It's a start

By January 2011 every council will have to publish details of invoices over £500.

Kent County Council have started by publishing details of invoices over £500 that have been paid by their Environment, Highways and Waste services.  In the months ahead they plan to publish all expenditure over £500.

They  will be publishing the data each month in two formats - Microsoft Excel and Adobe PDF to make the data as useful as possible to as many people as possible.

Making sense of the invoice information

This is what the data looks like:

The files contain details of all invoices paid in the reporting month that have a value of £500 or more (excluding VAT). We will not be publishing details of payments that are of a personal nature, such as those to foster carers.

The data is split into six columns containing:

• the reference number for the payment being made
• the name of the supplier/organisation receiving the payment
• the date the payment was processed by our payments system
• the value of the payment on the invoice in pounds excluding VAT
• the part of the council (we call them directorates) that made the payment
• the cost type which shows how we categorise the payment (we use more than 700 different cost types to help us identify and manage our spending).

For accounting purposes, the council is organised into five areas:

• Adult Social Services
• Chief Executive's Department
• Children, Families and Education
• Communities
• Environment, Highways and Waste

Invoice details

Details of the invoices they  pay are available  in two formats - Microsoft Excel and Adobe PDF.

Full details here http://kent.gov.uk/your_council/council_spending/invoices_over_500_pounds.aspx

KCC Wasting Taxpayers money again

Council officials have spent thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money on staff away days to teach them the secrets behind becoming a successful team.

Activities ranging from two days at a hotel at Brands Hatch to outdoor pursuits at Paddock Wood have been laid on, with a total of £30,086 being spent in two-and-a-half years.

The figures cover events organised by the corporate personnel team for County Hall staff. 

Kent County Council admitted it was not a complete list of events, and said it would take too long and be too expensive to provide a comprehensive breakdown for the Freedom of Information request submitted by KOS Media.

This means the true cost of days out could be substantially higher. 

Of the details available through FoI, it was revealed that in one case £4,613 was spent on two days at a hotel at Brands Hatch for 25 County Hall workers to show them what made a successful team.

A spokeswoman from KCC, however, said one of the days was a Saturday and no excursions were taken anywhere else, for example, to the racing circuit nearby.

On another day, 54 staff were treated to a day of outdoor pursuits at Treejumpers in Paddock Wood at a cost of £6,404 to the taxpayer. 

The reason stated for the Treejumpers away day – which was repeated just nine days later for a smaller number of workers at a cost of £2,891 – was that it was a ‘team event’. 

Training days also racked up high bills, with £6,189 being spent to equip 23 staff from the Information Services Group at KCC with a ‘toolkit’ of skills for high performance.

The event, held at the four-star Eastwell Manor in Ashford, aimed to increase levels of self-awareness to allow the team to understand the motivation behind their own and others’ behaviour.

And on another team development day, this time for Kent Extended Services, which works on activities for school children, families and communities, £1,080 was spent on learning to understand each other better.

Six members of staff were also treated to a day at Buckmore Park, a karting circuit in Chatham, at a cost of £1,149.

Reasons stated for the trip were to enable them to improve communication, forge positive links with each other, adopt a ‘joined-up’ approach and work together positively. 

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said Kent residents would be outraged their council tax is funding tree-jumping under the guise of training.

He said: “It is worrying that this is not even the full picture of how much departments are spending on these jollies, as there are cases that are not documented.”

Details obtained from KCC outlined the number of delegates involved for each away day, with numbers as high as 184 for one event. Of the 27 set out, some 671 staff took part. 

Although in many cases this would have been the same workers involved on different away days, Mr Elliott questioned the amount of working time lost.

“These spending totals do not reflect the cost of the lost time of those staff members attending days out,” he said.

“Taxpayers will wonder why senior staff at KCC are being paid such huge sums if they aren’t up to the job and need all this extra training. 

It is perfectly possible to hold team building events in-house at no extra cost to taxpayers, which is really important, especially in a time of fiscal crisis.”

Of the details obtained from KCC, the most recent team days, in June and July, were held in-house for free.

Amanda Beer, director of personnel and development at County Hall, said the council was committed to delivering the highest standard of services to residents.

“We see successful team-working as equally important as individual skills and it is entirely appropriate that team-building events form part of our staff development,” she said.

“All such events must have clearly stated purposes and outcomes and we encourage teams to organise volunteering days that help local communities at the same time.”

Yeh Right !

Kent  County Council leader Paul Carter has  apologised to staff upset that senior officers pocketed £53,000 in bonuses last year.

The cash was paid despite a promise made by former chief executive Peter Gilroy in January, 2009, that members of the chief officers group would not accept any bonuses for 2009-10 in recognition of the current financial situation.

His statement followed an announcement in last year’s budget that staff would only receive a one per cent pay rise.

However, Cllr Carter pointed out at Thursday’s full council meeting that the money relates to performance in 2008-09.

“I do admit the Peter Gilroy statement could have been better worded,” he said.

 “There was certainly no intention to mislead staff but because it was not explicit it was open to misinterpretation.”

Cllr Carter went on to explain that bonuses for chief officers can only be paid in the financial year that follows that in which they are awarded.

Therefore there will be none paid for 2010-11, nor for 2011-12.

He added: “I hope this finally ends the matter and I apologise to staff who may have felt misled.”


Er  no  Mr Carter  it  doesn't..  Whether  the  staff  accept  your  weasel  words  or  not  I  don't  know.   As  a  taxpayer  that  is actually  footing  the  bill  though  I  can  tell  you  I'm  far  from  happy.  Please  explain  what  these  bonuses  were  for.  Was it the  amount  of  taxpayer  money  saved,  or  maybe  the  vast  improvement  in  core  services.  There  again  maybe  the senior  management  opted  to  reduce  their  enormous  salary  and  pension  pots  in  lieu of  performance  related  pay? 


No  thought  not,  just  lining  your  pockets  at  taxpayers  expense  as  usual

European Union Economy Explained

Council Sends delegates to Golf Open

Dover District Council sent a four-strong delegation to St Andrews, with one tourism official staying for nine days to take accommodation bookings.

During the visit, council officials held meetings with Kent Police representatives who were also present at the event to prepare for next year.

In a statement, the council said the visit enabled it to "maximise the tremendous opportunities presented by the Open to promote the area to a worldwide audience and bring in major economic benefits." 

The statement added that the council was determined to ensure that its success in staging the 2003 event was repeated.

Next Year's open is due to be staged once again in Sandwich, which is their excuse for sending all these people to "learn from the experience" but as the council claim that they successfully managed it in 2003 why do they need to find out how to do it, have they all forgotten ?

However, the decision is likely to prompt questions about the value of the visit and whether it was necessary, as both Canterbury City Council and Kent County Council also sent fact-finding delegations to the competition.

I hope you think your tax money is being wisely spent and remember this when they start telling you that the 20% budget cuts will affect front line services.

IT MUST BE TRUE IT WAS IN THE DAILY MAIL

We need crazy entrepreneurs

 

 

 

 

 

           

                           

 

Europe must embrace “crazy entrepreneurs” if it is to build more technology companies that challenge American firms, Eric Schmidt, Google’s chairman and chief executive has said. 

 

Read more from The Daily Telegraph interview