Thanet Council- A question of trust

In April Thanet Council issued a statement with this opening line "The article published in the Isle of Thanet Gazette today (5 April 2013) regarding the council’s Economic and Regeneration Manager Mr. Rob Hetherington includes several inaccuracies which the council would like to correct."

Rather oddly if you ask me it goes on to say "It is incorrect that Mr. Hetherington has been informed of any decision in relation to his leaving employment with the council or that the council is in talks with him over any severance package."

Surprisingly this weeks Gazette announces the departure of a Rob Hetherington, not surprisingly Thanet Council seems to have a strict policy policy of not advising, us taxpayers of such matters, lets hope that Thanet council haven't dipped into taxpayers pockets to pay some humongous severance package although it's generally the way with local authorities and generally to insult to injury councils usually include a gagging order with such payments.

Secrecy seems a big thing with Thanet council, would the public really have remained quiet as Thanet Council built up a massive £3 million pound debt with some shaky ferry company. What else are officers sitting on apart from their bottoms.

It is my view that the council press release of April was misleading and perhaps Council leader Clive Hart and or Council boss Sue McGonical ought to explain why?

Finally I just wonder what press or media bods do at Thanet Council other than cover the backsides of officers and councillors with the council. Could someone please remind those highly competent bods such as Cllr Clive Hart, Cllr Bob Bayford and importantly the Chief Executive Dr Sue McGonical that it is our money that they are using.

Thanet Council Extraordinary Cabinet Meeting 29/5/13

With great power comes great responsibility" a line I recall from the Spider-Man film circa 2002, whether Thanet council wields great power or any sense of responsibility is something we might find out tonight.

A couple of contentions items are on the agenda tonight, one the never ending saga of the royal sands development, of which Michael child is expert and best placed to discuss

Next a more recent foul up, (please note other four letter words are available) the Transeuropa debacle, so far from my cursory view of the evidence we've had a couple of its not me Guv type communications from Tory and Labour, with no likelihood of any one putting their hands up.

I write this as I travel home from another hard day at the office (building railways) wondering if it's worth traipsing over to the council offices, for what it's worth I feel it's most likely to be a bit of a disappointment.

Will council officers be suspended/resign pending an enquiry, will Clive Hart admit that his lot are incapable monitoring the council finances, or Bob Bayford admit to reckless deals?

Please excuse the usual grammar spelling title cockups I'm posting this on the trip home.

UPDATE After the meeting

Neither Clive Hart or Bob Bayford or indeed the TDC Chief Exec or any officers resigned

Also this is my understanding hampered by an abysmal sound system  £3,300,000. owed by Transeuropa is apparently just an illusion, to make it simple, they just failed to pay for services at Ramsgate Harbour Simples!

Just imagine you rented an asset like a house or this case a harbour and your customer failed to pay accumulating a debt of three million with no security, of course you'd just laugh it off.

Clive Hart and in this instance  his alliance partner Bob Bayford, failed i'd say to convince most of the public of their joint defence.

The only members of the council with any comprehension of basic business principals  seemed to be those independent members. Big Thank you to Tom King for articulation of the problem and Ian Driver for conveying the incredulity of the general public.

Transeuropa torpedo Thanet council finances

Now there's a surprise the recent demise of Transeuropa ferries is going to cost Thanet council 3.3 million pounds.

It seems that the entrepreneurial brains of Thanet council thought it a great idea to prop up the ailing ferry company back 2011.

The grisly details of this debacle are attached, to be honest I don't have the stomach, as always the victims of local authority, dabbling in the entrepreneurial world, will be those who can least afford it as housing benefit funds have been ear marked for plundering.

As always you can be sure that staff pensions are safe, free priority parking at Mill lane and no doubt from time to time the upper echelons jollies to meetings and seminars.

Does it matter, well only if you pay tax, still the cost spread over the population of Thanet works out at around twenty five quid each.  I wonder if a full detailed report will be issued to us the paying public naming and shaming those responsible. I doubt it Clive Hart was recently featured in the local paper bemoaning, people daring to ask, as their right, for honest info from the council.

TDC P R announcement

Transeuropa outstanding debt

Cabinet members at Thanet District Council are to consider how to tackle an outstanding debt of around £3.3 million from Transeuropa, the ferry company who recently ceased trading out of Ramsgate Port.

At their meeting on Wednesday 29 May, members will be reviewing the council’s debt position with the now insolvent company, and will consider whether to approve the use of funding identified by the council’s finance department to deal with the debt.

The council provided temporary financial support to Transeuropa following discussions in March 2011 which made it clear that this support was needed to ensure the on-going future of the business. This temporary support was subsequently extended until an investment partner could be found. Although an investment partnership was entered into in November 2012, the promised funding was not released and ultimately led to Transeuropa ceasing operations.

Although the council will take whatever action it can to chase the debt, and has already lodged this debt with the company administrators, good accounting practice means that the council needs to provide for the debt in full within its 2012/13 statement of accounts.

