by Paul Scully | Sep 11, 2014 | News |
Sutton Council have given notice of their intention to shut Sutton’s two theatres if they cannot find a community group who can put together a credible outline business plan for the venues within the next seven weeks. The Secombe Theatre in Sutton town centre and the Charles Cryer in Carshalton are at risk of joining Wallington Public Hall in a council sell-off to save cash.
At a meeting of Arts Network Sutton, a senior councillor told the room that the council had to save £40m over the next 5 years as a result of the Local Government Finance Settlement announced by the government back in December 2014. Despite work starting on a report on the viability of the theatres, there was no mention that this was on the cards for the seven months following the announcement, least of all throughout the local election campaign when the ruling administration successfully retained power for another four years. Now, local community arts groups have been given just seven weeks to ascertain all of the financial information for the theatres, details of future bookings and exactly what the council are looking for in a good outline business case. At time of writing this information had not been released by the council in its entirety, thus limiting the time scale even further.
Meanwhile, the Sutton Life Centre which attracts roughly half the number of visitors (for the main facility behind the library) than the theatres is not earmarked for a review of its viability until next year. So why the undue haste? It appears that Finance officers want departments to have their savings reported to the top by January 2015. Despite a lengthy consultation of Sutton’s Future where residents are being asked where the axe should fall, the council seems to have made its mind up.
Now I’m not against looking at ways that our local arts scene can survive without subsidy from the council. The mood from the meeting last night was that the local arts community shared that view. They were happy to look at ways that this can arise. However a seven week rush does not give much opportunity for a disparate group of people to share their ideas and vision and come up with much detail.
There are some minor things which to me demonstrate the council’s haste and suggest opportunity for more major concerns down the line. Firstly at the council meeting where consultation on the future of the theatres was discussed, the council report asked for the method of consultation to be ‘agreed’. At the meeting this was downgraded to ‘noted’. Semantics? Maybe, but with that come a few ramifications. No elected member has actually had a say in agreeing that a seven week consultation is the way to go. Members of the committee noted that officers seemed to have taken the decision for them. Where will that stop? When I cast my vote back in May, I was looking for a councillor that would make decisions on my behalf, not hand them over to unelected officers.
Secondly, the council officer who bravely attended the meeting last night, told the group that she had spent yesterday thinking about what constitutes an outline business case. Surely the sensible thing to have done was to have considered this before the consultation started, not during. How can community groups be confident that they are working on something that is vaguely in line with council thinking when the council hasn’t even come up with it’s own view? It’s not all doom and gloom. The lead councillor and officer were adamant that facts and figures would be put up on their website and answers that arose from various parts of their consultation would be available within days. Nonetheless, the timetable already seems to be running ahead of the decision makers and the people that may suffer will be the theatre groups who rely on the two local venues and the 22% of the borough who visit the Secombe and Charles Cryer.
You can have your say until 3rd October at the council’s Sutton’s Future website but show your support for our local Arts scene by signing my petition here. Even if you are not a regular theatre-goer, once they’ve gone, they’ve gone for good.
by Paul Scully | Sep 11, 2014 | News |
The second Sutton, Cheam & Worcester Park Shop of the Year competition is in full swing. You can vote for your favourite local independent shop at www.suttonlocal.org.uk and by doing so to say thanks to the many independent local shops in our area. As before, one lucky voter will be picked at random to win £100 to spend in the winning shop. Voting is open until 16th October and this year’s winner will be announced on 23rd October.
Kate Irwin of Precision Chiropractic in Cheam, who won in 2013, said ‘it’s a fun competition, supporting local businesses’.
I run my own small business and know how difficult it can be working long hours in tough times. That’s why I am committed to supporting local retailers who create jobs for local people, protect the character of our high streets, and help to build a healthy local economy. I hope you’ll take a moment to express your gratitude for the hard work of the staff at your favourite local shop, by voting online here.
by Paul Scully | Aug 1, 2014 | News |
My business partner placed an advert for a Personal Assistant last week. We work with companies advising them on their community engagement and working with local groups. In order to practice what we preach, we wanted to give every chance for someone local to get the job and so included the Croydon job centre (our office is on Croydon High Street). We didn’t expect a response to one of our requirements (Language restrictions: Excellent command of English language both written and verbal), which included the following:
You should consider including the answers to the relevant questions below in your Assurance Statement, making clear the reasons why you want to claim an exception to the Equality Act:
o Why do you need a person to speak a particular language?
o In what way could the duties of the current staff be reorganised to enable the new post to be filled by someone who does not need to speak this particular language If this is not possible please state why.
o How many staff work at this establishment
o How many staff speak only this language?
o Include any other relevant information that may help us understand why you want to claim this exception
We had a number of questions like this to complete with a helpful reminder that it is an offence to provide a false statement.
My colleague’s response asking for the advert to be withdrawn:
Thank you for your email which I have read with some surprise and astonishment.
As you will understand, the role of a Personal Assistant is to make my life easier. Your email to me has requested certain information for the sake of having irrelevant information. I am astounded at your questioning and request of justification of why a communications agency, based in the UK, would demand an excellent command of the English language from its staff. I also do not understand why you would ask for a hierarchy, a basic search of my company’s website will show you that I run a small business with a relatively flat structure.
