Freedom Archives - Page 3 of 3

Not The First Choice – Webs, Worms And The CGP.

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Information, News, Opinion No Responses »

Jan 192012

By Mike Shepherd.

The final design for the City Garden Project was picked this week. The proposed plan is to replace Union Terrace Gardens with a futuristic design of curving walkways and grass called the “Granite Web”.
The announcement stoked up even more controversy as it appears that the design was not the first choice amongst those that voted in the exhibition in October last year.

Favoured was the “Winter Garden”, the design with the big greenhouse resembling a giant glass worm.

A letter in the Scotsman gave a typical response to this ‘consultation’:

“Pointless poll. Of the six designs submitted for the development of Aberdeen’s Union Terrace Gardens, one emerged as the clear favourite during a protracted public consultation in which the Aberdeen electorate took part.

Yet a panel of judges has selected one of the other designs, and the Aberdeen public is apparently to be given the choice between this one or nothing. What is the point of holding a public consultation and treating the result as if it didn’t exist?

Derrick McClure, Aberdeen”
http://www.scotsman.com/news/letters/letter_pointless_poll_1_2061360

It is not the first time that a consultation on the fate of Union Terrace Gardens has been ignored. A public consultation run in 2010 saw a majority of the public rejecting the scheme.

The design itself is also controversial. John Glenday, the editor of the magazine for Scottish architects the Urban Realm, commented:

“Diller Scofidio & Renfro’s ‘granite web’ of interconnected walkways has been sold as a vision of the future for Aberdeen. However the seductive sixties sci-fi vision presented may be out of date before the journey from concept to reality has even begun. In their submission the architects have spun a tale of making Aberdeen “throb” again but the history of elevated walkways and underpasses, as anyone who has ever traversed any concrete New Town will attest, is often dystopian.

“Health and Safety officials are also likely to have a field day with the walkways and platforms as presented, inevitably leading to a compromised design with fencing, signage and other clutter once the demands of building regulations are met.”
http://www.scotsman.com/news/cartoon/analysisagrandschemebutitmayjustbealittletoolate

Others have been more sceptical. It has been variously likened to a Teletubbies TV set, a skatepark and even ‘Mounthooly Roundabout on steroids’. The City Garden Project have however reached for their dictionaries to praise the ‘vision’, with press releases abounding with words such as ‘transformative’, ‘vibrant’ and ‘dazzling’. Despite the hype there are very few facts being presented. We still do not know how much it will cost or how long it will take to build.

In another development, Aberdeen City Council are to hold a special council meeting next Wednesday to discuss the City Garden Project.
http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=18252

The report for the meeting asks councillors to approve the final City Garden Project design , expects the private sector to commit at least £70 million towards the project and discusses some of the land ownership issues.

There is no discussion in the report as to what happens if the City Garden Project goes into massive cost over-run. In 2009 the then Chief Executive, Sue Bruce, decreed the private sector would be responsible for any cost over-run. Since then, no procedure has been discussed on ensuring agreement about this. In my opinion, Aberdeen City council are being grossly negligent here.

Councillors are effectively being asked to approve the final City Garden Project design ahead of February’s public referendum.

Yet the report mentions that:

“ACGT has produced initial draft proposals in respect of the likely uses of any internal and external space to be created by the proposed development and are currently redrafting these proposals to reflect the space provision within the design recently selected by the Design Competition Jury.”

It is difficult to see how councillors can approve a project when there is no clear statement as to what the scheme is going to be used for.

The requests to councillors to spend up to £300,000 on legal costs from Council funds will be very controversial. We have been repeatedly told that the City Garden Project will have no impact on Council budgets, yet this is clearly not the case here. Some will ask how such costs can be justified when services and amenities are being drastically cut elsewhere.

Polling cards for the referendum are to be issued to Aberdeen residents on or around the 16th February. We will be asked for a third time – what do we want our city centre to look like?

The public are being treated with disrespect on this issue. Nevertheless, Aberdonians should ensure that they vote in the referendum. This one counts.

