Allotment self-management saves £100k Options

[Simon Kirby]

I've posted previously about how allotment self-management could save £100k and how Newbury Town Council have suppressed the debate. I'm posting again because I got an e-mail last night from the Council accusing me, not for the first time, of lying and spreading misinformation on this forum. I'll explain once again where that £100k saving comes from, and I invite the Town Council to demonstrate their engagement with the issues and discuss the matter here, in public.

CODE

Service                        Cost      Revenue   Running   Staff     Overheads
                                                   Costs
market                         £ 17,518  £ 60,000  £ 59,585  £ 16,281  £ 1,652
floral displays                £ 16,006  £  2,300  £  9,770  £  7,749  £   786
christmas lights               £ 46,000  £  6,100  £ 39,450  £ 11,485  £ 1,166
cemeteries                     £ 86,203  £ 38,000  £ 30,360  £ 85,197  £ 8,647
administration                 £172,406  £      0  £ 76,950  £ 86,661  £ 8,795
parks, open spaces,            £254,954  £  5,511  £204,946  £ 50,404  £ 5,115
and recreation grounds
allotments                     £ 43,228  £ 17,500  £ 21,680  £ 35,450  £ 3,598
town hall                      £ 58,981  £ 45,000  £ 50,975  £ 48,122  £ 4,884
civic duties                   £ 57,721  £      0  £ 16,200  £ 37,695  £ 3,826
committee                      £  9,452  £      0  £  9,250  £    183  £    19
WBC toilets                    £ 20,795  £      0  £ 20,525  £    245  £    25
neighbourhood warden scheme    £ 48,773  £      0  £ 48,000  £    702  £    71
young people's council         £  5,167  £      0  £  1,000  £  3,783  £   384
assets, war memorial, footway  £ 36,296  £      0  £ 20,350  £ 14,477  £ 1,469
lighting, clock house
grants                         £ 33,523  £      0  £ 34,000 -£    433 -£    44
total                          £907,023  £174,411  £643,041  £398,000  £40,393

The Council don't publish the service costs so you have to reconstruct them from the precept breakdown, and the income and expenditure account. The precept breakdown tells you the relative nett costs of the Council's services, and the income and expenditure account tells you the budgeted expenditures and revenues, and so combining the two you get the cost, turnover, staff, and overheads for each service.

The heads of the precept breakdown and the income and expenditure account can't be combined directly for all items and so you'll need the following if you want to see how it all goes together.

CODE

Committee Expenditure
neighbourhood wardens £ 48,000
grants £ 34,000 - see below
toilets £ 20,525
NYPC £ 1,000
committee £ 9,250
total £112,775

Grants in Committee Expenditure
grant aid £ 9,000
CAB £ 16,000
Volunteer Centre West Berkshire £ 1,000
Greenham Community Centre £ 3,000
Town Centre Partnership £ 4,000
Environmental Improvement Scheme £ 1,000
total £ 34,000

Income
investments £ 2,500
precept £904,523
total £907,023

Staff and Overheads
Truck £ 2,000
PWLB £ 2,600
bank charges £ 60
margin £ 35,733
staff £398,000
total £438,393

Parks and Open spaces Revenue Running Costs
victoria park £ 2,436 £ 76,800
open spaces £ 75 £ 79,460
recreation grounds £ 3,000 £ 37,186
play grounds £ 11,500
total £ 5,511 £204,946

Assets, War Memorial, Footway Lighting, Clock House Revenue Running Costs
war memorial £ 0 £ 500
footway lighting £ 0 £ 14,600
clockhouse £ 0 £ 1,750
infrastructure assets £ 0 £ 3,500
total £ 0 £ 20,350

This is how the council present their service costs, but taking the allotment service specifically, the £43,228 service cost isn't the whole story because the Council are trying to pass off as services £172k of administration, £59k of town hall, £58k of civic duties, £9k of committee costs, £5k of young people's council, and £34k of grants, but in fact none of these things are services, they're just overheads. Administration is the cost of the back office that supports the services, the town hall and committee costs similarly are not services in their own right and are just overheads supporting the services, and civic duties, the young people's council, and grants are artifacts of the service organisation being a town council.

