What a massive waste!

WasteAware, the organisation set up by Hertfordshire’s local authorities and funded by the County Council has produced a ‘film noir comedy’ in the vein of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, to explain to people the issues around properly separating food and garden waste from other rubbish.

The professionally-produced film is, in total, thirty minutes long and STILL makes mistakes with what can and can’t be disposed of for composting.

Having spent £20,000 producing this film and a further unspecified amount getting it shown and put online, to date the County Council’s records show just 1000 people have seen it.

“The 15 minute film has been professionally made at a cost of £20,000 to Herts tax payers,” said Lib Dem environment spokesperson Cllr Rob Prowse. “Yet very few people have ever heard of it, let alone seen it. WasteAware is funded by the County Council but they don’t seem to be accountable to anyone for how they spend tax payers’ money.”

“The Lib Dems agree with the aims of WasteAware but this is simply not on. At £20 per viewing, the film itself seems a massive waste!”

Residents “to be denied a say” on Highway issues

The Lib Dem Opposition Group on Herts County Council has slammed the Conservative-controlled Council’s plans to abolish the regular Highway panel meetings as “an erosion of local people’s say on a key issue – the way their roads are maintained”.

Under plans put forward by the Conservatives, which will be considered by the County Council’s Highways and Transport meeting on July 3rd, the current Highways Joint Member Panels system is set to be scrapped. These Panels meet regularly and consist of local County Councillors and representatives of the Borough or District Council for each of Hertfordshire’s ten Councils areas. Local councillors discuss and decide highways issues and are able to receive petitions from local residents.

“The Conservatives are planning to remove all scrutiny, by either local people or locally-elected representatives, when it comes to Highway decisions,” said Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, the Lib Dem Group Leader and Highways spokesperson. “No longer will residents be able to come to meetings and present petitions on highways matters to local councillors. They will not hear how we want to spend their money. While the Conservatives claim to be all in favour of localism, when it comes to local accountability they want to deny local people a say”.

Under the current system, the Highway Joint Member Panels allow councillors to decide on Traffic Regulation Orders and how Section 106 (developers’ money) is spent. Panel meetings are currently open to the public and to the press. In addition, the Panels enable local councillors to go through upcoming highways works and to suggest projects for the future. They also provide an opportunity to question officers about how money is being spent and suggest amendments to schemes.

Provided that the County Council’s Cabinet approves the plans on July19th, the Panels will be replaced by individual briefings and meetings between each county councillor and Council officers responsible for highways. There will be only two briefing meetings a year for all councillors – after decisions are taken – and they will be chaired by someone hand-picked by the Cabinet member responsible for Highways.

“Clearly, the Conservatives at County Hall neither want to be inclusive nor want their officers to be questioned in public in the future,” continued Cllr Giles-Medhurst. “This is turning the clock back to private and secret meetings behind closed doors that the press and public are excluded from, and is massive erosion of local people’s say on a key issue – the way their roads are maintained.”

“It all smacks of an elected dictatorship. The Conservatives’ failures on highways have been exposed time and time again, and now they are seeking to try and bury their massive failures by scrapping these public panels. The Liberal Democrats will, of course, oppose these plans, but I fear that the Conservative Cabinet will simply nod it through!” concluded Cllr Giles-Medhurst.

County to appoint procurement adviser after its main procurement done

Liberal Democrat councillors on Herts County Council were astonished to be asked to agree the appointment of a ‘procurement advisor’ at a meeting today – over two years into a major programme to cut costs.

HCC spends around £800m per year on contracts and Lib Dems have long argued the need for better value and an end to automatic price increases by contractors. Yet only now is an expert on buying actually coming in.

‘The ink is already drying on new highways contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds, yet after the event the Tories want to get someone on board to advise on such contracts. It really is a case of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted,’ said Liberal Democrat finance spokesperson councillor Malcolm Cowan.

He added: ‘It is not just the price on the contracts, there is an urgent need to monitor the performance of these companies’ Malcolm added; ‘We have long believed many of them get away with sub-standard performance which is poor value for money.’

Rogue trader incidents: be on your guard

The County Council Rogue Trader Team has reported that a number of rogue trading incidents have
taken place during November. These included:

In Welwyn Garden City a householder was cold called by a trader saying that they needed to look at fascia work that had been done 9 years previously as it may have been done incorrectly. The trader then ripped off the fascias and roof tiles and said they wanted £6500 to put it right. The householder refused and the trader has disappeared without putting back the fascia and tiles, leaving behind £3000 worth of damage. The rogue trader team and police attended and are working together to try and identify the trader as a false address was given to the householder.

In St Albans an elderly consumer was harassed over a number of weeks by a gardener, and eventually agreed to some work being done, just to get rid of him. £400 was paid for very little work. The rogue trader team have identified the trader and will be taking action against him.

In Wheathampstead a gardener cold-called a vulnerable consumer and offered to prune a small tree for no more than £20. The work was completed after 5 minutes and the trader then demanded £1100. The householder gave a cheque for £450 to get rid of the trader. The rogue trader team and police have visited the
householder, the cheque has been cancelled and a camera fitted to the home. Investigations are on-going to identify the trader.

