHERN) LIMITED
SC056620 STEWART MILNE INVESTMENTS LIMITED
SC063606 STEWART MILNE INVESTMENTS (SCOTLAND) LIMITED
SC349644

D

 STEWART MILNE KITCHENS AND BATHROOMS LIMITED Dissolved
SC204848 STEWART MILNE PART EXCHANGE LIMITED
SC145941 STEWART MILNE PROPERTIES LIMITED
SC192726 STEWART MILNE (WEST) LIMITED
SC305009 STEWART MILNE WESTHILL LIMITED

The City also wanted to know what time period the request covered.  This was a bit of a surprise – was the list of property sold so extensive that a cut-off date was needed?  Dates of 1980 to the present were chosen.

On 9 February 2011 the City advised that the request would be too costly, and that it did not hold information relating to property it had sold to Stewart Milne companies.  An internal inquiry into how the City handled my request was offered and accepted.   This inquiry proved rather fruitless, and on 4 May 2011 the Office of the Scottish Information Commissioner was asked to look into the case.  The investigation began.

The Information Commissioner’s office contacted Aberdeen City Council on a number of points.  One of the issues was whether or not all or part of the FOI questions should have been dealt with as an Environmental Request (EIR).  The City then told the Commissioner’s office it ‘no longer wished to withhold the information in the reports (about tenders) in their entirety.  Some but not all the information on contracts Stewart Milne companies had won in September was released.  This included information about new build work at Byron Park, Hayton Road and Rorie Hall.  The documents were heavily redacted.

It was nine months since the FOI questions were first asked of ACC.  At one stage during the Commissioner’s investigation there was an opportunity to re-state the case and explain why the information should be put in the public domain.  I wrote about the state of Aberdeen’s finances, the fairly recent criticism of the City’s fiscal operations by Audit Scotland, the lack of transparency in the City’s dealings, and my concern for the disposal of public assets without clear attempt to get the best possible market price.

The decision notes my claim that ‘public assets should be bought and sold in a fully transparent manner, especially in such a cash-strapped city as Aberdeen.’  I wondered if my efforts would be enough.  I waited.

Findings & Analysis:

One of the most important reasons for refusing the request was cost.  If the costs were truly going to exceed £600 (the threshold over which public authorities do not have to respond – but can if they wish to), then someone at ACC’s Freedom of Information Office should have offered  guidance as to how to reduce the cost of the search.  This never happened.

Aberdeen’s initial cost estimates indicated that many people would have had to spend hours on the request, and some of these hours were going to be charged at over £15 per hour.  As it turned out, the maximum hourly rate that a public entity can charge for searches is £15 per hour.   Perhaps someone in the City’s Information area should have known this?

Over the course of the dozens of e-mails exchanged, I made clear I did not accept Aberdeen’s claim that supplying a list of the property would be to arduous and too expensive.

At one point the City said some of its records were only on paper format.  I informed the Information Commission that the City holds an Excel spread sheet detailing the property that it owns and that I considered it likely that the Council would have a similar spread sheet for property it disposed of.

Aberdeen said such a record did exist, but that it didn’t show to whom property had been sold.  (This seems like a very poor state of record-keeping if it is the case).  The City said its list would be ‘meaningless’ to me.  The City estimated that it sells some 10 pieces of property per year, and we would be talking about 140 sales from 1996.  In summary, the City said it would cost £1,117.50 (a rather precise figure I thought) to get the details I was after.

Item No. 50 of the Commissioner’s decision reads:

“…the Commissioner is surprised that the Council is unable to establish the identity of the purchaser in relation to individual property disposals in a less labour intensive manner, he accepts that the Council does not have simple access to the information requested…”

Here are some other points from the report concerning the issues:-

51.       “Having considered the Council’s submissions, the Commissioner accepts that it has identified a reasonable method of locating and retrieving the information Ms Kelly has requested.  This involves two distinct stages:  firstly identifying those property sales in which the purchaser was one of the parties of interest to Ms Kelly and then secondly locating and providing, for only those transactions involving relevant purchasers, the particular pieces of information requested by Ms Kelly about that transaction.  The Commissioner is satisfied that the information requested could all be located within the file relating to the property sale.”