These last three heads are not so obviously overheads on the true services, but they're not services in their own right and their expense is only justified by the scale of the town council. For example, a parish council with a service budget of £50k couldn't justify £58k for a mayor, so if the Town Council were to diminish by devolving its services it's reasonable to expect it's pomp and largesse to diminish likewise, and thus it's right to characterise all of these non-services as overheads on the true services.

The only question then is how to apportion the cost of the non-service overheads to the services, and I chose to use the staff cost fraction because it needs to be objective and all things being equal the service's staff fraction is a reasonable measure of the service's demand on the back office and overheads.

So this makes the Town Council's service costs look like this:

CODE

                                                     Cost
market                                               £42,252
floral displays                                      £27,778
christmas lights                                     £63,448
cemeteries                                           £215,636
parks, open spaces, recreation grounds               £331,530
allotments                                           £97,084
WBC toilets                                          £21,166
neighbourhood warden scheme                          £49,839
assets, war memorial, footway lighting, clock house  £58,290
Total                                                £907,023

So take for example the allotment service. If for whatever reason the Council stopped providing the service there would be a saving of £97k on the precept. There'd be no need to spend £22k running costs because there'd be no water bill to pay, and no site fences to mend, and no locks to fix, and no grass to cut on the sites. There'd be no bills to send out, and no new tenancy agreements to sign so there'd be a saving of £35k in staff costs. There'd be less need for such a large budget margin which accounts for the majority of the service overheads so that would save £4k. Of course there wouldn't be the £18k revenue coming in, so that's a service total of £43k.

But now the Council does 16% less, so there's 16% less back office administration. Some of that saving will be a natural consequence of doing 16%, like 16% less paper clips, but some will need a conscious effort to scale back the operation. So for example while a £1M turn-over town council might justify team-building outings, a smaller operation might have to forego that.

Saving 16% on the town hall running costs is not so difficult. With 16% less staff there's a need for 16% less office accommodation so that might be achieved by letting an office, but there'll come a tipping point when a couple of officers rattling round in that gothic mansion just makes no sense and the Council will need to sell up and decamp to somewhere more suitable for their needs.

Saving 16% on the civic budget is entirely a matter of choice and it might be that the councillors want to keep all the trappings of their supposed importance, but if the Council diminishes by 16% then so too must the pomp.

It's not altogether clear what the committee budget pays for once the toilets, wardens, grants, and NYPC have been separately accounted for, but the Council will have to trim it down by 16% all the same. Toilets and wardens are services in their own rights so there's no savings on those, but the grants and NYPC will need trimming by 16% because the council's largesse is only justified by the scale of its services.

So there you go NTC. If you can find a deliberate falsehood in that I'll hold my hand up and apologise for the lie, but it's an ugly accusation and you better be able to substantiate it.

And likewise, if you're really not suppressing discussion of self-management I'll be pleased to talk to you about how self-management can work and fill in any missing details about how it will save £100k of tax, though you will of course have to make right your vexatious insult.

[Cognosco]

I've posted previously about how allotment self-management could save £100k and how Newbury Town Council have suppressed the debate. I'm posting again because I got an e-mail last night from the Council accusing me, not for the first time, of lying and spreading misinformation on this forum. I'll explain once again where that £100k saving comes from, and I invite the Town Council to demonstrate their engagement with the issues and discuss the matter here, in public.

