Workplace Parking Levy

The introduction of increased car parking charges in the City Centre have led to lots of comments on the Nottingham Post’s website about Nottingham City Council being “anti-car” . It will be interesting then, to see the reaction if the city council do go ahead with it’s plan to introduce the Workplace Parking Levy in April 2012.

The City Council have already allocated some of the income from the WPL to the improvements for Nottingham train station, more specifically “up to £14.000m funded by prudential borrowing, to be repaid via Workplace Parking Levy income.” As far as I can tell, the money has already been borrowed and thus will have to be paid back somehow. So a failure to introduce the WPL in April 2012, or to attract as much income as predicted, may lead to yet more cuts in the city council’s services.

To read more about Nottingham City Council’s financial position, follow the link below to their 2010/11 draft accounts.

http://www.nottinghamcity.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=29515&p=0

Decline of Nottingham City Centre

Just been reading some comments on Nottingham Post’s website and particularly liked the comment below which I happen to agree with. 

“I used to love Nottingham City Centre, and have been known to defend Nottingham to the hilt in the past for both shops and varied nightlife when I was a little younger. As much as it pains me to say it; there is simply very little of interest there for me anymore.

Its cheaper to order nearly everything on-line, and large out of town shopping parks such as Meadowhall and FossePark if your south of the city have free parking and all the shops you want together in one handy place. (Admittedly all chain stores)

As a former city resident, I used to love the vibe that Notts had; particularly because of the interesting independent retailers and people.  These retailers have largely gone under…”

I used to love Hockley which was full of interesting shops selling things you couldn’t easily buy in chain stores. It made sense then to travel into Nottingham instead of elsewhere. Sadly though there are only a few interesting shops left in Nottingham such as Hopewells, Hotel Chocolate and a few shops in the Flying Horse Arcade. 

Instead Nottingham City Centre seems to be full of cheap chain stores and pound shops. Yes the City Centre will still be busy with people using these shops, but for someone like myself who has money to spend, it is better now to go online to get quirky unusual things rather than trudge round cheap chainstores. But it saddens me to see Nottingham City Centre decline in this way.

35% increase in car parking charges

Nottingham City Council have decided to increase car parking charges both in its car parks and for on street car parking.

As reported in the Post, “Parking for two hours at Broadmarsh and Fletcher Gate car parks has gone up by almost 13 per cent – from £3.10 to £3.50. Meanwhile, Trinity Square car park has gone up nearly nine per cent – £3.50 to £3.80.

Last November, the council raised prices at all three by more than 10 per cent. And charges at Trinity Square were increased again in April. This means two hours’ parking there has gone up by 35 per cent in 13 months….Last Monday, the council introduced charges for parking on city centre streets on Sundays for the first time and extended charging hours until 8pm during the week.”

Doesn’t seem the wisest move during a recession, with struggling retailers. 

Interestingly as well one commenter on the Post site notes:

“at the meeting’s of the CITY CENTRE AREA COMMITTEE, [25 JULY 2011 & 26 SEPTEMBER 2011] (where such things might be discussed be of some interest) I can find no reference to parking charges, even though one would have thought this subject would be of interest to the councillors who sit on this committee!”

Follow the link below to read more.

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Parking-charges-increase-twice-rate-inflation/story-13909646-detail/story.html

Too hot!

We all know that energy bills are soaring in the UK. So you would think Nottingham City Council would be looking to reduce these wherever possible.

However, apparently the thermostat on their main office building, Loxley House, is set at 23oc. This is very high and leads to complaints from people based in the building that they are too hot – particularly in the upper floors.

Surely turning the thermostat down to a  more usual 20 or 21 0c would be an easy way to save a bit of money?

Bite the Bullet Jon!

I’m sorry it is so long since I have posted. This is because I haven’t had the time to do any research for posts and anything I have learned during my paid work would only out me if I posted it here.

However, there is one interesting titbit I can post. As I am sure many of you know, Nottingham City Council have to make big reductions in their budgets. The figure of a £72 million pounds reduction is the figure I have heard talked about – I have only heard verbally though.

Nottingham City Council Officers are trying to get the agreement from Senior Councillors about where the reductions should be. They are tearing their hair out over the Leader Councillor Jon Collins, who is refusing to consider reductions to any services.

Sorry Jon, but one of the parts of being the Leader is that you have to make difficult decisions. You can’t refuse to make difficult decision and at the same time roar out at Officers when you are frustrated “I am the Leader!” – which I have on good authority he has done on a number of occasions.

Frivolous use of council credit cards?

The Public Services website reports that:

“The only English local authority (Nottingham City Council) to resist Eric Pickles’ data transparency drive has hit back at the Communities Secretary over allegations that it used corporate credit cards for frivolous purchases, writes Iain Robinson.

Pickles censured Nottingham City Council’s use of the cards on flights, wine and tickets to Alton Towers.

