komadori’s green corner

It’s not just the analogue television signal that disappeared from areas of Swindon yesterday. The forlorn radio station, Brunel FM also passed away. Since yesterday it’s programming has been suspended, replaced by it’s emergency recording repeating hour after hour: the recording’s strapline sadly ironic.

Brunel FM, home of the no repeat weekday.

For over a year there have been repeated rumours of unpaid wages and the station’s owners have struggled in-and-out of administration. The new owners hope to have the station up-and-running again — tho’ in reduced form — next week.

Recently, Mr Buckland offered some sound advice to his colleagues on Swindon Borough Council.

The failure by a Council official to declare that he was in fact a Director of the operating company is an example either of incompetence or of something worse.
I blogged recently that I was sure that the lack of openness was not the result of deliberate subterfuge. I still hope that I am right. My advice to those involved is to come clean about everything now. As well as a demonstration of transparency, it may well be the best thing to do in order to secure the future of the project, which I hope will be a success.

It’s advice that Mr Bluh seems very reluctant to accept. In his view, there’s nothing more he needs to tell us about how the council is spending almost £½M of our money on a venture described in parliament as having ‘a detrimental effect on small and medium-sized IT companies in Swindon’.

This deal has been subjected to the most enormous scrutiny in the past months and has passed all those tests.

Err… has Mr Bluh forgotten that his latest attempt to throw our money at the wi-fi project didn’t pass through the last meeting of the council’s Scrutiny Committee? Just what aspect of ‘failed’ is it that Mr Bluh interprets as meaning ‘passed’?

It also seems not to have occurred to Mr Bluh that it has ‘passed’ some of those scrutiny tests only because very limited information was made available. It is for that reason that it has been referred back to the council’s cabinet, where additional information will be presented next Wednesday. It is unfortunately that the claims of Mr Patel that he did not know he was a director of Digital City (UK) Ltd seem inconsistent with the letter sent by the council’s chief executive, Mr Jones, to Ms Snelgrove on 28 January stating

we have a Director on the Board.

It’s difficult to know who, if anyone, involved in this at the council can be believed.

However, from later this week there will be a new Swindon Borough Council representative on the board of Digital City (UK) Ltd. It is proposed that Mr Perkins become a director of the company. Quite what the relevance of his cabinet responsibility for “children’s services” has towards the alleged social inclusion objectives of the wifi project is less clear. Perhaps the more relevant Mr Mattock is out of favour… or has less favours owed to him.

In a recent pep-talk to his party members the blue nest’s Mr Pickles said

We have seen what can be done as a council, and now it is time for our extremely good candidates to get into place and bring some honesty, decency and straightforwardness into government.

We have indeed seen what can be done as a council, and recently it’s not been pretty. If they’re to stand any chance of getting into national government they’ll first need to bring some honesty, decency and straightforwardness to local government.

If Mr Bluh wishes the scrutiny to stop, he first needs to ensure that the very serious concerns about the way he spends our money are answered, and answered honestly.

An advanced draft of Ms Snelgrove’s speech on wifi in Swindon is now available. If you didn’t catch the adjournment debate, it’s well worth a read.

Update, 19:40, Tuesday 23 March 2010: You can now watch the recorded debate on the BBC website and read the official record of the debate from Hansard.

Before he was interrupted by the borough solicitor at the meeting of Swindon Borough Council cabinet just over a week ago, Mr Bluh tried to say — though it’s not made it into the minutes of the meeting — that the only thing that external auditors were looking at in relation to the council’s wi-fi deal was ‘value for money’ and that they were not investigating any issues of process. What it does record of in the minutes of the meeting is Mr Bluh’s view of what is important in this issue.

He did not believe it was necessary to await the outcome of the Audit Committee review that was to look at the best value aspect of the loan agreement for the project.

Let’s look at the Audit Commission’s ‘key lines of enquiry’ when considering value for money.

The use of resources assessment considers how well organisations are managing and using their resources to deliver value for money and better and sustainable outcomes for local people. The assessment comprises three themes that focus on:

• sound and strategic financial management;
• strategic commissioning and good governance; and
• the management of natural resources, assets and people.

Sound financial management and good governance: I’d certainly welcome a thorough examination of those for this wifi deal. Perhaps we could start with an in-depth examination of the governance process and how a director of Swindon Borough Council came to be a director of a company before giving advice to Mr Bluh that the council should invest in that company.