CODE

Service                        Cost      Revenue   Running   Staff     Overheads
                                                   Costs
market                         £ 17,518  £ 60,000  £ 59,585  £ 16,281  £ 1,652
floral displays                £ 16,006  £  2,300  £  9,770  £  7,749  £   786
christmas lights               £ 46,000  £  6,100  £ 39,450  £ 11,485  £ 1,166
cemeteries                     £ 86,203  £ 38,000  £ 30,360  £ 85,197  £ 8,647
administration                 £172,406  £      0  £ 76,950  £ 86,661  £ 8,795
parks, open spaces,            £254,954  £  5,511  £204,946  £ 50,404  £ 5,115
and recreation grounds
allotments                     £ 43,228  £ 17,500  £ 21,680  £ 35,450  £ 3,598
town hall                      £ 58,981  £ 45,000  £ 50,975  £ 48,122  £ 4,884
civic duties                   £ 57,721  £      0  £ 16,200  £ 37,695  £ 3,826
committee                      £  9,452  £      0  £  9,250  £    183  £    19
WBC toilets                    £ 20,795  £      0  £ 20,525  £    245  £    25
neighbourhood warden scheme    £ 48,773  £      0  £ 48,000  £    702  £    71
young people's council         £  5,167  £      0  £  1,000  £  3,783  £   384
assets, war memorial, footway  £ 36,296  £      0  £ 20,350  £ 14,477  £ 1,469
lighting, clock house
grants                         £ 33,523  £      0  £ 34,000 -£    433 -£    44
total                          £907,023  £174,411  £643,041  £398,000  £40,393

The Council don't publish the service costs so you have to reconstruct them from the precept breakdown, and the income and expenditure account. The precept breakdown tells you the relative nett costs of the Council's services, and the income and expenditure account tells you the budgeted expenditures and revenues, and so combining the two you get the cost, turnover, staff, and overheads for each service.

The heads of the precept breakdown and the income and expenditure account can't be combined directly for all items and so you'll need the following if you want to see how it all goes together.

CODE

Committee Expenditure
neighbourhood wardens £ 48,000
grants £ 34,000 - see below
toilets £ 20,525
NYPC £ 1,000
committee £ 9,250
total £112,775

Grants in Committee Expenditure
grant aid £ 9,000
CAB £ 16,000
Volunteer Centre West Berkshire £ 1,000
Greenham Community Centre £ 3,000
Town Centre Partnership £ 4,000
Environmental Improvement Scheme £ 1,000
total £ 34,000

Income
investments £ 2,500
precept £904,523
total £907,023

Staff and Overheads
Truck £ 2,000
PWLB £ 2,600
bank charges £ 60
margin £ 35,733
staff £398,000
total £438,393

Parks and Open spaces Revenue Running Costs
victoria park £ 2,436 £ 76,800
open spaces £ 75 £ 79,460
recreation grounds £ 3,000 £ 37,186
play grounds £ 11,500
total £ 5,511 £204,946

Assets, War Memorial, Footway Lighting, Clock House Revenue Running Costs
war memorial £ 0 £ 500
footway lighting £ 0 £ 14,600
clockhouse £ 0 £ 1,750
infrastructure assets £ 0 £ 3,500
total £ 0 £ 20,350

This is how the council present their service costs, but taking the allotment service specifically, the £43,228 service cost isn't the whole story because the Council are trying to pass off as services £172k of administration, £59k of town hall, £58k of civic duties, £9k of committee costs, £5k of young people's council, and £34k of grants, but in fact none of these things are services, they're just overheads. Administration is the cost of the back office that supports the services, the town hall and committee costs similarly are not services in their own right and are just overheads supporting the services, and civic duties, the young people's council, and grants are artifacts of the service organisation being a town council.

These last three heads are not so obviously overheads on the true services, but they're not services in their own right and their expense is only justified by the scale of the town council. For example, a parish council with a service budget of £50k couldn't justify £58k for a mayor, so if the Town Council were to diminish by devolving its services it's reasonable to expect it's pomp and largesse to diminish likewise, and thus it's right to characterise all of these non-services as overheads on the true services.

The only question then is how to apportion the cost of the non-service overheads to the services, and I chose to use the staff cost fraction because it needs to be objective and all things being equal the service's staff fraction is a reasonable measure of the service's demand on the back office and overheads.