52.       “Turning to the Council’s estimates of the staff time required to complete this process, the investigating officer reviewed the copy of a file provided by the Council.  Although this contained over 780 pages of information, the investigating officer was able to identify the purchaser of the land or property within two minutes of opening the electronic file.  Although, in this case, the purchaser was not one of interest to Ms Kelly, the investigating officer went on to locate the types of information about the sale she had requested.  The investigating officer was able to identify and extract the relevant information from this file within a further 15 minutes.”

53.       “Having considered the Council’s (somewhat limited) submissions and the investigating officer’s review of the sample file, the Commissioner is unable to accept the Council’s estimate that it would take 30 hours to establish which files involved sales to relevant parties.  This suggests that this initial stage would take an average of just under 13 minutes per file….”

The Commissioner’s findings on the issue of retrieving the information are even more concerning than just this over-calculation on the City’s part.  Looking back to an earlier point, it seems the Council are no longer keeping records of crucial information such as how public assets are disposed of:-

43.       “The Council explained that there is no longer a comprehensive database which records all transactions…”

After a less-than-glowing recent report from Audit Scotland into Aberdeen’s property management – why is there ‘no longer a comprehensive database’ concerning important transactions?

The decision then goes to the matter of the ‘duty to provide advice and assistance’.  The Information Commissioner found

“…the Council offered no advice and assistance to Ms Kelly on how she might reduce the scope of her request…” and “Given that the Council provided no advice or assistance to Ms Kelly in either narrowing the scope of her request, or accessing some of the information of interest to her, the Commissioner finds that the Council failed to comply with its duty…”

Part of my FOI request concerned contracts won by Milne companies.  Were we selling land at very favourable rates to a bidder who might put in low bids?  Would it be possible that a contractor won work by bidding lower than the competition, but that another company connected to the contractor bought land at profit-making prices – possibly even to the detriment of the public purse?   This possibility crossed my mind.

The Council felt harm would be done if details of contracts awarded were publicised.  I commented that there was a need for confidentiality during negotiations of a contract, but not once a deal is concluded where public money is being spent.

The Commissioner noted that my requests were about one year after the contracts were awarded.  The tenders had been evaluated; the contracts were issued.  As it turned out, the unsuccessful bidders had been advised of the details after the award – but by some kind of oversight or another on the part of Aberdeen City Council, this information was never made available to the public despite EU law making such disclosure mandatory.

This is what the Commissioner’s investigation found:-

“The Commissioner is unable to accept that a competing company would be able to gain significant insights into the relevant company’s capabilities, pricing or bidding strategies from the disclosure of this information [information re. Bids]… the commercial sensitivity of that information will have diminished with the passage of time, and in particular with the award of the contracts in the subsequent phase in the Council’s home building programme.  The Council has provided no evidence to support its submission regarding the continued risk or harm following from the disclosures of that information.”

More to come:

The decision has been released to me and the City.  They have until 23 January 2012 to lodge an appeal or comply.  The Commissioner’s intervention and in-depth analysis is greatly appreciated and clearly was much needed.

This report will be available to the public via the internet c. 16 December.  It will prove a valuable read to other researchers and anyone interested in how Aberdeen City Council handles information and requests for information.  However, one year on from asking the initial questions, there are still crucial questions unanswered:-

  • Who suggested selling land to Milne companies?  What was their position in ACC?
  • Exactly what public assets have been sold to Milne related companies?
  • Who in the City was involved in progressing and approving the sales?
  • Were any bids won by placing bids with very low likely profit margins?
  • What internal audit procedures, if any, flagged up any issues with the sales or contract awards?
  • Does anyone within this chain of decision making have any links to any of the Milne-related companies?

Further information on this subject will be forthcoming.  Aberdeen Voice will be reporting on the City’s next move.