Another noticeable omission from the meeting minutes is Mr Patel’s denial that he was a director of Digital City (UK) Ltd. What it does say is that an appointment to the company’s board will be made, but says nothing about the situation at that time.

The Cabinet were advised that under the loan arrangements, the Group Director, Business Transformation would represent the Council at meetings of the Board of Digital City (UK) Limited and that he received no remuneration from the company. It was confirmed that the Special Committee was likely to be asked to make an appointment to serve on the Board in the near future.

Meeting minutes have rarely been so misleading.

Well, well. Swindon Borough Council’s Scrutiny Committee have finally done the honourable thing and stood up to Mr Bluh, referring back to cabinet their recent decision to greatly relax the loan conditions on Digital City (UK) Ltd. Tho’ given recent revelations, it would have been very remiss of them to have done anything less.

komadori is disappointed not to have been able to attend this evening’s meeting of the Scrutiny Committee. Reports suggest it was an interesting event.

Update, 08:39, Tuesday, 16 March 2010: Mr Wakefield has an interesting and informative perspective of last night’s ‘scrutiny’ meeting over on his blog.

Mr Bluh has repeatedly maintained that the process by which Swindon Borough Council made a decision to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd — for the purpose of providing boroughwide wireless internet for Swindon — was totally above board. Even as late as the meeting of the council’s cabinet last Wednesday, Mr Bluh said that ‘Process is a red herring’. It seems that Mr Bluh has difficulty distinguishing red herrings from great white sharks.

The meeting of Swindon Borough Council’s Scrutiny Committee last December was provided with evidence that the decision to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd was made in October of that year, 20 October 2009 to be precise. At last week’s cabinet meeting, it was stated that Mr Patel was not a director of the company, that no appointment had been made, he was just ‘an observer’. Not so.

Evidence from Companies House shows that not only was Swindon Borough Council allotted shares in Digital City (UK) Ltd (at that time still known as DM 56 Ltd) on 15 September 2009, but Mr Patel also became a director of the company on that date. His directorship has only just been terminated.

Mr Bluh would like us to believe that there are no problems with the process by which the decision was made to invest in Digital City (UK) Ltd. He thinks — as he said last week — that it’s time to move on. If he weren’t so confused about not just what the process was but also when it happened, perhaps his pleading would be a little more convincing.

Hat-tip: TalkSwindon

Update, 01:43, Monday, 15 March 2010: Seems Mr Patel is trying to rewrite his recent past so his LinkedIn profile now describes him as having been an ‘SBC observer on Board of Digital City’ where twelve hours earlier it said he was a ‘Board Director’. Either Mr Patel didn’t understand what he was doing last September when he signed the Companies House form declaring himself to be a director of the company, or he regards the public as rather naïve. Either way, perhaps it’s time he found himself a less onerous job to do.

Swindon’s wi-fi scheme is to be debated, albeit briefly, in parliament.

End of Day Adjournments Debates

Despite what some would like us to believe, there’s certainly plenty of concerns that still require a thorough, open debate.

Hat-tip: Geoff Reid.

At tonight’s meeting of Swindon Borough Council’s cabinet Mr Bluh complained at length about the ‘negativity’ of some commentators on the decision to spend almost £½M of Swindon taxpayers’ money of wifi. According to Mr Bluh and Mr Edwards it is ‘offensive’ for anyone to raise concerns about the process by which they made their decision to spend our money. On that basis, Messrs Bluh and Edwards clearly find at least two of their own cabinet colleagues offensive.

Mr Perkins said that if it was up to him, Digital City (UK) Ltd’s business case would have been published. It remains a secret, accessible to only a few and only under strict conditions. Mr Greenhalgh said he had ‘concerns about the legality’ of the earlier decision. It was notable that when Mr Bluh tried to say that the external auditor had investigated the process and had no concerns, the borough solicitor felt the need to intervene and correct that statement. Both Mr Bluh and Mr Hunt seem eager to move on and end the discussion about the legitimacy of the council’s funding of this project. Perhaps that’s because the questions are both persistent and difficult for them to answer.

Mr Bluh also seems to be trying to rewrite history. He now claims that the decision made by three council officers on the advice of just himself and Mr Edwards was ‘a cabinet decision’. Again, the borough solicitor felt the need to intervene and correct that statement. For any that might be inclined to believe Mr Bluh when he says this was a cabinet decision, here is a reminder of what was said by the council in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Decision Makers – these are the three authors of the briefing note.