So this makes the Town Council's service costs look like this:

CODE

                                                     Cost
market                                               £42,252
floral displays                                      £27,778
christmas lights                                     £63,448
cemeteries                                           £215,636
parks, open spaces, recreation grounds               £331,530
allotments                                           £97,084
WBC toilets                                          £21,166
neighbourhood warden scheme                          £49,839
assets, war memorial, footway lighting, clock house  £58,290
Total                                                £907,023

So take for example the allotment service. If for whatever reason the Council stopped providing the service there would be a saving of £97k on the precept. There'd be no need to spend £22k running costs because there'd be no water bill to pay, and no site fences to mend, and no locks to fix, and no grass to cut on the sites. There'd be no bills to send out, and no new tenancy agreements to sign so there'd be a saving of £35k in staff costs. There'd be less need for such a large budget margin which accounts for the majority of the service overheads so that would save £4k. Of course there wouldn't be the £18k revenue coming in, so that's a service total of £43k.

But now the Council does 16% less, so there's 16% less back office administration. Some of that saving will be a natural consequence of doing 16%, like 16% less paper clips, but some will need a conscious effort to scale back the operation. So for example while a £1M turn-over town council might justify team-building outings, a smaller operation might have to forego that.

Saving 16% on the town hall running costs is not so difficult. With 16% less staff there's a need for 16% less office accommodation so that might be achieved by letting an office, but there'll come a tipping point when a couple of officers rattling round in that gothic mansion just makes no sense and the Council will need to sell up and decamp to somewhere more suitable for their needs.

Saving 16% on the civic budget is entirely a matter of choice and it might be that the councillors want to keep all the trappings of their supposed importance, but if the Council diminishes by 16% then so too must the pomp.

It's not altogether clear what the committee budget pays for once the toilets, wardens, grants, and NYPC have been separately accounted for, but the Council will have to trim it down by 16% all the same. Toilets and wardens are services in their own rights so there's no savings on those, but the grants and NYPC will need trimming by 16% because the council's largesse is only justified by the scale of its services.

So there you go NTC. If you can find a deliberate falsehood in that I'll hold my hand up and apologise for the lie, but it's an ugly accusation and you better be able to substantiate it.

And likewise, if you're really not suppressing discussion of self-management I'll be pleased to talk to you about how self-management can work and fill in any missing details about how it will save £100k of tax, though you will of course have to make right your vexatious insult.

As a council tax payer I am looking forward to a explanation from the NTC with bated breath!!!

[Iommi]

As a council tax payer I am looking forward to a explanation from the NTC with bated breath!!!

I'd take a deep one if I were you!

[the bloke on the...]

have you any figures from N.S.A.L.G. on how much self-managed allotment sites usually cost the local tax-payer / council?

[blackdog]

Sorry Simon, I don't believe in your £100k figure.

It simply isn't reasonable to apportion what you describe as overheads evenly across all services - removal of allotment activities would save some admin but the Town Hall, Civic Duties, Grants, committees, Young persons council etc are not going to be reduced in cost because they are no longer administrating the allotments. The only costs that could be saved on top of the £43k is a portion of the £172k of admin. £172K in £907K would suggest an apportionment of around £8k on allotments (even that sounds a tad high to me).

That's not to say that I am against self-management - if it works and it saves £40k it's worth doing - but you don't do your case any good by over-inflating the savings that could be made.

[On the edge]

Sorry Simon, I don't believe in your £100k figure.

It simply isn't reasonable to apportion what you describe as overheads evenly across all services - removal of allotment activities would save some admin but the Town Hall, Civic Duties, Grants, committees, Young persons council etc are not going to be reduced in cost because they are no longer administrating the allotments. The only costs that could be saved on top of the £43k is a portion of the £172k of admin. £172K in £907K would suggest an apportionment of around £8k on allotments (even that sounds a tad high to me).

That's not to say that I am against self-management - if it works and it saves £40k it's worth doing - but you don't do your case any good by over-inflating the savings that could be made.