ACC Ordered To Release List Of Property Sold To Milne

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Breaking, Community, Featured, Information, News  No Responses »
Dec 122011
 

Aberdeen Voice  has learned that the Scottish Information Commissioner has upheld Voice reporter Suzanne Kelly’s Freedom of Information request with regard to land and property sold by Aberdeen City Council to Stewart Milne and associated companies.

Town House From Castlegate
Less than a week having passed since Stewart Milne’s appeal to the Supreme Court failed, the Scottish Information Commissioner has decided that the Council must provide Kelly with information on land transactions between Aberdeen City and Stewart Milne companies.

The Supreme Court had been asked to review the details of a land purchase Milne Group made from Aberdeen City Council. The Supreme Court found that Milne must pay the City £1.7 million over the land deal.

The cost of the legal action is at this point unknown.

Kelly had followed the case, and had heard from several sources that there may have been other deals regarding the property developer and the City.

In a Freedom of Information Request made to the City, Kelly asked for a list of property sold to Milne and/or associated companies and the selling price, as well as a list of contracts the Milne companies had won from Aberdeen (there are several companies connected to Stewart Milne). Kelly wanted to analyse the contracts won and land purchased. The City initially refused her request.

An appeal was lodged, and the Information Commissioner was asked to look at the history of the freedom of information request and the grounds for refusal. The Commissioner issued its findings on 9 December 2011. The Commission decided that Aberdeen City Council and its Freedom of Information officers failed to act properly on a number of issues.

Key points include:-

  • The City did not always respond to correspondence and requests in a timely manner.
  • The City said it did not have a comprehensive record keeping system and finding the information would be very difficult. Kelly proved to the Information Commissioner that the City keeps much of its property portfolio details on spreadsheets.
  • The City said it would cost over a thousand pounds to find this information.
  • Kelly received some of the requested information during the course of the investigation including details of c. £10 million worth of construction contracts won by Milne and associated companies. No information has as yet been released by Aberdeen to show what property it sold to Milne.

The property dealings of Aberdeen City council had come to the attention of Audit Scotland some time ago. In its findings Audit Scotland found:-

  • evidence of procedural and administrative deficiencies and poor record keeping,
  • cases where accurate and relevant information was not reported to elected members,
  • a lack of evidence to support the valuation at which properties were sold, and
  • cases where the Council may have achieved a better price. Overall, it appears that there is a potential loss of capital receipts which may be more than £5 million.

The City is considering a number of budget and service cuts, and this spurred Kelly on. Kelly states.

“If the city is awarding contracts based even in part on low bids, then I question the wisdom and prudence of selling land at a fraction of its potential market value to a successful bidder. The City has a massive property portfolio, and if must keep detailed and accurate records of its transactions. In light of the Supreme Court decision last week, the decision from the Information Commissioner is extremely timely and most welcome. I look forward to receiving the information I have sought for so many months.”

Milne is also a director of Aberdeen Football Club. It is slated to sell its existing Pittodrie Stadium ( the UK’s first all-seater stadium ) and use the proceeds to build a stadium in greenbelt land near Loirston Loch. Planning permission was hotly contested, with local community councils objecting to the plans. The area is home to a variety of wildlife. The club’s income is thought to be in steady decline, as attendances have fallen and the team struggle to climb the league.

Says Kelly,

“I shall contact Aberdeen Council if I have not heard from them shortly, and as soon as the information is made available to me, I will report back. The Commissioner agrees that the public have a right to have the information I have fought long and hard to obtain.”

Old Susannah No.58 – The Lie Of The Land

 Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, History, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Nov 142011
 

Old Susannah pays her respects, but is unable to maintain her silence as she takes a look around what has been happening in our vibrant and dynamic city and beyond.

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Things continue to be vibrant and dynamic this week in the Granite City.  On Friday 11 November some 4o-plus people gathered for a minute’s silence to mark those who fell in war.  Robert Martin who works nearby in Golden Square told me he first started coming to Union Terrace Gardens for the traditional minute of silence a few years back.
“What better, more peaceful place is there in the heart of the City to have the minute of silence,” he commented.