Old Susannah No. 62 – A Tale Of Three Cities

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour, Sport No Responses »

Jan 062012

Old Susannah tries to get to grips with the newspapers, the actual news, and council-speak. By Suzanne Kelly.

Tally Ho and Happy New Year! Old Susannah’s had a bit of a holiday break in London and New York, but is back in the Deen and looking for news in all the wrong places.
All major world cities have their problems – New York, London – even Aberdeen. It’s how these problems are dealt with that show the intelligence, logic, and well class of a city’s government.
New York at Christmas has subtle holiday lights, but all the stores (particularly 5th Avenue ones) do their best to have creative, exciting, individualistic window displays.

This just makes things look non-uniform and that’s a bad thing of course. If only there were some giant red balls and uniform lights overhead to herald the presence of the New York Government. Better still if such lights would fall down now and then for a bit of drama as well.

There is a policeman on every corner of 5th and people are well behaved as a result. Our streets are of course ‘livelier.’ How sad. No one is allowed to use the streets for fighting/throwing up/robbing/ rolling around drunk in while the police stand idly by. Here in Aberdeen there is more freedom to indulge in these traditional holiday past times.

Iconic landmarks such as Manhattan’s statue of Atlas, Ice-skating rink and the Christmas Tree just demonstrate how stuck in boring tradition NYC really is; hardly anyone comes to see these things. I’d like to see a few buildings levelled (maybe the Chrysler and Empire) and a gigantic concrete public square created – that’s clearly what’s needed to revitalise NY’s dull city centre.

London’s Soho was absolutely packed with people, music venues, and restaurants. Believe it or not, the local shops don’t all close at 6pm; some even close when they feel like it. Trash collections are regular, and I found myself missing my overflowing Torry communal wheelie bin with its broken lid and binbags torn open by hungry birds. There weren’t even any sofas dumped on the streets to sit on.

In a not very vibrant or dynamic tradition, the Geoffrey Museum had its annual display showing how households used to look in times past for Christmas. This tedious attraction could have done so much better if a monolith had been built on its historic front lawn.

You’ll never believe me, but in London’s massive Richmond Park (again just wasted space filled with lots of grass and trees) there is actually a deer park.

I suppose the biggest disappointment in New York and London as compared to Aberdeen is the scale of waste. New York has its (comparatively) massive Central Park and there are long stretches of coastal lands on nearby Long Island. No one’s proposed any football stadiums, giant forests on the dunes, or turning the place into a giant golf course resort.

London has more parks than you could count that are filled with little more than grass – which so bothers Councillor Stewart. These parks do allow food kiosks and restaurants, something our City is far too cool to allow in Union Terrace Gardens (well, at least not until we build something over it first).

New York has great sports teams, but it’s not following our lead. The Rangers continue to play in the outdated Madison Square Gardens rather than building something new outside of Manhattan. Mr Milne could teach them a thing or two. It’s almost as if people were fond of their historic sports venue and wanted to keep using it. I think they’re in denial – the thing doesn’t even glow in the dark.

Finally an old building has been sensitively restored for re-use as a Native American heritage museum. Doubt that made much money for any new-build businesses. Shame.

You’ll never believe me, but in London’s massive Richmond Park (again just wasted space filled with lots of grass and trees) there is actually a deer park.

One of many deer allowed to thrive in major London parks as a highly popluar visitor attraction.

No, the deer are not there for people to have their dogs chase. The deer I have to admit are sometimes culled – when absolutely necessary – after living a lifespan where they can eat, roam free, and live.
Note: They are not culled for reasons other than animal welfare.

No one is proposing to shoot them in order to turn their turf into a lumber-producing forest. Some eccentrics actually go out of their way to come and see the deer, or ‘vermin’ as Neil Fletcher and others would call them.

London and New York should really take a page from Aberdeen’s book and do much much more building in their empty green spaces. The funny thing is that people actually choose to live near such places and pay more money for the privilege.