Thats the trouble with approtionment. Allotment management is probably a very marginal admin activity at most - but in this case, still bears the burden of a cumbersome bureacracy. Yes, that would still be there if allotments were self managed, no one would get made redundant for instance. What this does mean is that in effect, the allotment holders are actually subsidising this bureacracy. No benefit to anyone at all.

[Simon Kirby]

Sorry Simon, I don't believe in your £100k figure.

It simply isn't reasonable to apportion what you describe as overheads evenly across all services - removal of allotment activities would save some admin but the Town Hall, Civic Duties, Grants, committees, Young persons council etc are not going to be reduced in cost because they are no longer administrating the allotments. The only costs that could be saved on top of the £43k is a portion of the £172k of admin. £172K in £907K would suggest an apportionment of around £8k on allotments (even that sounds a tad high to me).

That's not to say that I am against self-management - if it works and it saves £40k it's worth doing - but you don't do your case any good by over-inflating the savings that could be made.

You accept in principle that administration should be apportioned to get a true cost but why do you chose to apportion with the cost-fraction and not the staff fraction - you didn't really make that clear? I made a reasonably detailed argument why staff-fraction is reasonable, can you say why you think otherwise? Cost-fraction doesn't recognise the relationship between back-office support and service staffing and creates an unrealistic apportionment.

Take for example support for WBC toilets. WBC toilets account for 2.8% of the overall NTC costs, but just 0.1% of staff costs (and that's below the margin of error) so by cost-fraction you'd apportion £4.8k of administration to the WBC toilets item whereas it takes no more administration than writing the cheque and it would be completely unreasonable to expect NTC to save £4.8k if the Council resolved not to suport the WBC service.

Whereas the allotment service depends rather heavily on the back office, more heavily than any other service in fact because it's a service delivered to individuals, each of whom gets a bill and turns up at the town hall to pay it, and the administration head pays for just this kind of interaction. That situation is reflected quite fairly in the allotment service staff fraction of 11.4% as against the cost fraction of 5.9%, and so £19.6k is a much more reasonable apportionment of the administration head than your £10.1k - yes, £10.1k, it's 43/(907 - 172) * 172.

So without the allotment service it's reasonable to expect a saving of £19.6k in the administration head.

But you say there won't be a saving in the overheads. Again, I've made quite a full argument to justify characterising the non-services as service overheads so will you say how this is unreasonable? Take the extreme case where NTC provides no services at all, would you still find it acceptable that it spent just as much on the mayor, grants, committee costs, town hall, young people's council, and all of the back office admin to support those non-services? What if Enborne Parish Council resolved to spend around a £third of a million on this stuff, do you think that would be justifiable? My argument is that all of these non-services have a marginal justification if their cost is proportionate to the services the council does provide. Diminish what the Council does, and I expect the Council to choose to reduce those other things.

[Simon Kirby]

Thats the trouble with approtionment. Allotment management is probably a very marginal admin activity at most - but in this case, still bears the burden of a cumbersome bureacracy.

I don't think so. Services like the parks, open spaces, recreation grounds, which account for over a third of everything that NTC spends our money on make a relitively small demand on the back office because most of the work is put out to contract so there's minimal interaction with costomers and supplier. The cemetaries make a bigger demand because of the interaction with customers, but even then it's a relatively small demand because the cemetaries are run with direct labour and are quite maintenance-intensive. The allotment service is unique in that the Council has to deal with over 500 customers, all of whom are billed individually, and all of whom come in to the town hall to pay their bill. Apportioning the admin according to how mush service staff effort is expended on the service is a pretty fair way of looking at it. The problem is that the costs look very high, but that really is a different problem.

[Simon Kirby]

have you any figures from N.S.A.L.G. on how much self-managed allotment sites usually cost the local tax-payer / council?