In Welwyn Garden City the rogue trader team stopped a bogus charity clothing collection. The collection claimed to be for the Air Ambulance, but had nothing to do with the Air Ambulance Service. The team found the van making the collection and intervened. The driver’s details were taken and evidence seized from the van. Statements have been taken from householders who thought they had left clothing out for the Air Ambulance Service and the collector is being investigated with a view to legal action.

Campaign to keep library stock freely available to public gathers pace

The campaign to keep the county’s lending collections public, instead of being shoved into a warehouse, as Herts County Council plans, took a major step forward, with the launch of an online petition called savenewbarnfieldlibrary.

LibDem county councillor Malcolm Cowan, who has set this up, says: ‘I have been contacted by residents concerned that one of the most important collections in the country will become hidden from view, restricting the work of the many music and drama groups who use the reference, music and drama collections as well as schools, professional musicians and researchers.

‘In addition, they wonder whether a warehouse would actually be a safe place to keep these collections, which, if they were to be split up, or damaged, might never be recreated. What incentive is there to add to and update the present collection if it is kept out of sight?’

Malcolm added: ‘I urge everyone concerned about this cheapskate decision by the county council to sign up, and urge friends and colleagues to sign up as well. We really must keep collections intended to be borrowed in a place where people can see them.’

Lib Dem Leader Chris White, who leads for his group on library matters, said: ‘It is not enough to say that access will be available via the on-line catalogue. People have made it very clear to us that they want to be able to browse the collection in public. I am glad to say that some of the council’s officials seem now prepared to take notice.’

Notes:

The link to the campaign site is here: http://campaigns.libdems.org.uk/savenewbarnfieldlibrary

County Council fails to meet target by £42m

County Council fails to meet target by £42m

New figures show the Conservative administration at county hall has managed to underspend its capital programme by a staggering £45m, of which £42m is ‘slippage’ – namely planned projects not being delivered.

Malcolm Cowan, LibDem spokesperson for finance, said: ‘This may sound dry, but what it means is that over £40m of improvements to classrooms, libraries and fire stations did not happen. So right across the county there are children being taught in mobile classrooms far longer than they need be.

‘It is unavoidable that some projects will fall behind, for good reasons and bad. What is not acceptable is that, once it is known a scheme cannot be delivered to the original timetable there are not other schemes ready to take their place.

‘With a backlog of building work that is costed in hundreds of millions of pounds, they need to be getting on with work as quickly as possible. Instead the Tories just claim that nothing can be done.’

County subs development project by cool £5 million

The Lib Dems have today challenged figures produced by the county council which show that the council taxpayer will in effect be paying £5 million to a private development project.

This is due to the decision to move Southfield Special School on a temporary basis and to move the Park Education Support Centre permanently to make way for the new incinerator site in Hatfield.

County councillor Malcolm Cowan commented:

‘It should clearly be the responsibility of Veolia to pay for any disruptions caused. They selected that site and should have absorbed all the consequential costs in their bid document. Arguably this will have given them an advantage over the rival bidder who would not have needed to relocate facilities in the same way.

‘The Council is in effect paying potentially £4.9 million towards having BOTH the Special School temporarily relocated at a cost of £3.9m AND also the Park ESC permanently relocated at a possible further cost of £950k. Too much is being done to make New Barnfield the cheapest option by the county paying some of the costs.

‘Meanwhile it is making cuts in front line services.’

Tory financial failures cost taxpayer dearly

Reports from external auditors have revealed that the Tory-run County Council’s mistakes have cost residents over £123,000 in extra audit fees with errors being found worth £250,000.

Liberal Democrat councillor Allan Witherick said “£123,000 is a lot of money. Think about all the voluntary groups who have just received funding cuts – imagine what this money could have achieved if invested in the community.’

Councillor Ron Tindall flagged up real concerns about the Tory attitude:
“These costs are before we take in to account extra time spent by council staff doing this work.’

Yet more issues were revealed including that working papers and audit trails written by contractors had disappeared or never existed and that as such the officers and external auditors still weren’t able to give full reassurances at the meeting.

One councillor was heard commenting: “The eyes of Herts are upon us and they see failure.”

Compensation demanded for St Albans fire station fiasco

Liberal Democrats have pressed for Herts County Council to be compensated by the contractor for the costs of fixing the various design and build errors caused by the contractors building the new London Road Fire Station.

County Councillor Rob Prowse, a councillor for St Albans, asked during the full meeting of the County Council last week: ‘Can you let us know the costs of remedial works and whether this contractor will continue to be used on other projects?’

The Conservative administration confirmed that it was finally seeking compensation and was sympathetic to the idea of the contractor being removed from the county’s approved list. He added that legal action was now being considered.

Rob commented: ‘A number of us highlighted this problem numerous times and I am delighted that the Administration finally realises that it should use its spending power to ensure that the public do not lose out because of shoddy work and shoddy planning. The county property department should have been on the case months if not years ago – but as usual nothing was done until Lib Dem councillors intervened.’