My one regret is that I missed the Christmas event in Union Terrace Gardens which by all accounts was a perfect afternoon. The children loved seeing their artwork displayed; they loved the vermin – sorry – deer which had been brought in as a special treat. The music was spectacular and everyone had a vibrant and dynamic time. So my compliments to the organisers – the Bothwell family and their friends, and to those who supplied prizes – Lush and The Artist’s Pad on Castlegate in particular.

I was happy to have been one of the judges for the art competition which was a real pleasure if not a nearly impossible task. Watch Aberdeen Voice for an upcoming display of the childrens’ artwork and the entries for the Aberdeen Voice Union Terrace Gardens art competition – as soon as I can scan the 300+ items that were entered, that is.

But at this rate there won’t be room for definitions, so here we go.

Blindspot: (compound noun; English) An area which cannot be perceived whether due to physical limitations or psychological ones.

Old Susannah begins to wonder if any of our local press realise that by 23 January the City must relinquish details to me of what land was sold to Stewart Milne companies and for how much money? If they are aware, they certainly don’t find this revelation worthy of any space in their pages.

When I was travelling I kept up with local news via the internet – there were fascinating pieces on weather, a bit of vandalism, some bits of petty crime, another local store closed, and football games were won and lost. But no word on Aberdeen Council being criticised by Scotland’s Information Commissioner or on the looming disclosure of what property ACC sold to Stew at what price. Guess this just isn’t as interesting as all the other stuff.

seems northern Scotland can get windy in winter. Who’d have guessed?

Still, by 23 January the City is meant to supply me with the info on Milne I requested a year and a month ago.

Let’s see who publishes the next development besides Aberdeen Voice.

I also read Private Eye when I was away (although I usually find it far too critical of our elected officials and millionaires), and a small item reminded me that the National Union of Journalists was ‘de-recognised’ by the Press and Journal and its sister, the Evening Express.

A cynical person might think the owners of these papers want to keep a tight rein on any reporter who goes ‘off message’ and writes anything too critical of their largest advertising revenue sources. I just think the P&J management don’t want their staff to have to have the hassle of Union membership when they are so perfectly well remunerated.

Is there really any bias towards the powerful forces in the City? Just as a matter of interest, a colour advertisement in the Evening Express supporting the ‘phase 2 tree for every citizen’ scheme cost the city c. £145. A similar sized colour ad by those opposed to the tree planting and related deer cull cost over £700 (with 2 reprints in the Citizen). Just thought you might like to know.

Festive Decorations: (noun) holiday-themed lights, banners, etc.

Well, the City’s outdone itself this year. From 21st November 2011 to the 5th January 2011, Aberdeen City Centre was festooned with festive lighting and decoration. Of course some of the lights came down almost as soon as they went up; seems northern Scotland can get windy in winter. Who’d have guessed? (Note – this historic pattern of high winds will of course be no object to planting trees on Tullos Hill, even if a Forestry report says wind is a problem there).

I have my own theories about what the giant, over-sized, totally out-of-proportion red balls symbolised

According to the City’s website ‘Other communities around the City also take part with their own festive lighting on lamp-posts. Aberdeen’s main thoroughfare (Union Street) is the centre piece with 11 cross street lighting all with a Christmas theme.’

I was surprised that Christmas was the theme for the beautiful lights on Union Street – I’d have thought the City was supposed to be non-denominational. But I saw the light. The decorations on Union Street show pictures of presents, toys and sweets – and buying stuff like that is the true meaning of Christmas after all.

I have my own theories about what the giant, over-sized, totally out-of-proportion red balls symbolised, but perhaps I’ll keep that to myself. I look forward to watching them fall down again next year.

Jargon: (noun) vocabulary which is not recognised in the mainstream, is hard to decipher, and which may be deliberately exclusionary.

Next week I intend to look at upcoming budget/financial actions our fair city may be taking. Believe it or not, I am not always convinced their financial skills are as good as you might think. If anyone can help me decipher the following paragraph which I found on the ACC website, then please get in touch:-

“There are also other projects currently active that will produce efficiencies for all Services, i.e. ICT infrastructure and connectivity, procurement revisions, etc. The ICT infrastructure and connectivity work is delivered solely by Service Design and Development and therefore is not included in the above listing. The projects listed above all fall into the category of technology enabling making change happen.”