The last I saw the National Society suggested that admin should cost around £1 per plot, but those figures were some years old, and of course they don't include staff costs. Even allowing for a doubling of the costs that would still only be £1k to administer Newbury's allotments. I've mentioned already that allotment management can be outsourced and that's available from £7 per plot and the management company make a profit on that. That would be £3.5k for Newbury. It's not entirely what this thread is about, but it does bring into question the Council's efficiency when service staff costs alone are ten times this figure before you even start to figure out how much of that £172k administration bill falls to the allotments.

Do you know the all-in cost of administration for your society Bloke?

[On the edge]

I don't think so. Services like the parks, open spaces, recreation grounds, which account for over a third of everything that NTC spends our money on make a relitively small demand on the back office because most of the work is put out to contract so there's minimal interaction with costomers and supplier. The cemetaries make a bigger demand because of the interaction with customers, but even then it's a relatively small demand because the cemetaries are run with direct labour and are quite maintenance-intensive. The allotment service is unique in that the Council has to deal with over 500 customers, all of whom are billed individually, and all of whom come in to the town hall to pay their bill. Apportioning the admin according to how mush service staff effort is expended on the service is a pretty fair way of looking at it. The problem is that the costs look very high, but that really is a different problem.

Perhaps I ought to make a bid for the service then - 500 customers, against a schedule that must alter little once agreed. Even if it did, pretty sure could set up and get the bills out in a single day; using off the shelf software. Payments can be made anywhere - bank, Post Office, post if you like.

[Simon Kirby]

Perhaps I ought to make a bid for the service then - 500 customers, against a schedule that must alter little once agreed. Even if it did, pretty sure could set up and get the bills out in a single day; using off the shelf software. Payments can be made anywhere - bank, Post Office, post if you like.

It's simpler than that. One of the most common forms of devolved self-management is to appoint the site association as your manager and they send out the bills and collect the money, arrange new tenancies, do the site inspections, and manage first-line support, and for that you let the site association keep a percentage of the rental. Put your feet up and let the cash roll in.

[blackdog]

We could argue back and forth about how much allotments cost NTC that is not included in the £43k - the issue is how much less they would have to raise from council tax payers if the allotments were self-managed. £8k (okay £10k) or £20k - it's still a long way short of your £100k total. Staff based apportionment is related to jobs - you can only save staffing costs by getting rid of posts - which post at the town hall would be superfluous if allotments were self-managed? Apportioning costs is always difficult, while some savings should be possible quantifying them is not a simple matter. Your point about the manner in which plot rents are collected is interesting - a good case for collecting by direct debit and saving some costs without going the self-management route.

However, I am convinced that all those activities from which you wish to apportion costs to allotments (civic duties, committees etc etc) would carry on costing just as much if allotments were self-managed - so your claim of allotment related savings from these is absurd. I would view these as key activities, just as much as allotments; I would expect a council to have council meetings even if they didn't have allotments, they had civic duties even before they had a council - to me these are more important activities than allotments. Of course you can (and do) argue that some of these activities should not be done, or should be done more cheaply - you may be right - but such arguments are not related to the allotments and are not contingent on allotment self-management and thus savings cannot be claimed as allotment related.

[Simon Kirby]

We could argue back and forth about how much allotments cost NTC that is not included in the £43k - the issue is how much less they would have to raise from council tax payers if the allotments were self-managed. £8k (okay £10k) or £20k - it's still a long way short of your £100k total. Staff based apportionment is related to jobs - you can only save staffing costs by getting rid of posts - which post at the town hall would be superfluous if allotments were self-managed? Apportioning costs is always difficult, while some savings should be possible quantifying them is not a simple matter. Your point about the manner in which plot rents are collected is interesting - a good case for collecting by direct debit and saving some costs without going the self-management route.

However, I am convinced that all those activities from which you wish to apportion costs to allotments (civic duties, committees etc etc) would carry on costing just as much if allotments were self-managed - so your claim of allotment related savings from these is absurd. I would view these as key activities, just as much as allotments; I would expect a council to have council meetings even if they didn't have allotments, they had civic duties even before they had a council - to me these are more important activities than allotments. Of course you can (and do) argue that some of these activities should not be done, or should be done more cheaply - you may be right - but such arguments are not related to the allotments and are not contingent on allotment self-management and thus savings cannot be claimed as allotment related.