A gardener tried to tell the group they should be at the war memorial instead – he could not understand that we were all happier in the Denburn Valley.

For the record, this was not a celebration of nationalism, or glorification of war; it was a gesture of respect for those who lost their lives in war.  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just stop killing each other, and sort out economic and social problems another way?  Maybe that day will still come.

Then there was the enjoyable opening night at Peacock for its winter exhibition.  The 400 or so works are on show until 23 December and  are all for sale.  Alicia Bruce is offering small prints of her iconic photo portraits from the Menie Estate which had such a good reception when she exhibited at Peacock.  There are abstracts, portraits, beautiful drawings, and even one or two offerings of mine.

A quick word about litter.

During the week I asked an older man who’d dropped litter to please pick it up.  He explained (with some interesting vocabulary words which I must look up) that ‘he didn’t know me’, ‘he didn’t have to’ and ‘I could not make him.’  It was a very impressive display indeed.

Days later I was at Sainsbury’s Berryden, and groups of students (probably just over 20 people in total) had stopped by the store to get their lunch.  They had wrappers, bags, papers, serviettes, bottles and so on.  And as I waited for a bus, I saw each and every student put their trash in the trashcan near the bus stop.

I am pretty sure they were from St Machar.  My appreciation to them and the other people who do the right thing.  It’s not difficult, it’s not brain surgery.  It does however make a huge difference.

But whatever you were doing this week, everyone’s thoughts were with one brave man who is fighting a valiant struggle of his own.  Yes, Stewart Milne’s case went to the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The Press & Journal had no room for this story on the day, due to the breaking news that geothermal energy exists.  This astonishing front page special even had a picture of a volcano to illustrate it.  I had personally expected a story about a cow with a ladder on its neck, but the geothermal story did the trick, and between it and the massive ads for Milne Homes, no room remained for the little matter of our City being called to the Supreme Court.

Then, Friday, the P&J did run with a story on Milne, which leads neatly to a little definition or two.

Negotiate: (verb, Eng) to settle a conflict or disagreement by compromise.

Those of us who read the Press & Journal story will have felt sorry for Stewart Milne.  He claimed the matter could have been settled had Aberdeen City council accepted his offer of negotiation.

According to the P&J, Stewart Milne Group claimed:

“We have offered to go to independent arbitration on several occasions over a long period of time,”

Usually negotiations happen when both sides have a valid argument or case to make.  To refresh everyone’s memory, the City sold land at Westhill to Mr M for far less than it was worth – the City’s clever business plan was not to sell the land on the open market, but sell directly to Milne (I am sure there was a great reason).

He got a great price on the understanding the City would eventually get any sale profit.  In a really clever and not at all dodgy-looking business manoeuvre, the land moved from one arm of the vast Milne empire to the next, at a cost around £500k –apparently more than what the 11 acres cost in the first place.  This was perfectly normal, and could have happened to anyone.  Quite truthfully, Milne then indicated that there was no profit to share.

This giant poster in no way looks like a desperate advertising ploy, but it does paper over some cracks nicely.

The City and subsequent courts have disagreed with Mr Milne’s logic (shocking!), and rather than enter ‘negotiation’ over the £1.7 million under dispute, the City decided to see the case all the way through.  Milne could have accepted the last court’s verdict, but he appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.  If you’ve only got £60 million, then you’ve got to hold onto every penny these days.

The trial was televised, and although Old Susannah is no legal expert, it didn’t look all that great for Stew.

Now we just have to wait for the outcome – at which point no doubt everyone’s favourite football club owner will immediately give Aberdeen the £1.7 million it is owed, plus court costs.  I think an apology is also due, and hope the City are drafting one to Mr Milne for taking things this far.

