York Council facing £3.7 million over spend on this years budget

Council tax bag

The Council’s first review of its expenditure this (financial) year suggests that it is heading for an over spend of £3.7 million.

Such a forecast is not without precedent and tends to reflect the most pessimistic view of trends.

However the nature of the possible over spend is important and here £1.1 million is put down failures in social services. Essentially, more and more people are arranging their own care packages and receiving direct payments from the council.

A £227,000 shortfall in car parking income is being reported, although this is offset by fewer pensioners using bus services in the City.

For the first time York will be able this year to keep the Business Rates that it generates within the City.

After adjustments to reflect relative prosperity, the City is forecasting that it will receive £23.2m. Part of any income above this figure will be kept by the Council (although Labour have agreed to pay the “surplus” into a West Riding “rates pool”).

The Council has discontinued its policy of reporting on public service performance indicators. So it will be another 3 months before the scale of the decline in service quality becomes public.

York Council publishes rental received for Knavesmire, Parliament Street and other open space

The York Council has responded to a Freedom of Information request by publishing a list of the rents that it has received for allowing use of public open spaces in the City

Click here for full list

The rents help to pay for the clean up costs and administrative work. A bond is required for some events and sometimes these are not reclaimed.

Planet Circus

Most activities are free of charge with many providing an additional leisure choice for York residents and visitors.

The amounts paid for events on public open spaces range from £200 for dog training on the Knavesmire to £2000 paid by the circus also on the Knavesmire.

The Continental market on Parliament Street brings in a healthy £5600 a go while the Food and Drink festival is the top earner at £13,022.

The Council has also listed the organisations which have used the (free) “charity” stall on Parliaments Street.

It is an eclectic list dominated by the Baha’i Faith, Bible education and York Palestine Solidarity.

York Council – empty home shame

Oliver House York

The York Council is refusing to say when the former elderly person’s home at Oliver House will be brought back into use. The last residents moved out in April 2012.

Freedom of Information questions

Freedom of Information questions

Oliver House is located at the end of Priory Street in a prime City centre location near the Bar Walls. It has been valued at over £1 million.

Labour Councillors have refused to explain why the home has not been brought back into use.

It appears that the only occupants were a “secured by occupation” group who – in return for free accommodation – provide a security presence at the site.

York CVS announced in October 2012 an ambitious £1 million plan to house “22 charities” in the building. Media report

The planning application for the project was approved in February. The cost to remodel the building had by then increased to £1.3 million with most apparently to come from ”loans, grants and local businesses”.

It was unclear who would pay for the running costs of the project.

Despite being asked for an explanation of the delays at two successive Council meetings, Labour Councillors have remained tight lipped.

Now a Freedom of Information request has been submitted to the Council. This will force the Authority to reveal its plans within the next 4 weeks.

With over half the people registered on the housing waiting list requiring single bedroomed accommodation, many residents are puzzled why prime sites like these are not being scheduled for residential use ahead of green field sites.

To leave a building like this empty for over 18 months, and apparently with no prospect of occupation for at least another year, is shameful.

York Council flouted secrecy rules – Information Commissioner orders that bus sales data be made public

The Information Commissioners Office has ruled that the York Council breached Freedom of information legislation when it refused to reveal how many “All York” bus tickets’ had been sold in the City.

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A decision notice will be published on the Commissioners web site shortly.

The case dates back 12 months to a time when the York Council announced that it was planning to subsidise a new bus ticket which would allow passengers to travel on services provided by more than one operator.

The Council allocated £20,000 of taxpayers money to fund the launch and then agreed to resource the backroom apportionment work involved in distributing fare income to bus operators.

The option was labelled an “All York” ticket. They were priced at £5 for an adult.

The Council were subsequently asked to indicate how many of the tickets had actually being sold?

The Council declined to disclose the information on the grounds that it was “commercially confidential”.

However, the Information Commissioner has now confirmed that the aggregated sales figures cannot be regarded as confidential as they don’t reveal the number of sales made by each bus company.

He has ordered the Council to release the sales figures.

The decision notice reads,

“The Commissioners decision is that the City of York Council has failed to demonstrate that section 41(1) of the Freedom of Information Act is engaged.

The Commissioner requires the public authority to take the following steps to ensure compliance with the legislation –

• Disclose the information to the complainant”

Former Council Leader Steve Galloway, who raised the issue last year, commented,

“The mistake concerned one of several outstanding issues that bus passengers in York have with the Council.

The most serious of these is a failure to publish, on a regular basis, reliability information on local bus services.

Hopefully the Council will now side with passengers in their quest for timely information about bus service operations in the City”.

Council spends £36,270 on information screens at West Offices

West Offices

The York Council has spent over £36,000 on providing “information screens” around its new West Office HQ.

Defending the decision the Council said,

“The information screens are being installed across the building to meet different needs.

Within the customer services areas they will allow us to present information in more accessible formats such as video supported with sign language.

The installation of screens in the staff areas is part of a wider internal communications initiative to ensure that all staff receive up to date information on key service changes and priorities.
The screens also show service performance information. This is routine provision in most Councils”.

The Council had been criticised for not ensuring that the work was undertaken by a York company.

York housing benefit claims now costing £45 million a year – up 80% in 9 years.

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Figures published by the Council say that the annual cost of paying housing benefit claims has increased from £25.2 in 2004 to £45.3 million in 2012.

Housing benefit is money paid by the Council to help tenants to pay their rent. For council tenants, housing benefit is paid direct into their rent account. Housing benefit for private and housing association tenants is paid to the tenant or landlord.

The figures also show that some tenants are claiming nearly £400 a week in benefit payments. Most are claiming considerably less.

A table showing the spread of claimants indicates a fairly wide distribution across the City although the largest number can be found in the YO24 post code area.

In total 11,059 families were claiming Housing Benefit in 2012.

12,998 were also claiming Council Tax benefit. This benefit reduced the amount that residents were liable to pay to the local Council to fund public services. It was replaced by the Council Tax Reduction scheme from 1st April this year.