It sound absolutely wonderful, but I haven’t a clue what it means. It’s from an older document covering finance and budget.

Is it possible that a lack of straight-talking is confusing issues? No, I thought not. I guess I’m just not ‘falling into the category of technology enabling making change happen’ as naturally as everyone else must be doing.

Final thought: Children in Need:
Spare a thought to those who don’t have the things they need this season. Take the case of Stewart M.

Stewart, aged fifty-something years, will not have a happy holiday season (or any kind of happy season) without some help. A mere 7.8 million pounds will give him the toy football stadium he wants. Next year he may also buy some toy players to go in the toy stadium if it’s not all been thrown out of the pram. Please give generously.

Another Final thought: Electoral Roll:
Live in Aberdeen? Want to vote on the future of Union Terrace Gardens? Make sure you are registered to vote before 10 January. IF you are not on the electoral role, follow this link and register: http://www.grampian-vjb.gov.uk/clients/GVJB/flexviews/core/assets/pdf/er/voterregistrationform.pdf

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.

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.

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.”

OS No. 56 – Charity Begins At City Council

Aberdeen City, Articles, Creative Writing, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Oct 282011

Old Susannah reflects on what’s been going on, who’s got designs on our City, who’s doing what out of the goodness of their heart, and wonders if there’s enough ‘connectivity’ yet. By Suzanne Kelly.

It was another busy week in the Granite City. Have been busy decorating cupcakes with Sweet Lily Adams (it’s a hard life), and trying out new Jo Malone perfumes (I love their Gardenia cologne, and the orange blossom candle is my favourite).

NB: Jo Malone has absolutely nothing to do with Ho Malone, although the idea of Aileen and I having champagne and canapés together of an evening is an enticing prospect.
She is meant to email me back about the financials for the deer cull (we might not have enough money to kill stuff you see– or it could be a bluff).

Once she does write back, I’ll suggest that the two of us go out for drinks and dinner. Watch this space.

I actually went to some shopping malls without being accosted by guards, and I tried to avoid looking at the six design finalists more than was absolutely necessary. It was truly a car crash of an exhibition: I had to force myself to look, and then in horror could not look away again. Whatever the organisers say, not everyone at the show is convinced by the scheme or any of the designs by a long way.

The show has had a profound impact on me as has the TIF application – I think of these things and unavoidably burst out laughing. You have to hand it to these people – the emperor has no clothes on, but thinks it all looks fantastic. If you are free on 1st November, The Moorings is hosting its own alternative design competition – details on Facebook, where the alternatives are far more popular than the official site.

For some reason when I was back at the Academy shopping centre for the first time since my last little visit, my mind turned to the old Benny Hill show.

The other week when the guards were chasing me round the Academy and St Nicks (for taking photos), I could practically hear the Benny Hill theme tune in my head. If you remember, the wealthy, ageing Benny Hill surrounded himself with pretty blondes, and promised everyone that they would be generously remembered in his will. In the end, almost no one inherited a cent.

What on earth made me think of a rich, older man making promises to leave money to lots of people (including blonde actresses) I couldn’t tell you. The mind works in funny ways. I must have got something stuck in my craw.

Obviously it was not as vibrant as being in a shopping mall, but I took my turn on Tullos Hill Monday night (yes, we are keeping a watch on the hill – if you want to get involved, get in touch) and saw a solitary deer on two occasions.

It was obviously vermin, as it was peacefully doing nothing. I am sure this little vegetarian would have eaten thousands of trees of a single evening. A well-meaning man had a dog off a lead – the dog chased said deer away. The man saw nothing wrong with this, saying his (fairly small) dog would not be able to catch the deer. True, but not quite the point though is it?

Please let your dog run free if it will respond when you call it back. If not, well, then don’t. Wild creatures can be petrified in these circumstances. In the past week and a bit we’ve a child badly bitten by a dog, a dog attacking another dog, and a charming man using his dog to attack police. It’s just as well we got rid of dog licensing, isn’t it?