I can't ignore what you say. I've argued that the whole of the Council should choose to diminish if it were to reduce its service delivery, and so I can reasonably expect a smaller NTC to give less grants and spend less on its mayor, but I accept that there's not a complete correlation, and it's certainly not true that the cost of the grants and the mayor contribute to the running of the allotment service, and though I haven't exactly said they do, it was convenient for my argument to include these heads in the allotment service cost. It's an arguable point because it's in the nature of the service provider being a town council that these heads arise, but it's also true as you say that they're independent heads.

I've seperated out these heads as services in their own right. Quite honestly I find the cost of the mayor utterly unacceptable and I want to see that cost slashed whatever happens to the allotment service, but as you've said that's really a seperate issue.

I don't agree though that town hall, committee, and young people's council are services. With one less service it would be reasonable to combine the Community Services Committee with, say, the Arts and Leisure Committee. Committees most certainly aren't services in their own right and it's quite propper to include their costs as overheads as they are nothing more than part of the decision making process at the town hall. But in any case the costs are relatively small. The major cost is the town hall building. You're right that there wouldn't be an automatic cost saving, but the town hall is nothing more (to me at any rate) than office accomodation and with 16% less staff I want to see a 16% saving in office accomodation.

The allotment service is managed by several staff so it's not possible, nor is it considerate, to identify which post goes, but it would come down to that. There would also be cost savings as the senior officers would now earn less with less of an empire to govern.

If you're not convinced about the apportionment of the administration you need to ask yourself where, if not the allotment service, to account for all of that administration? £172k is an awful lot of money to spend without knowing exactly what is being administered. Other than the allotment service there isn't a tremendous amount else going on.

So this is my best estimate of the service costs, and yes, I think it's entirely reasonable to expect the whole of that £77k service cost to be saved if the service were to be self-managed.

CODE

market                                               £32,967
floral displays                                      £23,359
christmas lights                                     £56,898
cemeteries                                           £167,047
parks, open spaces, recreation grounds               £302,784
allotments                                           £76,866
civic duties                                         £93,490
WBC toilets                                          £21,027
neighbourhood warden scheme                          £49,439
assets, war memorial, footway lighting, clock house  £50,033
grants                                               £33,113
total                                                £907,023

[user23]

Simon, is there a Newbury Allotment Association (or similar) and if so what position do you hold on it?

[Simon Kirby]

Simon, is there a Newbury Allotment Association (or similar) and if so what position do you hold on it?

There was a pan-Newbury association but it's been defunct for some years. I started the site association at Wash Common in 2007 and chaired it until 2009, but after the Council resolved not to recognise the society, effectively whilst I had anything to do with it, my position on the Committee became untenable so I resigned. I'm still a member as such.

I also instigated the Growing in the Community Working Group of the NTC in March 2008 - Growing in the Community is the allotment management best practice guide published by the Local Government Association and I proposed a working group to consider the guide's recommendations - essentially a book review. It was a miserable failure and the Council suppressed the key recommendation - self-management.

[user23]

There was a pan-Newbury association but it's been defunct for some years. I started the site association at Wash Common in 2007 and chaired it until 2009, but after the Council resolved not to recognise the society, effectively whilst I had anything to do with it, my position on the Committee became untenable so I resigned. I'm still a member as such.

I also instigated the Growing in the Community Working Group of the NTC in March 2008 - Growing in the Community is the allotment management best practice guide published by the Local Government Association and I proposed a working group to consider the guide's recommendations - essentially a book review. It was a miserable failure and the Council suppressed the key recommendation - self-management.

Why isn't the site association approaching the council?

Why is it just you, with some (according to some in this thread) dubious financial figures calling for our elected representatives of the people to give someone their P45 and let you run things instead?

Could it be that you're looking to make money from this yourself?