This expensive litigation obviously in no way impacts on the role Mr Milne plays in ACSEF, the City and Shire’s invention which is helping us out of economic chaos.  Aside from the bang-up job ACSEF has done so far for our city’s shops, it’s created a brilliant logo for itself, and now has a great big vibrant, dynamic mural at McCombie Court.  This giant poster in no way looks like a desperate advertising ploy, but it does paper over some cracks nicely.

In light of Stewart’s logic concerning negotiation, the next time you get mugged or have your wallet snatched, don’t go to the law.  Just find out who’s got your money and negotiate to get some of it back.  Sorted.

Reading this story about how Stew wanted to negotiate, I wonder if I’m not having déjà vu.  This sense comes from the P&J article some time back, when Milne and everyone’s favourite forum, ACSEF, were taking over Peacock Visual Art’s project and turning it into the great City Garden Scheme.

Just before the final, decisive and divisive voting on the project took place, ACSEF / Milne said that Peacock had been offered some kind of 11th hour alternative, but were unwilling to strike a deal.  Of course if you read the full story, you would have eventually discovered Peacock said ‘we were never contacted about any deal.’

I hope in future any Peacock person, Aberdeen City legal rep, etc. will just ‘negotiate’ when Stewart wants something – it will save the taxpayer lots of money to just go along with him from the start.

In fact, when I think of Loirston Loch, the Triple Kirks glass box scheme, Pittodrie and so on, I wonder if we haven’t just started to say yes to him already.

Geography: (noun) study of terrain, locations, types of environments and areas.

If you are out there, Pete Leonard, Director of Housing, perhaps you might consider a geography lesson or two.  Pete insists Tullos Hill is ‘urban’.  The hill is next to all the lovely industrial estates which have helped make Aberdeen the profitable centre of the universe it is, but the hill just isn’t all that ‘urban’.  It’s covered with plants, grasses, wildlife, pre-historic cairns and so on.

Here in Aberdeen, there is a complete separation of contractors and councillors

On the word of Mr Leonard, I went to Tullos Hill the other day assuming it had been urbanised.   I looked for fast food, a coffee or a monorail ride, but there was nothing of the kind to be found.

It struck me that Ms Malone (who has lately been very, very quiet) might want to look for a new initiative to push. Perhaps if she abandoned the ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme and maybe had ‘a monolith for every citizen’ and/or ‘monorail for every citizen’ scheme, it might increase her popularity.  As I hear it, an improvement in her popularity stakes is currently the only possible direction.

Aside from Tullos, other urban areas in our city are easy to recognise by the well-maintained roads and footpaths, the general cleanliness, the complete lack of any crime, and all the many open local shops.

Corruption: (noun, English) a state of dishonesty, lack of integrity, self-interested behaviour of a person or body in a position of trust.

Edinburgh has faced accusations of council corruption. (“At least it couldn’t happen in Aberdeen!” I can practically hear you say.)

For openers, according to the BBC, the hospitality records are incomplete. ( This contrasts with our city’s up-to-date, perfectly set out, fully inclusive records which seem to indicate some councillors went to absolutely no events whatsoever in 2009 and or 2010).  But that’s the least of Edinburgh’s problems.

Edinburgh’s councillors are in the firing line for ‘possible fraud and serious wrongdoing’ with regard to building works and property.

Audit Scotland could not decide if the city was just a wee bit disorganised, or if there was a whiff of corruption

It also looks like a city councillor had a holiday paid for by a contractor.  Here in Aberdeen, there is a complete separation of contractors and councillors.  In those rare occasions when a councillor is somehow connected to a contractor, then they stay well out of any possible conflict situations.

Some years ago we had our own little trouble with Audit Scotland, you may remember.

They had a few uncertainties after a detailed investigation of our city’s property selling activities.  There were questions as to why so many properties were being sold below value.  Audit Scotland did tell the city to stop selling property at knock-down prices, and otherwise pay attention to details – like who is actually buying your property and what it should sell for.  In the end, Audit Scotland could not decide if the city was just a wee bit disorganised, or if there was a whiff of corruption.  In the end, they invited our local police to look into the issues.