But onwards with a few definitions.

Charitable:

(adjective) generous, unselfish, giving behaviour.

Many of us here at Aberdeen Voice help out our favourite charities and causes when we can. But our efforts are quite second rate when compared to the heroic, unselfish, self-sacrifice practiced by some of the City Council’s officers. Step forward Mr Gerry Brough and Ms Jan Falconer.

These two have been working in part on a voluntary basis to make sure that we get something built in boring old UTG. It is very generous of their employer, Aberdeen City Council to allow them to toil away on the garden project.

It was Jan who spoke to the Torry Community Council about UTG some months ago (Gordon MacIntosh had a dinner to go to instead of seeing Torry), and she promised everything would be spelled out and transparent.

I am convinced she is right – everyone on the City Gardens Project and associated companies has everything perfectly clear. And once the diggers move in, the rest of us will see what’s happening too. Here is a statement from a report, spelling out how she works:-

“I have only recently started in this project and the work I have undertaken other than attending meetings is administrative. My hourly rate exclusive of on-costs is £26. I work an average of 50 hours per week making an average of 200 per 4 weeks I work while I am contracted to 148 hours (37 hrs per week). I regard all other administrative and desk-based tasks as taking place during this 11 additional unpaid weekly hours (52 hours per 4 weeks less 8 hours for a flexi-day leaving 11 hrs per week)–which represents a cost saving of £2288 since working on this project from 2 February 2011. (i.e. 11 hours x 8 weeks @ 26 per hour = £3,120). Outwith this is Community Meetings to which I attended the Torry Community Council Meeting for 3 hours in my own time representing an additional saving of £78. This is my choice as I wish the project to be a success whilst following the Council’s instruction”.

Again, the real philanthropist is Sir Ian Wood, without whose promise of putting something into his will, we would not be where we are today. (Hmm – who’s supplying the office space, light/heat, printers, consumables for all these extra hours? What is the EU working time directive? Just curious.)

Mr Brough has occasionally become a wee bit heated when discussing the whole situation, and has written to some local opponents of the new gardens that they are just jealous of Ian. Here is an example of Gerry’s unselfish nature, hidden behind the sometimes less-than-genteel facade:-

“My hourly rate, excluding on-costs, is £46. However, I work an average of 55 hours per week. Therefore, I would regard all other administrative and desk-based tasks relating to the City garden project as taking place during the 17.5 additional unpaid weekly hours that I work for the council – which represents a cost saving of £20,125 since 6 October 2010 (i.e. 17.5 hours x 25 weeks @ £46 per hour = . £20,125). Indeed, it would be possible to claim that all City Garden work is effectively more than made up for by this additional no-cost time input. Consequently, it can be argued that any input to the City Garden Project is effectively on a voluntary basis, at no cost to the council”.

Bargain! Only £46 per hour, and he’s willing to work extra at that rate! I am impressed! In fact, the amazing report that these quotes come from can be found at:

City Garden Project, Aberdeen City Council Project Monitoring Group Meeting, 26 April 2001(sic)

…. it has some real gems – like the fact they see no legal problems with getting the land and only 10 Freedom of Information Requests had to be dealt with. You will be amazed as you read this; please be my guest.

While you and I could never hope to equal these giants of giving, who expect nothing in return for their efforts (not even a private sector job or promotion of some kind I am sure), I will take a moment to say that many local charities for people and animals need your help now. Check out Voluntary Services, Contact the Elderly, Willows, New Arc just for starters.

They are all in need of money, goods and if you’ve none of those to spare, they need your time. Obviously you won’t get a carpark named after you, but you might wind up chatting to great people on a Contact the Elderly event, help out with animals, or do one of a hundred other things worth doing. If you can, then please do get in touch.

Neutrality:

(adjective) impartiality, indifference,

Aberdeen City will not – so some claim – spend a single penny on anything to do with the City Garden Project. Its officers might be volunteering their time and sitting on boards, companies and committees about changing our dreary Union Terrace Gardens from something Victorian to something 1950s – but it won’t cost us.