Those authors were the Director of Finance (Mr McKellar), the Director of Law and Democratic Services (Mr Taylor) and the Group Director Business Transformation (Mr Patel). That is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a cabinet decision.

There are some other discrepancies. Mr Greenhalgh raised concerns about whether it was appropriate for Mr Patel to have been a director of Digital City (UK) Ltd and to have written the briefing note to Messrs Bluh and Edwards and to be one of those conducting a risk assessment the company’s plans. According to the borough solicitor, Mr Patel is just an observer on the company’s board, not formally appointed. That is not how it appears in the records of Companies House.

When his own cabinet colleauges have serious concerns, when a former council leader from his own party, Mr Bawden, was shaking his head through much of what Mr Bluh had to say, surely even the most arrogant and vain of council leaders would realise they had made a mistake? In the case of Mr Bluh it would seem not.

Update, 01:17, Sunday, 14 March 2010: Mr Patel’s directorship of Digital City (UK) Ltd has now been terminated, on Friday 12 March 2010.

In a puff for himself in the Adver, Mr Hunt makes grand claims for the historical importance of the wi-fi project he’s running at our expense.

It’s as ground breaking and significant today as the introduction of the Penny Post or the motor car or the aeroplane were to our fore-fathers…. Daniel Gooch identified Swindon as the ideal location for the Brunel’s Great Western Railway works. The decision turned a small market town into a transport, communications and economic power house. A century later, Swindon was still at the forefront of national innovation and social inclusion. Aneurin Bevan MP, determined to create a National Health Service offering every member of society cradle-to-grave healthcare, visited Swindon to see how Gooch’s GWR Medical Fund, paid for by employees’ contributions, worked in practice…. A complete health service, and all we had to do was to expand it to embrace the whole country.

Of course, Mr Hunt cannot know whether this new service will be as trailblazing as those he compares it with; only history will tell. What we do know is that some of Mr Hunt’s claims are, at the least, exaggerated.

Yes, this is new, and it’s brave. But that’s the beauty and the strength of it.

A quick internet search for ‘free city wide wifi’ shows it’s far from new and the only bravery is in the risk being taken with almost £½M of Swindon taxpayers’ money.

[S]mall and medium enterprises, who instead of having to maintain their own networks will be able to rely on Signal

An internet service provider that plans a break of service in the middle of the working day is not one I’d wish to rely on.

Down the line, costs of sending and receiving texts and emails when abroad will plummet with Signal.

For a company that already seems to be short of cash, that’s a very long way down the line, unless Mr Hunt thinks his competitors are going to give his company cheap access to their networks. From the evidence of the internet deals being offered in Swindon by the companies of Messrs Branson and Murdoch, their main aim at the moment seems to be to price Mr Hunt out of business.

It will even allow more efficient energy distribution throughout the national grid.

That assumes that National Grid would want to sign up for an account: as a company that have themselves been an internet service provider with past experience in wireless communications, that seems unlikely.

I understand there are those that doubt the benefits that wi-fi can bring to our whole town, and the wisdom of the council’s partnership with Digital City. But I am also sure there were those who doubted Gooch and Bevan at the time.

No Mr Hunt, that shows you don’t understand the concerns at all. Those are concerns about the secrecy surrounding this decision and whether due process was followed.

If Mr Hunt wishes to be compared to Messrs Gooch and Bevan, he first needs to prove that he can match their achievements. From the evidence available at the moment, £150,000 of Swindon taxpayers’ money has bought just 5 paying customers when the target at this stage was 125. As a record of achievement, that’s hardly a stunning start.

I’d like to read the local red nest manifesto, which they launched today. However, in a wonderful bit of poor planning, their old website, www.swindonlabour.co.uk, had been taken offline, whilst their new website, www.swindon-labour.co.uk was, until ½ hour ago password protected. Even though the website is now accessible, the manifesto isn’t obvious as such. Even the ‘featured story’ about its launch doesn’t provide a link. It’s sort of there, as a series of stories, but not as a single document, and not clearly labelled as their manifesto. Seeing as the manifesto was completed by 18th February — going by the dates on the website — they’re not very quick out of the starting blocks. I’d also subscribe to the newsfeed from their website, but the most obvious link provided doesn’t work either.

If you want to see the Swindon Labour manifesto in the form it will be distributed, for the moment the only place to do so is on TalkSwindon.