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A Window Into Council Revenues…closes on August 19th

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Did you know that, up until August 19th 2011, you are entitled to look at, and to ask for copies of, any documents relating to Leeds City Council financial transactions that happened during the year 1st April 2010 and 31st March 2011.

The exception to this is any documents which contain personal information about a member of staff, which the legislation excludes from the inspection rights. Depending on the areas of income or expenditure that you are interested in, the types of documentation available would include invoices paid by the council, invoices sent out by the council, contracts, and documents showing how internal charges from one service to another have been calculated.

Once you have inspected any documents that you want to see, the legislation gives you the right to either ask questions to the council’s auditors (KPMG), or to raise objections to them about any aspect of the accounts.

The Audit Commission’s guidance on this ‘Council’s accounts – your rights‘ is downloadable as a pdf from the Council’s website..

 

West Riding House – another story of win/win in Leeds?

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West Riding House in Leeds

I met yesterday with a tenant of the ‘affordable’ West Riding House, an iconic 1970s office block in Leeds City Centre, which I believe is owned by Moorfield (a UK ‘real estate’ investor, developer and private equity fund manager, with some £3 billion currently under management) and Holbeck Land .

It caught my eye because several organisations I know have recently moved in, some of whom are extremely cost and value conscious.  The building has become ‘affordable’ because it is cheaper, I am told, for the owner of the building to encourage occupancy at a low rent in order to avoid paying business rates on an unnoccupied building.  A nice win/win.  The owners save a few bob  and the organisations get refurbed office space in the heart of the city centre that usually they could never afford.

Except of course there are losers.

Other landlords (generally owners of more modest estates on the edge of the city and in the doughnut of despair) are losing their rents; the communities in which these organisations used to be based are losing much needed trade.

And the Council are losing out on the rates, presumably.

When, and if, the economy picks up and office space becomes more valuable these new tenants will probably have to move back out or face increased rents.  I just hope that the buildings that they have left behind are still in a reasonable condition.   And if they have fallen into disrepair as resources are sucked from the suburbs into the centre, never mind, perhaps we can negotiate an asset transfer project to bring them back to the community.

I am sure for many tenants the decision to move into West Riding House is a simple, straightforward and commercial one, driven by their business aims and intended social impacts, and their ability to exploit short term notice periods.  For others it must have been a much more difficult judgement.

In these hard times we all have to do what we can to get by.  But we need to understand how the system in Leeds, and every other city, can suck resources into the centre and leave the fringes further marginalised.

Meanwhile Time

All over the city there are similar examples of landlords agreeing low rents that allow ‘unusual suspects’ access to resources that they usually could never afford, to do exciting projects that would probably never get off the ground in better economic times.

The key question for me?

Strategically are these projects just about meanwhile time, merely setting up a low cost ‘holding pattern’ until ‘normal’ levels of economic activity resume?  Or are they ‘hotbeds’ in which we can incubate a generation of new social and cultural entrepreneurs who will help Leeds make a real transformation?  Time will tell of course, although those that own the assets are pretty clear about the ‘meanwhile’ nature of these arrangements.

With the recent Resolution Foundation Report suggesting how the poor have ‘missed out’ on the benefits of economic growth over the last 30 years, I can’t help but think in the medium term, unless we are careful, this is a phenomena in which those that are used to winning will get to win again.

There is Another Game in Town….and she is called Elsie

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You might be forgiven for thinking that traditional ‘economic development’ is the only game in town.  Shopping centres, arenas and enterprise zones, vocational education and training producing a workforce to meet the needs of employers.

This kind of stuff has been the mainstream of economic development for as long as I can remember.

But there is another game that WE can play..

One which relies less on ‘attracting’ talent and wealth from outside and more on developing the passion, aspiration and skills of the people that already make up our communities.  It works with what we have got, starting from where we are.

It relies on the ability of local people to support each other, with knowledge, skills, networks and wherever possible custom.   Instead of looking to buy ‘star players’ to join the team we instead set up an academy, a place and a process in which we can explore our potential and find the people and other resources that we need to move our projects forward.

This is where Elsie comes in.

Leeds Community Enterprise Accelerator (Elsie) is a project designed to build the capacity of ordinary people in the Leeds community to shape their own future according to their own hopes and aspirations.  It starts with what we have, and works with what we have got.  The project needs you to get involved.  It runs on a ‘pay what you like but free is fine policy’ so cost should not be a barrier to getting involved.

So, please, if you want to see another game in town when it comes to developing an economy that serves our community have a look at Elsie and get involved.

Poverty and Income Differentials

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I have been doing a bit of digging around looking at issues of pay differentials in and around Leeds.

A top professional footballer in the UK can expect to earn in the region of £140 000 every week.  It might take an average Leeds United player about 6 months to earn this much.

The post of Leeds City Development Director is advertised at £140 000 per year (you would think we would attract a decent candidate willing to work for that)

A Teacher on an average salary in Leeds would take 4.5 years to earn £140k.

A Registered Nurse would take nearly 6 years, as would a Police Constable.

A Healthcare Assistant almost 9 years.

A Teaching Assistant just over 10 years.

A Qualified Playworker (L2) would need more than 15 years.

The poor kids dad would take almost 30 years to get this income on current benefits.

A young person on the Job Seekers Allowance would be an old person – at least 72 – before they accrued JSA payments worth £140k, if it were possible.

Health Warning

All of these calculations should be treated with care.

They are based on current wages as researched on the web. In most cases, but not footballers, these are average wages.  I have done my best to check the maths but no guarantees!  I have done nothing sophisticated, just calculated how long at the current salary it would take to accrue 140k.  Having said that I think the numbers are illustrative and enlightening, even if they are not entirely accurate.  Any economists who fancy doing more accurate calculations and sharing them then please do let me know.)

What Can We do About Child Poverty in Leeds?

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Since I posted my blog on Poor Kids in Leeds I have been asked again and again what can we do about it?

Seems that people aren’t satisfied by the platitudes of writing to councillors and MPs or throwing a fiver at the usual charities – they want to do something.

One of the things that we can do is get a group together, get more informed about what is already being done in the city, and come up with innovative ideas and suggestions for more things that we can do.

So if you can offer a little time to help please leave a comment below.

If you have any specific skills or knowledge that you can offer, or other resources that might be useful, like meeting rooms for example, then please do mention that too.

Everyone can help with this.  We are not necessarily looking for specialist knowledge and skills (lets face it ‘the professionals’ have hardly got this one covered), we are just looking for people that give a damn and can offer time and imagination.

So please sign up using the comment form below if you want to have a bash at this. If you would rather not go public with your skills and other offers then just drop me an email.

On October 14th we will be holding an Innovation Lab to explore how we might Disrupt Poverty in Leeds.  You can find out more about this event here.

You might also want to have a poke around here for further ideas about what can be done http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/what-you-can-do

NB Although I talk about Leeds I am sure that we will have very fuzzy boundaries and anyone from anywhere would be welcome to join us….