I decided to specifically advertise on the DWP website rather than through a specific recruitment agency so that the widest segment of the public would be able to access what I consider to be a great entry level job which will kick-start a career for someone who wants to do well in life. Your email has meant that with a heavy heart, I would like to withdraw my job advertisement from your department’s website forthwith as I will find alternative means to recruit. I would hold you and your team responsible for actively hindering the job prospects of a member of my local community. My business planning would have meant that the successful candidate would have been employed by my company for the foreseeable future with long term job prospects.
I set up this business at 25 years of age and have seen it through a recession. This is the first time I have advertised publicly to recruit a future member of my team. My experience of your bureaucracy and red-tape means unless I receive a response which puts my mind at rest, that I will never attempt to recruit through your website again or recommend that any other business does so.
I look forward to receiving from you, a direct response.
Yours in disappointment,
Needless to say we haven’t heard back. This government has done a fantastic job in the most difficult economic conditions to tackle the problem of youth unemployment. Last year’s fall of 133,700 young people claiming JSA was the biggest since 1997. I also understand the need to ensure that everyone gets opportunities to get along. However a cut and paste email that fails to appreciate that the Personal Assistant to the Managing Partner of a communications company trading in the UK clearly needs an excellent command of English will only hamper efforts to get more people into work. We need a Personal Assistant because work is incredibly hectic and my Partner in particular needs his life made easier. His solution for making it easier was to eliminate the bureaucracy of the job centre himself and look at the job applications that are coming in thick and fast from the other websites that we’ve used. Sorry if that offends, but that’s real life for everyday business people. We’re still keen to take on a local person but the job centre doesn’t seem to be the place to do it for us.
by Paul Scully | Jul 23, 2014 | News |
Sutton’s full council meeting on Monday was short but quite remarkable. The questions from both members of the public and councillors unearthed some interesting information. Each time, the original question is taken as read, thus avoiding the delay in having to read out something that is already on the agenda. A resident from Belmont asked a question about the Controlled Parking Zone near the Royal Marsden Hospital. However the question that was answered was not the same as originally submitted after an over-zealous council officer removed a phrase. Here’s the question:
In the pre-election issue of the Liberal Democrat’s Focus on Belmont, it was clearly stated under the heading Better Parking that there are “proposals to lower parking charges in the small CPZ around hospitals and convert parking bays in Cotswold Road into shared use between permit holders and paying”. Was this just pre-election propaganda or is it your genuine intention to resolve the ongoing parking issues for the Belmont residents, all of whom are still unhappy with the present charges and the severely reduced free visitor permit allowance as shown by our petition of 2 years ago? If genuine, what is the proposed timeframe for these changes and how will the conversion of the parking bays be funded?
According to the Chief Executive of Sutton Council, the word ‘propaganda’ was ruled to attribute improper motives to others and was removed using a rule of the council’s constitution. A further question from a Labour Parliamentary Candidate accusing the Council Leader of ‘subterfuge’ went unchallenged.
I’m happy for both phrases to be used. Since when is it the place of the council to decide on what questions are asked and how they are asked. If it’s libellous or illegal, then fine. But it is not up to council officers to decide on the political nature of questions. I am sure the Leader of the Council could have acquitted herself perfectly adequately in answering the original question. The Constitution is in place to safeguard democracy not to undermine it.
A question was asked about how many visitors had been to the controversial £8.5m Sutton Life Centre in the last year and the cost of running the Centre. The answer that came back translated into each visitor costing the borough roughly three times the amount of the entrance fee – a shortfall that you and I have to pick up through our council taxes and/or service cuts. Talking about service cuts, this came up on Monday too, with a member of the public asking about the consultation that is taking place to see which areas members of the public would prioritise for the £40m reduction in the Council’s budget. Asking residents what they think is the right thing to do. A more meaningful consultation process would have been to have raised the matter in April before seeking reelection for another four year term.
Cllr Jane Pascoe asked for an update on the proposed new school in Sutton. We were told that the council had looked at alternative sites to the Sutton Hospital but were not at liberty to tell us where. Only last week, Healthwatch Sutton, a publicly funded organisation held a meeting which was only open to members of the public that had informed one of the local Liberal Democrat MPs that they wanted to come and all questions had to be submitted in advance to the same Member of Parliament. Now more than ever, we need a strong opposition to counter the arrogance and complacency that Sutton council is showing.
by Paul Scully | Jun 13, 2014 | News |
Are you or do you know anyone aged 16-21 and looking for work experience, perhaps with an interest in politics? I’m running two work experience programmes over the summer based in my office in Sutton, each lasting for a fortnight which you may find of interest. In the February half term programme that I ran, participants got an idea of how politics works at a local level, enjoyed a trip to Parliament and took part in some mock debates. The programmes are designed to ensure that you get something out of it. Not just a bit of work to put on the CV, but help in developing the sort of skills that prospective employers are looking for such as confidence, organisation, initiative, team work and leadership. Running my own business, I know the difficulties when sifting through hundreds of CVs trying to find the right person with a bit of spark. These extra activities can help create that spark and differentiate yourself from others.
If you are interested in finding out more, please do get in touch with my campaign manager Ranulph Murray at ranulph@suttoncheamconservatives.com or 020 8642 3791
