An exchange of views with haslemere parking dot com

This is an exchange of emails with the “Volunteer Editor” of Haslemere parking dot com [I won’t provide the link – you can figure it for yourself if you want to].  I have reversed the normal arrangement whereby you have to read upwards from the bottom, and started with the article on their website which started the conversation.

The masthead of this website use to state “An open, sensible and democratic forum…..”.  Curiously, that strapline has now vanished!

Revealed: What @SurreyCouncil cabinet did at taxpayer funded Farnham Castle visits

15/03/2013

By Editor

From This Is Surrey: Revealed: What Surrey County Council cabinet did at taxpayer funded Farnham Castle visits. By Michael Davies michael.davies@essnmedia.co.uk, Thursday, March 14, 2013

THREE-COURSE dinners, sweets and special delegate stationary were just some of the commodities senior Conservative county councillors enjoyed when they used more than £10,000 of taxpayers’ money to host conferences at Farnham Castle.

Last month the team of top cabinet Tories, including leader David Hodge and chief executive David McNulty, were slammed by the public and opposition after the Mirror revealed they had spent £10,691.40 for three overnight stays – including one last November which cost £4,989.60.Council leader David Hodge and deputy Peter Martin, who were both at the Farnham Castle workshops.

And while the council cabinet remained silent on what happened at the residential “away days”, following a Freedom of Information request, the Mirror can now reveal what public money was spent on.

Among the team-building activities council members participated in during conferences at the 900-year-old castle – which cost £160 a head plus VAT – were a practice session on listening, a practice session on coaching, scenario planning to 2017, and a session on innovation myth-busting.

They also took part in several “walk-and-talk” sessions, which involved members walking around talking about issues they don’t normally deal with. The leader of the council also presented his five-year plan, although this has not been made public. During the final visit made last year, when the council spent the most amount of money at the castle, the meetings involved long-term financial planning for the county.

Opposition parties slammed the cabinet for using public money on the trips when the meetings could have taken place in council buildings.

“It’s ironic that the conservative leadership at Surrey County Council spent council taxpayers’ money on learning how to listen,” said Lib Dem opposition leader Hazel Watson. “It doesn’t take advanced listening skills to know Surrey residents don’t want to use their hard-earned money on overnight trips to castles in Surrey for the Conservative cabinet.”

Graham Wildridge, who is standing for Labour in the Earlswood and Reigate South ward at the upcoming county council elections, added: “Surrey needs a Labour voice to hold the lazy, arrogant, and complacent Conservative majority to account. It is perfectly proper that county councillors have good training for the jobs they do. But lesson number one is how to do it for the lowest cost.”

Council spokeswoman Joy Ridley said: “We use our own buildings as a first choice but every once in a while we need to meet elsewhere.

“This allows us to take a step back, carefully plan ahead and continue to develop the plans that have already led to millions of pounds of savings for the benefit of Surrey taxpayers.”

The council had planned a return trip to the council this year but has since cancelled it, stating “it is not the most suitable venue”.

Follow us: @thisissurrey on Twitter

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.
________________________________________________________________________________________________-
From: M, Paul (UK – London)
Sent: 22 March 2013 4:28 PM
To: Aine Hall
Subject:

Aíne

For some unaccountable reason, the comment I posted on your website last week in response to your post about Surrey CC leaders’ junkets at Farnham castle doesn’t seem to have made it onto your site, so just in case it got lost in the ether, here it is again:

I too would have some concerns about the leaders of Surrey Council holding “awaydays” at establishments such as Farnham Castle. This is not so much because I believe such events to be invariably a waste of time – all large organisations, including the one I work for, hold such events regularly and my experience of them is mixed, some worthwhile, some not. I would want to look at what was actually delivered as a result of the meeting.

The report tells us that the expenditure in the year was about £11,000, which is a drop in the ocean of Surrey’s multi-billion budget.

It is also less than one item of expenditure by Haslemere Town Council – the Visitor Information Centre at the museum for which HTC pays a grant of circa £14k pa – which has come under some scrutiny lately. In the minutes of the Finance & Audit Committee for 6^th March, it is reported that Councillor Stephen Mulliner said “that it must be determined whether the VIC has a function of any value. If not it should be disbanded.”

The papers for the recent full council meeting of HTC included a report on the Visitor Information Centre, as appendix 6. To quote verbatim, “The topic under discussion was the lack of demonstrable community value of the current grant paid to the Haslemere Museum for the running of the Haslemere Vistor Information Center.” This report identified the issues raised by the situation with the VIC including the following:

“Current Issues Raised by the Working Group.

i) Analysis of the VIC published statistics reveals them to be broadly meaningless in terms of assessing HTC value for money and community benefits.

ii) There is no transparent employee time management system, such as weekly time sheets or monitored weekly deliverables.

iii) HTC do not have a complete list of tasks undertaken by the VIC on behalf of HTC.

iv) HTC do not allocate work to the VIC. The VIC staff determine their own workload independently and inform HTC on a quarterly basis.

v) VIC ‘accounts’ are not transparent as they are embedded into the museum accounts.

Being, as I am, from an accountancy background, I have asked HTC to state what concrete actions have been taken, or have been agreed to implementation, to address these issues and to improve the financial accountability and transparency of the VIC. I look forward to their response.

Time has moved on and I do now have a response, which I need to mull over.

Kind regards,

 

From: Aine Hall

Sent: 22 March 2013 16:42
To: M, Paul (UK - London)
Cc: [Name redacted]
Subject: RE:

All comments are moderated.

The parking blog is not the forum for comments about the Haslemere Visitor Centre.

I see no link between parking and the management of the Haslemere Visitor Centre.

I have cced [redacted]  who may be able to help.

 

 rom: M, Paul (UK - London)

Sent: 22 March 2013 4:56 PM
To: Aine Hall
Cc: [Redacted]
Subject: RE:

You posted an article about alleged prodigality by the Cabinet of Surrey County Council on your website, which is ostensibly about parking in Haslemere.

You evidently see a link between three course meals enjoyed by county councillors at Farnham castle and parking in Haslemere.

The comment was pertinent to the article you posted, if not to parking in Haslemere.

There is a difference between moderation and censorship.

 

From: Aine Hall

Sent: 22 March 2013 16:58
To: M, Paul (UK - London)
Cc: [Name redacted]
Subject: RE:

Editor’s decision is final

 

From: M, Paul (UK - London)

Sent: 22 March 2013 5:06 PM
To: Aine Hall
Cc: [Redacted]
Subject: RE:

I think you mean referee.
I am fond of quoting a saying of Voltaire, taken as a quote from the judgement delivered by the court of appeal in the Associated Portland Cement case:
"The poet Voltaire, who had a certain dislike of sham, once remarked that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman nor an Empire".
You use three words on your masthead. I think perhaps much the same could be said of those.