Procurement + Tendering

I've had a couple of instances where the timing of new equipment/projects has been subject to increased timeframes because of the tendering process.

The 2 examples are:

• Playground at Car Rhos, Llanrhos
• New Kitchen Equipment and Serving Patch work at Ysgol Deganwy

The later tendering work was just about completed in time for work to commence at the beginning of the School Holidays. I have raised my concerns with the associated departments and actions have been put in place, especially in communications. I will be visiting the works on 17th August.

Following requests from a resident last year, I have been working with the Street Scene Manager in improvements to the small playground in Llanrhos. This is on Cae Rhos the small road opposite the Cemetery, around the corner form the Church Hall. Business Cases were put together to secure funding in this years budget. Preparation works has been done by the department and the equipment has been ordered. The installation of the equipment is to be completed by an external contractor, but the existing process required this work to go out to tender. This has delayed the final delivery of the scheme, which means we will miss this years summer holiday.

This is just 2 examples that I have been involved with directly, but how much is this process repeated over the whole authority.

As a public authority we have to ensure transparency and fairness in giving contracts to external companies. But my argument is that is this required to be done for every project. Would it not be more efficient to bring in some standard Service Level Agreements reviewed and tendered for annually with contractors. This could be on a cost + percentage basis. This would help speed up projects and also save a lot of internal resources work on preparing individual tenders.

I have asked this question in respect to deliberations on the Capital Programme. I understand this is being looked at, and it has been passed to the relevant officers to respond. This idea is not completely mine and has come about from discussions with officers.

At the Budget Group meeting I was part of today, I raised this again when we started looking at all the external parties for which we contract or deal with. Apparently this procurement method does exist in some departments (e.g. Highways), but it is something that should and will be reviewed to see if there are any benefits to extend the practice.

Blogging and Time on My Hands !!

Although blogging has been a bit haphazard over this year, it doesn't mean I haven't been busy.

Hopefully I will have more time to blog now that I'm unemployed as such.

Comments on other blogs suggest that becoming a full time councillor is not to be recommended, or could be a bad thing. These go along with concerns that I might go "native". I would welcome any comments on this, either through the blog or via email, explaining what these mean and what pitfalls to look out for.

It is true I will have more time to work on Council business, I am in fact involved in quite a few committees and working groups. Hopefully this is because I'm making a valid contribution. Committees/Working Groups I'm on at present are:

Council
Informal Council
Partnership Overview & Scrutiny Committee
Audit
Constitution and Maladministration
Member Support & Development
(which includes representing CCBC on the WLGA Member Champion Network)
Social Service Budget Efficiencies
Home To School Transport
Office Accommodation (Vice Chair)
Corporate Improvement Board
Harbour Authority (Vice Chair)
Planning
Excellence Fund
Area 3 Youth Liason Committee
Electoral Area Boundaries (Chair)
Budget/Finance Working Group

as well as the above formal membership I do try to attend at least Cabinet, Principal Scrutiny and Communities Scrutiny meetings.

As for outside work I am a Council representative on
Ysgol John Bright School's Board of Governors (inc Finance Committee)
and Cartrefi Conwy Housing Association Board (plus 2 committees)

Other outside interests include
Ysgol Deganwy Board of Governors (Parent Governor) (including Appointments Committee)
Deganwy and District Residents Association
Deganwy Prom Day and Deganwy Dash Committee (Treasurer)
Deganwy Quay Day Organising Group
Conwy District Scouts Association Committee (Treasurer)

I have (for now) the time to be able to do this. I have to admit that I'm extremely interested in the working of the Council, and is taking me back to my time as a Business and General Manager for my previous employer (Alcatel) in the telecommunications industry where I managed a bigger business. Being able to learn, question and direct the management of the authority is very interesting.

At the same time remembering that I represent the Deganwy Ward and ensure that I continue with my ward work.
Some of things that I have brought about include

• Extra signage on Marine Crescent wrt Cycle Path
• New Cycle Rack on Station Rd opposite the shops
• Station Rd/Deganwy Quay Trafffice Lights
• Deganwy Prom Day
• Deganwy Quay Day
• New playground equipment to be installed (later this year) at Cae Rhos playground in Llanrhos
• Continue discussions regarding car parking
• Planning application discussions with residents and businesses
• Residents Ward Work
• Local Enviornmental Issues
• Assisting with communications between LEA and Ysgol Deganwy

I hold my first surgery in conjunction with the Police and other councillors at the Deganwy Castle Hotel at 10am on Wednesday 5th August.