 It is proposed to use the following sources within 2012/13 to fund this debt:

• A sum of £1m has been identified in respect of prior year adjustments to housing benefit subsidy. This is a highly volatile budget due to the impact on the subsidy of increases in caseloads and errors in benefit calculations and so normally any underspend would be put into the Customer Services Reserve to mitigate any future overspends. However, the current balance in this reserve is considered appropriate for this purpose and therefore this budget underspend can be utilised to offset the Transeuropa debt position;
• Unallocated unringfenced grants of £92k have been identified;
• A balance of £43k remains on the Housing and Planning Delivery Grant reserve which is unallocated;
• A sum of £1m will be drawn down from the New Homes Bonus;
• Savings in the cremator project of £196k will be utilised;
• Carry forward budgets of £257k from prior years have not been utilised and will therefore be taken to offset this debt;
• A sum of £200k will be taken from the Priority Improvement Reserve which will still leave a balance of £405k to support invest to save and one-off initiatives;
• A sum of £196k will be taken from the VAT Reserve;
• The bad debt provision has been reviewed and a sum of £200k can be taken to contribute towards this debt.

The above funding sources give a total of £3,186k. It is anticipated that the balance of the outstanding debt could be covered by the councils underspend for 2012/13.

Whats wrong with swivel eyed loons?

Frankly I prefer them to the establishment freeloaders, who've complacently accepted the erosion of British sovereignty, by the EU. The reference to swivel eyed loons of course is purposely offensive and calculated to stigmatise, undermining reasonable argument.

I can recall a time when I like most in Britain was sold on a common market, which was as far as I can recall was the term used to describe the early EU, which back in the day seemed an almost benign harmless organisation, with minimal corruption, the only glaring outrage at that time was the lunatic arrangement the French insisted on, that the European Parliament meet 12 times a year in Strasbourg. Anyhow at the time I suppose Enoch Powell, actually was a swivel eyed loon.

In the time since we joined, it is hard to say what benefit, has derived from membership, I know that as a British taxpayer it has been my privilege to subsidise much of Europe and for what. Yes there are benefits to membership but these are often restricted to the mainland, travel across boarders without a passport, the European working time directive limiting hours worked, the Euro.

I'm clearly no expert on the benefits of Europe, the arguments were entirely plausible as a kid, now as I stumble toward sixty, it doesn't look so good, I live in a country that has no interest in it's own people, and such has been the economic benefit of membership, that British governments are going to allow me the privilege of working probably into my late sixties, alright if you sit on your a*rse in parliament or in a cushy public sector job, not sure about those of us manual workers.

Anyhoo I've as open a mind as any, perhaps since we've heard the argument of UKIP and others on whats wrong with Europe, maybe those with their snouts in the Euro trough, could give us a referendum, allowing us plebes to confirm our allegiance to our glorious leader Angela Merkel.

The British Government are only too willing to put our service men an women at risk, for democracy in Afghanistan, a country lawless, still in the stone age, in which half the population are automatically abused  because they happen to be women.

Unless we have a referendum, frustration will just grow, and if all those apologists for Brussels based corruption, have a convincing argument, then a referendum is the process to answer critics.

Finally all this may be academic since I recall Charles Kennedy pointed out on Question time this week, the United Kingdom may well be finished, if Scots decide to go it alone, apparently intending to walk away from their share of the national debt and steal British north sea oil. How come the Scots can decide their future and yet the UK cannot?

PS How about a campaign for democracy in the United Kingdom? No of course not that would only disturb all those inbred public school types that run our lives.

Cheers Mary!

If you had the dubious pleasure of  watching Mary Portas last night on her channel four infotainment show, hoping for an objective view of the state of Margate town centre, and offering a remedy , then you would have been disappointed. Mary Portas wanted to help Margate, blimey thank God she and her  colleagues at Optomen TV and Channel four didn't want to give us a good kicking!

Instead of an adult analysis we got, I thought, the shocking story of how virtually a whole town had been mean to the tough business consultant and her not insubstantial global media company.

Just what were Optomen Television and Mary Portas intentions with last nights awful programme,  I actually thought having watched last weeks Open Episode "Mary Queen of the High Street", that the marketing guru, had some commonsense and positive purpose, still  within about five minutes of the programme starting, Otomen Television thought that one Margate pedestrians comment was so insightful that it was necessary to broadcast it twice inside the first five minutes, and what was this pearl of wisdom?       "Margate is Shit"      just to add a more positive note, before ten minutes is completed Mary informs us that "there's all the drug dealing at the top of the multistory car park" before she embarks on a stroll down the top of the High Street.

At which point, I thought Crikey if the films going to be this negative, perhaps the film makers ought to divert to the car park,  qualify the remark, and blimey, if this was the mood of the production crew, maybe they ought to see what was on offer. As far as I'm aware much of Mill Lane car park is occupied by council officers, an although strange things occur in the council, I'm sure officers, aren't snorting cocaine on the roof top, are they?

I was struck with how Mary, appeared unconcerned with much else, than her own importance, maybe it's me but there seemed to be a lot of I this and I that in the commentary, and not a small bit of exaggerated drama and slick cutting reinforcing Mary as wonder women marketing guru and Margate er  Shi......... 

Finally it seemed strange not to have included those Margate team members, who had worked so hard for Margate, not to have been featured but as I understand it they were not willing to be shoe horned into confidentiality agreements.

PS Click here for a background to Optomen TV's earlier Margate programme, and yes I know that I'm all I this and I that but I'm not a team player and I don't think Mary Portas is.