But deputy council leader Graham Chapman said the purchases were “perfectly reasonable and proper”, and that the issue highlighted the flaws in using financial data out of context.

Chapman said the wine was for resale in council-run cafes, while the flights were reimbursed by sponsors and the theme park tickets were for disadvantaged children.”

Nottingham City Council should publish its financial data. Citizens should have a right to know how their local authority is spending their money.

I suspect that the council is right in its comments about them park tickets. I am surprised though that a credit card is being used to buy wine to resell at a council run cafe. Unless we are talking about a couple of bottles of wine though, then it would surely make more sense for the cafes to be ordering directly from suppliers on an invoice basis?

Follow the link below to read the original post.

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=16479

A Strong Leader

Nottingham City Council is currently run by a councillor from the ruling party called the Leader (currently Jon Collins), who makes decisions with a Cabinet of councillors, also from the ruling group (currently the Labour Party). Each of these councillors has responsibility for particular services, known as their ‘portfolio’. Nottingham has a Mayor, but this is a ceremonial role without any decision-making powers.

However, under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 the council must change its constitution by December 2010 to one of two options for leadership: either a Leader with stronger powers (a Strong Leader) or a directly elected Mayor.

Many Local Authorities consulted with their local citizens about which model they preferred.

I don’t know if Nottingham City Council has changed their constitution by the required date. And I certainly haven’t seen any sign of consultation. However, the council seems to be moving towards the strong leadership model.

This would mean that instead of Cabinet members being appointed by a meeting of the council, as they are now, between two and nine councillors would be chosen by the Leader, to help him or her take decisions. The other main change would be that the Leader would be appointed for a four year period (or the remainder of their term as a councillor), rather than a year.

I have heard many disparaging comments from City Council officers basically saying that the last thing Nottingham needs is for Councillor Jon Collins to be a stronger leader with more power. I certainly share their views.

Dodgy use of Future Jobs Fund monies?

Just a bit more information about how parts of the Future Job Fund were delivered in Nottingham. This was a Labour Government initiative to try and get unemployed people into work. Various organisations were given funding to deliver this.

To try and make sure people weren’t exploited, one of the criteria for funding was “the work done (by unemployed people) will benefit local communities.” For this reason, many charities were successful in getting funding.

One of the organisations that was successful in attracting funding is the Independent Business Association (IBA). This is a local not for profit organisation that supports and lobbies on behalf of local businesses.

Last night I was talking to a  local small employer who told me that he was unhappy that the Future Jobs Fund had come to an end. I was surprised, but asked him why. He explained that he had had Steve Wakeling Chief Executive of the IBA approach him asking if he wanted to take on a member of staff with the Government paying the person’s wages. Of course he was very interested.

So he took on a part time admin worker for his company and received money from IBA to pay her wages. Okay she had been unemployed, but I really don’t see how being an admin worker for a company working in the service industry, has any benefit for  the local community.

You may not know, but Steve Wakeling the Chief Executive of the IBA, is very friendly with Counsellor Hassan Ahmed. Coincidence?

Below are links to a page that tells you more about the Future Jobs Fund and the IBA.

http://campaigns.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/futurejobsfund/pdf/fjf-guide.pdf

http://www.iba-em.co.uk/fjf.php

 

Rumours

 

Many of you will have read that Councillor Hassan Ahmed is standing down at the next election in May. They were hints in the Nottingham Evening Post that this was connected to the Future Jobs Fund initiative. The Future Jobs Fund was a Labour Government programme to tackle unemployment.

The rumours – and I stress they are rumours – are that Councillor Hassan Ahmed secured a large Future Jobs Fund contract for PATRA. PATRA are a local charity that helps people to get a job. In return PATRA agreed to send everyone on the Future Jobs Fund contract to a training college  that Hassan is very involved in and has signed letters as the Chief Executive. The college is Central Education and Training.

However, as Councillor Hassan has had a number of serious allegations made against him in the past; I suspect that his agreement not to stand as a councillor in the May elections, means that the allegations being made are much more serious than this.

Nottingham’s great ideas

In 2008, the Labour Government asked all Local Authorities to submit ideas to:

“improve the social, economic or environmental well-being of their local area, but would need the Secretary of State’s assistance to make happen.”

 

 The deadline was July 2009. The proposals were then shortlisted to 199 proposals – and then nothing happened.  Interestingly though, the new Coalition Government have looked at these shortlisted ideas. From this they have released a document giving the Government’s views on these ideas and what they will do, if anything, to implement these.

Nottingham City Council submitted a number of ideas, including the two below.

“Government should make changes to legislation to help tackle the issue of fly posting.”

 

“Require off licences to indelibly mark the containers that alcohol is sold in, so the police can identify the premises and take appropriate action against the licensed premises and the licence holder.”



The response from the Government to these two ideas, is that Nottingham City Council already have the legal powers to implement this.

 

Follow the link below to read more.  

  

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/communities/pdf/1798995.pdf