[Simon Kirby]

Why isn't the site association approaching the council?

Why is it just you, with some (according to some in this thread) dubious financial figures calling for our elected representatives of the people to give someone their P45 and let you run things instead?

You'd really need to ask the site associations this, but I'd guess it was because there is no one in the association driving the idea. Quite a few allotmenteers are happy with the deal they get. It's a classic Big Society problem.

Could it be that you're looking to make money from this yourself?

I'd be volunteering several hundred hours of my time with only the possibility of recovering legitimate expenses. It's not the most lucrative get-rich-quick scheme. Where do you suppose the money is to come from?

[user23]

You'd really need to ask the site associations this, but I'd guess it was because there is no one in the association driving the idea. Quite a few allotmenteers are happy with the deal they get. It's a classic Big Society problem.


I'd be volunteering several hundred hours of my time with only the possibility of recovering legitimate expenses. It's not the most lucrative get-rich-quick scheme. Where do you suppose the money is to come from?

I think we're getting to the bottom of this now. There's no appetite for this amongst the majority of allotmenteers it would seem but you're arguing you, instead of our elected representatives should be running things and you'll only charge the allotmenteers for "legitimate expenses"? Would these be something in the region of be something in the region of £76,866 per year?

If it were the association asking for it, it would be a different story.

[On the edge]

I think we're getting to the bottom of this now. There's no appetite for this amongst the majority of allotmenteers it would seem but you're arguing you, instead of our elected representatives should be running things and you'll only charge the allotmenteers for "legitimate expenses"? Would these be something in the region of be something in the region of £76,866 per year?

If it were the association asking for it, it would be a different story.

The same as votes for women, end of slavery, free education for all etc. etc. - most were apparently satisfied with the status quo and someone took a stand!

[Simon Kirby]

I think we're getting to the bottom of this now. There's no appetite for this amongst the majority of allotmenteers it would seem but you're arguing you, instead of our elected representatives should be running things and you'll only charge the allotmenteers for "legitimate expenses"? Would these be something in the region of be something in the region of £76,866 per year?

If it were the association asking for it, it would be a different story.

It's a matter of public record that the Wash Common Allotment Society did indeed ask for talks about self-management, and it's a matter of public record too that the Town Council resolved not to recognise the existence of the Society whilst self-management was so much as an implied aim. I'm sure I've mentioned this already.

That there's no one but me demanding self-management does not mean that allotmenteers wouldn't come forward to volunteer were self-management to be introduced, and nor does it mean that allotmenteers wouldn't get a better service under self-management, all it means is that no one but me thinks it worth fighting the town council for.

If I was the secretary of a site association and I had to mail the bills then I'd buy the stamps and ask the treasurer to reimburse me - those are legitimate expenses. It works just like any other voluntary club or society.

As it happens I believe that it would be legitimate for a profit-making organisation to bid to run public services, and if the organisation was to make a profit whilst running the service at less cost to the tax-payer and better value to the service user then I'd say that was a good thing. However, that's not what I have in mind.

What I can see working is a not-for-profit organisation taking over the role of the Town Council and then devolving responsibility onto the site associations as and when they develop the capacity. There are a couple of ways to constitute the organisation but a company limited by guarantee and registered as a charity with memorandum of understanding that prevents the directors from receiving payments is my favourite.

In fact there's no particular reason why I need to be involved at all, except of course that it won't happen if I don't keep pushing for it. If the Council were to actively encourage self-management then I think there'd be many more people coming forward. I feel I have something to contribute, but the whole point is to build self-sustaining self-managing organisation and that can never depend on one person so if it was being run fairly and democratically I wouldn't nee to be involved in the management at all.

£77k is what the Town Council charges the tax payer to run the service remember, self-management doesn't need any of that, at least not once it's up and running. The service would need to break even on its revenue alone, and that's not so difficult because Newbury's rents are already a little high, but any surplus is reinvested into the sites, and as I said, the constitution of the organisation wouldn't allow directors to be paid.