To Stand or Not To Stand

• I discussed on a previous posting about the possibility of potentially standing for MP or not. I am still considering my options, and would only take it up if I thought I could make a difference. At this time it is hard to see how an Independent could make that impact in the Election without significant backing and support.
• I do believe that a strong Independent candidate could have an impact in the current climate, but I don't think I could be that person. I believe an alternative candidate to the main political parties could do well, but they would need to encourage/persuade those discouraged electors to turn out and vote. This would take significant work and time.
• Although I have some cross county exposure, I don't think it is enough. I'm still committed in my work at Deganwy and County Council level. At this time this is where my efforts are concentrated. There is an argument going through my mind that I should concentrate on making the difference at this level for the rest of my term (and hopefully beyond), before considering anything further.
• Thank you for all the notes of support and advice I have received. I will not make a final discision until an election is called, and will not say no at this time. If nothing else it will keep the other candidates on there toes, which is no bad thing. But as they say "never say never".

This posting has ended up being more general than I intended. But sometimes it helps to write you thoughts down and use it to look back at later.

Cabinet Call In - Venue Cymru

At Cabinet on 14th July (at which I was present) the decision was made to "market test" the Management of Arena and Conference Centre as required by the grant condition. (it also included the resolution to bring in external expertise to formulate the tender specification and manage the process).

This grant condition refers to the funding to build the extension and a condition of receiving the funding was that the management of this area should go out to tender. This condition goes back to Dec 2006 - this raises the first question as to why this has not been done already.

The decision on the 14th July 2009, overrules a decision made back in March 2008, where the decision was made to market test the whole Venue Cymru facility (i.e. to include the Theatre). The reason for the report and resolution in March 2008 was to met the grant funding condition.

The resolution from March 2008 was to proceed to market test "as quickly as possible" and to identify resources to produce the specification. - Why has nothing happened on this between March 2008 and July 2009?

How many other resolutions made by Cabinet or Council, have just gone by the wayside?

Who's responsibility is it to ensure that these resolutions are followed up and actioned?

These are questions I will be asking.

At the meeting on 14th July, I suggested that the Theatre management should be included in the market test, even as just an option. This was dismissed by the Chief Exec. Discussions took place about the whether to go to market test at all, and if so what parts of the site should be included in the specification.

In March 2008 it was recognised by the officer report that it would be impractical to separate the management of different aspects, as so much resources are shared amongst the whole site.

Currently the Venue Cymru facility requires a subsidy (from the Council funds) of over £1m per year to operate. Although bringing an external management may still need some subsidy, but it could be mitigated over the life of the contract. A point raised in the March 08 report.

Public Finance that we receive from the Welsh Assembly will be under a severe pressure and will be reduced in real terms over the next 5 years, this has been widely be publicised. Hence we need to consider all options to reduce our costs, and we will be having to make some difficult decisions on those services we offer and manage. We have to do this to ensure the implications on the Council Tax are kept reasonable.

I am part of a new Budget Working group that are going to start this process at a meeting this afternoon.

I have signed the call in on the decision, which means the subject will be discussed at the Principal Scrutiny Committee on Monday. You need 3 councillors to call-in any decision, and this is not the first I have done. There are a lot of members who are also concerned with this decision and I understand there were plenty other members who would have signed.

As I have signed the call-in I will be speaking at Principal Scrutiny at 10:30 on Monday 3rd August.

It is imperative that any decision to move to external management of the facilities should include conditions to protect the other funding and local need. E.g. The Arts Council of Wales grant funding should ensure the development of local culture. Conditions should also maintain focus on the facility to assist with the regeneration of Llandudno. These issues I believe can be converged by conditions in any contract, and any external management company would probably recognise that these are issues that they should tackle anyway.

It is likely that the current Council run management of the Venue, would submit a bid for this work. Hence we will need to ensure that the process is transparent and that any decision is fully supported and justified. May be this is one area where external (independent) expertise would be useful.