The people in Aberdeen who brought us the BiD funding are completely neutral and indifferent to whether or not the City Gardens Project borrows 70 million (probably a wee bit more – say 100 million) through TIF Funding.

This is proved by the BiD people sending out a very smart draft letter for businesses to send. Here are some extracts from the text that an Aberdeen City employee is sending to local businesses (text in blue is mine):

“I have been asked by ACSEF (to) highlight [sic] that additional support is also required from local businesses to ensure that Aberdeen City can access TIF funding”.

Well, that’s neutral enough for me.

“We would be grateful if you could consider writing to Barry White, Chief Executive, Scottish Futures Trust, 11-15 Thistle Street, Edinburgh EH2 1DF in support of Aberdeen City Council’s TIF (Tax Incremental Financing) submission”

Aberdeen City is only asking businesses to write to the Scottish Futures people; it’s not biased at all.

“The TIF being proposed by Aberdeen City Council would unlock up to £80 million to deliver a range of city centre improvements as part of the city centre masterplan. At the heart of the city centre regeneration is the City Garden Project, which has already secured a commitment of £55 million of private sector investment with a further £15 million planned.”

Nothing wrong with a little unlocking, I say. Who can argue with this factual paragraph? Yes, sounds quite impartial to me.

“TIF is an invaluable and innovative tool for stimulating greater investment and regeneration, achieving major city centre transformation, and retaining and attracting existing and new business investment. It is therefore vital for Aberdeen to be selected as one of Scotland’s six remaining TIF pilot projects”

Yes, they are saying TIF is great and it is vital for Aberdeen to get TIF, but I’m sure they really are as neutral as they first claimed.

“We hope that you will demonstrate your support for the Aberdeen TIF submission by making it clear that the Scottish Government needs to demonstrate its support for Aberdeen City and Shire by investing in the regeneration of Aberdeen city centre which, unlike Scotland’s other major cities, has received little or no public infrastructure investment over the last fifty years.”

Yes, it is only fair that Aberdeen gets its own tram fiasco by having a big infrastructure project. I do seem to remember that Audit Scotland thought things were so messed up here that we weren’t supposed to do anything big for a while. But you can’t fault the City’s claim of neutrality just because they are asking businesses to beg for TIF.

Some of you out there might be starting to doubt whether or not the Aberdeen City BiD people are neutral when it comes to the City Garden Project getting TIF funding. This excerpt from a letter from a Bid Bod should end any doubt:

“Aberdeen BID is entirely neutral with regard to the City Garden project …”

So yes, Aberdeen City Council and its BiD people are neutral, they are just keeping businesses in the loop, and giving them a letter of support to sign so we can borrow somewhere between 70 million and 100 million (depends who you ask, really) for your great-grandchildren to pay off for building Teletubbyland. Neutrality to match the volunteer work, you might think.

It might sound like it’s asking for help from businesses getting TIF, but they have said they are impartial so that’s that.

One tiny part of this impartial letter requires a little more study:

I draw your attention to what might be a typo (or a Freudian slip) in this letter which I found amusing (underlining is mine)

“ACSEF is a public private sector partnership that seeks to grow the economy and enhance its quality of life through a joined-up approach. With the private sector standing shoulder to shoulder with the private sector, ACSEF has facilitated, influenced and delivered a variety of major projects that are helping the region and Scotland to meet its growth targets”

Is the private sector going to stand shoulder to shoulder with itself – or is that exactly what the creation of ACSEF with taxpayer money has created and what we should be grateful for? Answers on a form letter, please.

Just to show that I too understand neutrality, here is a link to a letter you can send to Barry White.

Tell him you don’t want a giant worm or a monolith that will cost someone, somewhere down the line tens of millions – if not one hundred million pounds. Tell Barry the designs are awful, and the city needs to attract people with excellent schools, great medical facilities, safe, clean streets, and support services for those who need them.