After a completely thorough, detailed investigation, the police found nothing untoward.  Old Susannah is not sure when the investigation was conducted.  Then again, I’m not sure when exactly Stewart Milne Group started advertising on police cars, either.

Next week:  hopefully a Milne court and FOI case update; a fond look back at the careers of John Stewart and Neil Fletcher, who are not going to run for re-election in May.

Stop press:  Christmas Gift Solution:  Tired of the usual old boring gifts – the handbag-sized bottle of vodka, the city council carriage clock or branded pen?  Look no further for your gift requirements:  The City is selling photo prints of its greatest moments.  Rather than taking a picture of St Nicholas House or the ACSEF logo yourself to make a welcome gift for a loved one, just go to the City’s website.

What is the most popular subject on sale?  Why the Lord Provost of course!  There are only about 750 photos of him in action this year but fret not: there are two other years of Lord Provost photos as well.  Make a lovely print on canvas, or can be sent to an artist to create a portrait in oils.  I just might buy a photo of the Lord Provost handing over a gift and turn it into a mug, a mug for some reasons being the first thing that springs to mind.
See: http://aberdeencitycouncil.newsprints.co.uk/

Stop press 2:  there will be a further extension for getting your entries in for the Union Terrace Gardens art competition  – more news soon!

 

Old Susannah’s Dictionary No.19

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Jan 072011
 

Voice’s Old Susannah tackles more tricky terms with a locally topical taste ( but do bear with her …. I believe some lengthy, yet justified aeriation may preclude ).

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Congratulations to Ms Valerie Watts, formerly of Chief Executive of Derry; she will become the third Aberdeen City Chief Executive in as many years.  Readers who can remember back as far as 2008 will recall Douglas Paterson taking early retirement.  This was coincidentally just before Audit Scotland came to call, and just after he said he would not leave his post over the little matter of being at the helm when the City sold off various properties for a fraction of their market value.

Nothing to do with him.  The auditors were unable to conclude whether these sales – some £5 million less than conservative market value – were a great idea, incompetence, or possibly even shady.  For instance, the City claimed to believe it was selling property to the NHS, but sold it to a private developer.  If only there had been someone who was invovled with both the City Council and the NHS.  Granted Kate Dean would have been one of the most senior people Old Susannah can think of involved with both these entities, but she would have been too busy to notice a deal worth a mere few millon.

Next in the Chief Executive office was Ms Bruce, who  left us for Edinburgh, claiming she brought us to a £9 million budget surplus.  It actually looks like we need to make about £90 million budget savings immediately, but all the best to her.

Ms Watts may have to get a part-time job to make ends meet; the post of Chief Exec of our fair city only pays £141, 834, with 5% based on how well they perform.  Then again, she will want to take a 5% pay cut (that’s about £22K) to show solidarity with the City Council workers who have happily agreed to such a cut themselves.  While it may be true that the UK Prime Minster  and his cabinet ministers all earn less than our City Chief Exec, they won’t have nearly as much responsibility as Ms Watts, who will need to meet heads of state, tell the Queen what to say in her speech, and build shopping malls and community stadiums.

A person could make a few comparisons between Aberdeen and Derry.  For a start the population figures are similar – Derry c. 237,000 and per an Aberdeen report “In the period up to 2031, the population of Aberdeen City is forecast to rise to a peak of 215,000.  Both cities have airports as well as countryside areas.  Derry had a budget surplus of just over £1 million in 2008, and, well Aberdeen was in the red by tens of millions for the same period.  Derry however has a biodiversity policy which has seen it take important ecological steps, and financially speaking it reported an income from its services of £9,140,000 and rates earned it 38,717,000 circa 2008.  Obviously Ms Watts has a lot to learn about local developers and what should be done with greenbelt land.

This is most impressive, but clearly can’t work in Aberdeen – we have builders to look after

If anyone can penetrate the Aberdeen City Council finances and find out more than Old Susannah can as to how we compare to Derry financially, I would love to hear from you.