Questions are now being made on why we need to recruit so much external expertise. There are times when we do not have the in house speciality to complete some work, there are also cases where it is more cost efficient to recruit temporary expertise rather than recruit permanent members of staff. I still feel there is scope for this to be reviewed further and identify those areas where similar consultancy is brought in across different parts/services of the Council. External tendering seems to be an example where we seem to perform a lot of this, would it not be better to bring this type of function to a central function and build up expertise internally ? More on this and similar issues on a future post.

Back from Holiday and Booked Another One

Returned from Holiday on Monday afternoon. We've had a great time.

Travelled down to London on the train last Tuesday, booked in to St Pancreas YHA on Euston Rd. The YHA was quite good, location was key and on the grounds of a Travel Lodge type accommodation. Most of the YHA has been refurbished in modern style.

First day in London we walked to Leicester Sq, and watched the new Harry Potter movie at the Empire Cinema followed by dinner at Garfunkels. Then had a walk around the sites visiting Trafalgar Sq, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and Victoria Embankment before a taxi back to the Youth Hostel.

2nd Day we visited a few museums; Natural History (very impressive), Science Museum (disappointing, free entry but all the interesting stuff you then have to pay for and it isn't cheap). Kallum then wanted to see Egyptians so we dropped off at the British Museum in Russel Sq before having Kallum's Birthday dinner at Pizza Express. I have to say the museum buildings where in themselves where particularly impressive, and easily overlooked when concentrating on the museum exhibits.

Thursday we checked out of the YHA, walked across the road to St Pancreas Station and catch the Eurostar to Disneyland Paris. With the Express service when we arrived at the station we could leave our bags at the Station and head for the Parks. Our bags are then transferred to the hotel for collection later. To keep costs to a reasonable level we stayed a bit further walk out at Hotel Cheyenne.

Spent 4 days on the two Parks and the village. 4 days was plenty enough time in the Park. I have to admit all the queuing and the whole set up wasn't really own scene, but the boys have really enjoyed it, which is want counts. I have to say that it was busy but not as bad as it could be. The variable queuing system where not at the full configuration, which was a reflection on the fact they could have squeezed a great deal more people in. So considering it was the middle of July it could have been worse.

Returned to London on Sunday evening, and back to the YHA. Spent Monday morning at Camden Markets, before catching the train back to the Junction, arriving back just after 4pm.

We had a great time and had some quality time together.

We had planned to may be visit Ireland this summer, but have now looked further a field. We will probably visit Dublin for a weekend break later in the year.

Today we have booked an Activity Holiday in the Alps. We will be spending a week at Morzine - Les Gets, not far from Chamonix. The resort is a classic winter ski resort, but during the summer is transformed to a Summer Activity resort. Our package includes 7 nights half board at Hotel Chamonix, is described as basic but comfortable and has gone through a recent refurbishment. The Hotel is exclusively run by Alpine Elements the company we have booked with:

http://www.alpineelements.co.uk/

Included within the package is Mountain Bike Hire, White Water Rafting and a Activity Pass which includes free access to a lot of other activities including Swimming Pools, Swimming Lakes, Tennis Courts, Ice rinks, Lifts, Trekking and Mountain Bike Trails & Guides. We also have access to selection of other activities including; Climbing, Canoeing, Sailing, Quad Biking and more.

We fly out with EasyJet from Liverpool on Sunday 23rd August and return back on the 30th August. Which we give us a couple of days back home before the boys go back to school on Wed 2nd Sept.

In the meantime Kirsty has a job interview on Monday and we then be going down to Cornwall with Boys for a week, to visit family. I'll be staying behind to do some work.

Holiday

Been a busy few weeks with the sale of the shop, council meetings and school holidays starting.

We are all off on holiday tomorrow morning.

Travelling down to London by train. A couple of days in the city, and then onto Eurostar on Thursday morning and to Disneyland Paris for 3 nights. Another night in London and returning home on Monday.

In London we'll be staying at the recently refurbished Youth Hostel at St Pancreas.

A holiday for the boys (I include myself in that). Kallum's 11 on Wednesday, so we'll probably visit a couple of museums and will be watching the new Harry Potter film in Leicester Sq.

I'll be missing just a couple of scheduled meetings; Informal Council and Audit Committee.

See you in a weeks time.