No one is going to live in our city because it has more parking, more offices or a few giant concrete ramps where once 400 year-old trees once stood. Use this letter as it is; customise it, or send your own to : Barry.White@scottishfuturestrust.org.uk

Next week:

The mystery of the uncomprehending Chief Executive, and the Case of the Missing Postcards in which Valerie Watts only receives 35 of the hundreds of anti-cull postcards created – over 60 of which were hand delivered by Old Susannah to a security guard who commented ‘loads came in’ that week – and the week before. Where are the missing postcards? Did deer eat them? Answers on a postcard please – or get one of the remaining postcards and send it to the City – pop into Lush for your card – and some very nice ‘candy cane’ soap.

Scotland’s National Anthem

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May 272011

News that our great nation is urgently in need of a national anthem has struck a chord amongst the staff and assorted literary aficionados at Aberdeen Voice, with many perceptive and pertinent suggestions put forward to replace our present national dirge. Dave Watt chairs the adjudication panel

Charlie Abel of Iron Broo www.ironbroo.co.uk

Suggestions have varied from such musical phenomena as Hoots Mon, There’s a Moose Loose Aboot This Hoose by Lord Rockingham’s XI to Tang Dynasty’s heavy rock version of The Internationale.

The suggestion that the country might be represented by Frank Zappa’s Brown Shoes Don’t Make It, which contains the stirring lines –

I’d like to make her do a nasty
On the White House lawn,
Smother my daughter in chocolate syrup
And boogie ’till the cows come home

– was probably a bridge too far, as well as not being likely to do very much for international relations. Mind you, hearing 60,000 people singing it at Hampden would be quite a mind-bending experience.

An alternative Corries’ song, Scotland Will Flourish, looks to be a good front runner with First Minister Eck quoting from it in a couple of his speeches lately. At least it’s a bit livelier than the dirge-like Flower of Scotland, which I suspect will be another contender.

Another possibility is Hamish Henderson’s 1960 song, Freedom Come All Ye, which is quite a nice tune but is done in such broad Scots as to be almost unintelligible. That is to say, despite having been born here and living in the bloody place for over half a century, there are still words in it I need subtitles for.

A definite non-front runner is the even-more-dirge-like-than-Flower of Scotland, God Save The Queen which apparently is still the official anthem. God Save The Queen was originally German – a bit like the Royal family really – the tune being sung as the Prussian Heil Dir Im Seigerkranz until the catchy present Jock-bashing version was rush-released on the Cumberland label after Culloden.

It was played before Scottish rugby matches until the mid-seventies and, football-wise, some grovelling gong hunters at the SFA kept it going until the eighties, despite the crescendo of booing at Hampden reaching ear-splitting proportions. Its last materialisation was possibly before Scotland’s 3-1 humping by Argentina at Hampden in June 1979. Its only competitor in the unpopularity stakes I can remember was in Edinburgh during the height of the anti-Poll Tax campaign when a visiting orchestra at the Festival thought they would please their hosts by a spirited rendition of Land of Hope and Glory. By the time Sandra and I left, chairs were being thrown on the stage.

The final front runner, Scotland the Brave – words by Cliff Hanley – replaced God Save The Queen in time for the World Cup Finals in 1982, despite some heavy duty mumping by Thatcher and the Daily Mail who referred to our dumping it as ‘an insult to the monarchy’ -obviously unaware that the whole notion of monarchy is an insult to human intelligence.

Freedom Of Information? – Not In Aberdeen

Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 112011

Voice’s Suzanne Kelly tells of her attempts to use Freedom Of Information (FOI) Legislation to find out exactly what property the City of Aberdeen has sold to Stewart Milne/ Stewart Milne companies.

Stewart Milne Construction and its related companies certainly seem to own a fair amount of land in Aberdeen and surrounding areas.

I formally made a Freedom of Information request to the City to find out what public properties were sold by the Council to Milne-related companies.

After a nine week wait for a reply to the original FOI request submitted by e-mail on 9 December 2010, the City declined to supply any information. The City information office sent two documents explaining the rationale for declining the request; the reasons given in these documents can be summarised as follows:-

it would cost too much (£1200) to answer, and
making this information public would damage the Council’s relationships with its suppliers.

