Liberal Democrat councillors are calling for an inquiry into the ‘Grand Departy’ music concert as part of a cross-party scrutiny review.
Meanwhile the minutes of two meetings of the Councils safety Advisory Group have confirmed that there was internal concern about the organisational arrangements for the concert.
Safety committee meeting July 2014 Click to read original minutes
The minutes suggest that, had the target audience numbers actually attended, then safety concerns could have been high.
The minutes of the meetings can be read by clicking the links below.
Safety Advisory Committee 30th June 2014 (pre concert)
Safety Advisory Group 23rd July 2014 (post concert)
Cllr Ian Cuthbertson, Lib Dem Spokesperson for Leisure, Culture and Tourism, has submitted an official request for a scrutiny review into the “planning, promotion and delivery” of council organised events for the Tour De France.
Last week it was revealed that City of York Council overspent its budget for the Tour by £60,000 with the ‘Events and Festivals’ programme losing taxpayers £252,000.
The poorly received ‘Grand Departy’ music concert at Huntington Stadium was the single biggest loss. The event cost £206,000 to stage but disappointing ticket sales meant only £19,000 in revenue was brought in, producing an overall loss of £187,000.
Cllr Cuthbertsoncommented:
“While the Tour De France appears to have given a considerable boost to the regional economy, the council organised events in York encountered significant problems.
“In the run-up to July Lib Dem councillors called on the Labour Cabinet to publish a business case to justify council spending. Yet the Cabinet consistently ignored these requests and subsequently ran a series of events which failed to hit budget targets.
“The ‘Events and Festivals’ programme lost £252,000 with the Grand Departy concert alone losing £187,000. A review is needed to investigate the planning, promotion and delivery of this programme, so as to explain how and why these losses occurred. We also need to look at other areas where original budget estimates were missed.
“Only by doing this can we ensure that the lessonsare learnt and that any future events are managed within budget. This is particularly important if the council moves forwards with plans for the Tour De Yorkshire cycle race.”
Cllr Ian Cuthbertson has submitted the following scrutiny topic:
What is the broad topic area?
The planning, promotion and delivery, including significant over- and under-spends against the original budget, of the Council’s programme of activities which accompanied the Tour De France.
What is the specific topic area?
Cabinet set a budget for the Tour de France of £1,664k to cover the cost of the event. The final draft outturn shows that the cost of the event totalled £1,827k. The main cause of this was a £252k loss on ‘Events and Festivals’, including the ‘Grand Departy’ music concert at Huntington Stadium (£187k), but there were other significant over- and under-spends against the planned budget. This review is needed to investigate the planning, promotion and delivery of the programme, so as to explain how and why the losses and other variances against budget occurred.
Ambitions for the review:
To help ensure that lessons are learnt so that any future events of this nature are properly planned and managed within budget.