Deganwy Post Office - Sold

Friday 10th July saw us finally complete on the sale of our business Deganwy Post Office & Village Sales.

The process has taken just over 4 months from the original agreement to sell, predominately due to the application process required by Post Office Ltd.

Friday was a very sad day for me personally. I have had a very enjoyable time at the business since we took over in January 2004. I hope the changes we have made have benefited the business and the village.

The customers and staff made my family and I extremely welcome to the area and we are happy to call Deganwy our home.

It was proving difficult financially to run the business and also concentrate on my Councillor work as much as I wanted to. It was costing me more money to cover my shifts in the shop than I was earning as Councillor. I could have reduced my time (as other councillors do) to manage the situation, but I always give 100% to anything I do and hence I tend to spend more time at Council.

When we received the offer we felt it was our time to move on from this business and look at new ventures or new jobs.

The new owner is Julie Turner from West Shore, Julie used to own the Post Office on Conwy Rd, Llandudno Junction before it was closed in the Network Change programme at the end of last year. Julie's daughter Carrie Bradwell, who managed Llandudno Junction Post Office will be managing the Post Office side of the business and Carrie's partner Charlie White will be managing the Retail side.

The shop staff of Pam, Debbie, Marion and Richard will continue with the business. They have supported us fantastically over the last 4 years and I'm sure they will do the same for the new owners.

We'd like to sincerely thank all the staff, both past and present, for their help and hard work.

Kirsty and I would like to wish the new owners the very best of luck and success. They will of course have there own ideas and are already making changes. I know they will do well and I'm sure the customers will continue to support this local business. I also know that they understand that the shop is not just a business but is also an important part of the local community.

An end to another part of my life and career, it has been a valuable experience running our own business. Now on to something new - what ever that might be.

I will of course continue as Councillor. Although we will be having about 3-4 weeks of holidays over the School Summer holidays. It's never been easy to take decent time off over the last 4 year, so Kallum and Thomas deserve some quality time with me and Kirsty.

Update - Sun 5th July

Kirsty's Mountain Leader Assessment.

Good news Kirsty is on track to fulfilling her Mountain Leader qualification. Her first weekend assessment went very well. Kirsty got some very nice comments from the http://llandudno-and-colwyn-local.blogspot.com/ . As pointed out the ML process is very difficult and has taken many years of training and completion of a logbook detailing all Kirtsy's experience on the mountains; on her own, with groups and leading groups. Kirsty final assessment is over the long weekend from Thursday 17th July.

To stand or not to stand for MP

Thank you for comments on My blog, Email, Thoughts of Oscar and the Llandudno and Colwyn Bay local blogs. It still under consideration. There are several issues to take into account. I do not have the exposure required over the whole constituency and it will take a lot of work to achieve this in such a short time. I do not have the help of a party machine behind me nor do I have a prominent position on council that would assist in the marketing/promotional activities.

Cost is one of the biggest issues. The deposit in the past has been set at £500 which is returnable should you gain more than 5% of the vote. The biggest expense though would be the printing and distribution of election literature. I have the offer of assistance in the production of professional literature, and the Royal Mail will distribute one item to every household in the constituency free of charge (this is a standard agreement for all election candidates).

It has been suggested that I could use this election as a starting point to fight future campaigns, where I may have more chance of winning, this is worth considering. There are lots to still consider. One comment suggested "is 'e 'avin' a laff". It is interesting to see and listen to the comments coming back. I will monitor the progress of the other candidates and it will be interesting to see how they work. I still do truly believe that there should be an alternative to the party politics candidates, to give people a choice (other than not to vote).

I still want to do my best as Councillor on the Conwy County Borough Council and try to make a difference. I hopefully am continuing to do this and still maintaining my Independence within the organisation.

There are also interesting comments regarding that I should be careful not to become "native" or become a "full time local politician". I'd be interested to understand these comments and any information on potential pitfalls that I should look out for would be appreciated.

With selling the business I have the potential to concentrate on Council business more heavily. For the time being I am in a similar situation of those other councillors who no longer work full time. Saying this, my allowance does not pay the bills and we will have to look for alternative employment very soon.

Cartrefi Conwy

I had may first Board meeting on Monday (29th June). It will be a interesting experience on seeing how this new organisation involves. As a Social landlord it has specific duties which I will be keen to monitor and assist through my position on the board and other committees.