Clearly they have skimped on hospitality, new office furniture, travel, and clothing to make its Lord Provost (actually mayor in Derry) look good. We managed to write off about £11 million in bad debts in a similar period, sold real estate to developers for a fraction of its actual value, and continued to have a discrepancy in pay women earned compared to their male counterparts.

Ms Watts won’t be used to such creativity.   Rumour has it that Derry’s schoolchildren still have things like small classes and music lessons – but this is unconfirmed.

Looking again at the two cities and how they regard the environment, Derry has something called a ‘Local Biodiversity Plan’, which reads in part:

“Derry City Council is further meeting its corporate objectives by protecting and enhancing biodiversity in rural and urban areas, and thus providing a clean, diverse, accessible and sustainable environment for people to enjoy while also looking after the health and well being of its communities.

“Natural habitats are being compromised as development progresses in Northern Ireland and in the Northwest. Many species are now living in much smaller fragmented pockets of their previous habitat range. These islands of good habitat are more vulnerable to population decline. Developments of new housing schemes, industrial estates, commercial premises and office space in urban and rural areas, new transportation infrastructure, infilling… are all contributing to habitat loss and fragmentation in the area.  Construction projects alongside or close to waterways are particularly sensitive and potentially damaging to flora and fauna”.

This is most impressive, but clearly can’t work in Aberdeen – we have builders to look after, don’t you know?

I can think of nothing that would succeed more than a luxury goods store on Vicky Road

Necessity: Necessity is defined as experiencing a lack of a desired or essential commodity.  As anyone in genuine need can tell you, necessity is also a mother.

Aberdeen suffers from need; we identified the necessity of an £80 million pound re-fit for Marischal College for Council offices, and we met that need with new furniture – also necessary.  Some things are luxuries, or can be described as ‘nice to have’.

In our City these include road surfaces, services for the disabled, help for the elderly, sports facilities, reasonably-sized classes for students, parks and music lessons.

And as our high-street stores close one by one, there is another thing we need….

Retail Rocks! Retail Rocks is a private company that will bring new life back to Torry’s boarded up shops as well as a few other closed business premises here and there.  Clearly the closed down toy store and art materials shop near Bon Accord, ‘Globally Sweet’ on Union Street, and a dozen shops on Holburn closed as the owners were just too lazy or were bad managers.  After all, Scottish Enterprise was always on hand to help, and at a cost to the taxpayer of £700 million a year – that is a lot of help. However, there is only so much that a small, unelected quango can accomplish, and Retail Rocks has stepped in to help enterprise in Scotland where Scottish Enterprise could not.

How hard in those conditions can it be to compete with international chain stores

It was not as if the rates in Aberdeen are astronomically high, or that there are not enough police to stop robberies (I can only think of two knife attacks in Torry stores in the last year or two, so that’s not so bad is it?) or to stop the occasional drunk breaking shop windows.

Theft is certainly not an issue – unless you count the dozens of stories in the press each month (and my favourite, the ‘hoodie’ who robbed the Torry PDSA charity shop last Christmas).  Seeing as the citizens of Aberdeen have so much expendable income, I can think of nothing that would succeed more than a luxury goods store on Vicky Road.  It’s only laziness that stops the family corner shop from completing the one or two bits of paperwork needed for tax, insurance, sales, licensing, transport and so on.

How hard in those conditions can it be to compete with international chain stores, one or two of which you may notice dotted around our town?  Aside from their centralised administration, bulk buying power, brand recognition, control of suppliers and use of enterprising children in Asia to produce cheap goods, they really don’t have much of a competitive edge.

Soon the streets will be wholly regenerated with a dozen or so new shops for the ‘Retail is Rocky’ – I mean the ‘Retail Rocks’ competition winners.  Get your groundbreaking idea in now.  You could wind up a shopkeeper.  With the recession in full bloom, there is only one way to go and that is up, and with VAT at 20%, it is easier to calculate it when it was 17.5%.  Good luck to all of you – and remember to install security cameras and metal shutters.

Next week:  more of the City Council’s committees, ‘conflict of interest’, and ethics