( Copies of response letters can be viewed below. )

The public should have the right to know how its assets, in this case land, are disposed of. It must be remembered that the City and Mr Milne have recently been in court over one of these deals. It appears that land in the west of the city was sold to a Milne company for less than market value, and that there was an agreement that any sale profits would be shared with the City. After legal action on the Council’s part to recover some of the perceived profit, it came out that Milne sold land from one branch of his empire to another, and claimed no share was therefore due to the Council.

Oddly, the courts are thus far not sharing Milne’s opinion. However, Milne is reportedly taking the City, and therefore the taxpayer, back to court to appeal this latest judgment: this is why it is imperative that we are told what else he or his companies bought from the City, and what the sale prices and actual values were.

What exactly lies behind Aberdeen’s lack of transparency?

The City disagrees with this assessment, so an appeal will be lodged to its Information Officer over the refusal to answer the FOI request. The City also seems to have confused its dates somewhat.

The official letters denying my information request refer to the request date as 22 January. Is this inefficiency, or a deliberate attempt to obscure the original 9 December e-mail request date?

The City asked me to clarify my request on 23rd December, which I did the same day. It is most definitely relevant to the citizens of cash-strapped Aberdeen to know what kind of deals have been done. Aberdeen citizens are facing millions of pounds’ worth of services cuts; local schools are closing, and children and people with special needs are being told to expect yet more cuts.

If the City is continuing to sell off assets at less than market value (despite Audit Scotland’s recent criticism), then something is greatly amiss. The facts are these – I first sent an e-mail on 9 December asking for information as follows:-

“I have tried unsuccessfully to find the following using your website – please provide it to me under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, many thanks.

The Council responded by email on 23 December, asking what I meant by Stewart Milne companies, and what time frame I had in mind (which may indicate the sales cover a long period of time).

When I received the request for clarification, I immediately visited the Companies House website, and immediately replied with a list of near a dozen entities bearing the Stewart Milne name which are registered in Scotland.

I also reminded the City’s Information Officer that I wanted a complete list and had no dates in mind. Weeks passed; I sent two further reminders and finally wrote that I would be contacting the Scottish Information Officer.

This prompted a next-day reply which was a refusal to comply. The Freedom of Information Act is meant to give all citizens access to data held by elected officials and public bodies.

In cases where disclosure of requested information would be too costly or would prove a serious breach of security or confidentiality, or would damage fiscal relationships, information may be withheld.

If the requestor is not satisfied with the response received, they have access to the non-partisan Scottish Information Officer, who can order disclosure of information.

What exactly lies behind Aberdeen’s lack of transparency? What ‘supplier relationships’ are under threat if the transactions are revealed?

How can it cost £1200 to supply a list of property sold and Council Committee Minutes approving such sales, keeping in mind most Minutes are already on the City’s intranet site?

Who has been involved in the transactions and the decisions regarding my request?

( Click on images to enlarge )

Power To The People!

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Aug 202010

By John Sangster

“POWER TO THE PEOPLE”, what does that mean? It was John Lennon who first brought it to my attention, although I am informed that in a 70’s sitcom the character Wolfie Smith was first to utter it. The reason I say this is that when Jimmy Reid died recently almost every article about Mr. Reid began with Lennon’s song.

So! What does it mean? Do the people not already have power, the power to withdraw their labour or the power to remove politicians from their posts? Continue reading »

Ower The Gallowgate, Doon The Denburn

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Aug 062010

Aberdeen Voice’s Dave Guthrie reports on an afternoon when Union Terrace Gardens provided the backdrop for a tri-partite cultural gathering and a small community festival brought together Gallowgate residents and group.

It was a busy day in Aberdeen last Saturday.
First of all, there was the modest and little-publicised Gallowgate Festival centred around St Margaret’s Church, you know the one with the big golden Christ on the cross opposite the Blue Lampie.
Continue reading »

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