Council Business

Meet The Council

My meeting at Cartrefi Conwy (and subsequent Parent Evening at Ysgol Deganwy) meant I had very limited time at the "Meet the Council" event at Venue Cymru. I missed the Pride of Conwy event brought into recognise the achievement of the Councils employees. I had about a hour to walk around the event looking at the stalls promoting/advertising the different areas of the Council. There have been a few comments on why this event was held, but one thing that the council is always criticised for is the lack of telling people what the actually do and what their Council Tax is used for. This event was an attempt to raise the awareness of Council department and that there is more to it than emptying bins. I'm not sure how many visitors where present, I was there between 3 and 4pm, and there where a few people around, although a lot seemed to be tourists. It apparently picked up a bit later in the day.

It is not easy to get the press interested in good news events, they are there at the end of the day to sell papers and make money. Good news does not sell papers, so although we issues lots of press releases not all are published. This event and the quarterly Bulletin is a means for the Council to be more open and to promote the services performed. The marketing and promotional activities are currently being reviewed and a new team is being brought together to lead on these activities. It is not something that I am involved in, but I do feel the web page needs some work. It is not easy to navigate to find the information that is there.

Tuesday

3 meetings, Cabinet Sub Committee - Office Accommodation, Audit and Conwy Harbour Authority. At the Office Accommodation meeting there does seem to have progress on moving the issue forward. Something needs to happen as we have to many buildings and very few are fit for purpose. There are some difficult decisions to made be made to build new accommodation to save operational costs (revenue expenses) this will mean that some capital receipts (sale of land) will need to be ring fenced to secure new buildings. These will ultimately save the Council money in the future.

At the Audit meeting we reviewed the 08/09 Accounts ready top submission to the External Auditor (KPMG).

At the Harbour Authority we discussed various issues including the Mussel industry and the Siltation of the Conwy Estuary.

Wednesday

I had to give my apologies for the second Home to School Transport Task & Finish Group. I had to do at least 1 day in the Post Office.

Thursday

Council meeting (http://modgoveng.conwy.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=207&MId=1649&Ver=4) today at which Mrs Gwen Hackworth was presented Honorary Alderman Status the first in the County. I gave a presentation on the work that the Boundary Commission is performing across Wales, a Task And Finish Group was formed to prepare our submission for when the Commission start there work in Conwy in September. The aim is to review the Electoral Divisions in the county to aim for a elector ratio of 1:1,750. My estimates on this figure alone would mean the number of councillors would be reduced from 59 to 50. The final subject at Council was to agree the Affordable Housing Strategy.

Should have been at a School Governors meeting at Ysgol John Bright but had to give my apologies because we went to Ysgol Creuddyn, to get feedback on Kallum's 5 week Welsh Immersion programme.

Friday

Joint North Wales Authority Councillor Meeting (open to Cabinet, Chair and Vice Chair members, I manged to get invited through my work on the Member Development programme). Very interesting meeting with presentation from Steve Thomas of the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA). The financial implications of the current Government and County situation are going to be quite staggering to local authorities over the next 5 years. It is imperative that things need to change if we are to continue to deliver services in the future. Several break out group sessions were held and the consensus of opinion is that the 6 authorities will have to work together to help reduce costs.

Next week

Principal Scrutiny Meeting on Monday morning. Visit to the new Welsh Assembly Building in the Junction in the afternoon. Tuesday is Planning Site Visits with the Planning Committee meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Thursday I have a meeting of the Boundaries Commission working group followed in the evening by a Governors meeting at Ysgol Deganwy.

Deganwy Post Office & Village Stores

This is our last week, the transfer of the business will take place on Friday. The Post Office is closed all day on Friday and the Shop will close at 12pm. A full audit by the Post Office will take place and we also have a Stocktaker booked for the afternoon. It's a strange time, we have performed quite a lot with the business over the last 5 1/2 years. I'm sure we are leaving a better business than the one we took over. It is a centre for the village and the community, hopefully the new owners will keep this in consideration when they make any changes moving forward. We wish Julie, Carrie and Charlie the very best of look in the future.

We will be sorry to leave and would like to thank all our customer and fellow traders for the custom and support during our time there. We will miss the customers for sure, every customer is different and they all have the own stories.