THE colossal cost of East Herts District Council staff quitting Bishop’s Stortford has been revealed in a confidential document leaked to the
Observer.
Critics fear the budget-busting changes will open up a black hole in the authority’s finances which will be plugged only by job cuts.
The council’s Conservative administration stands accused of “spending money like water” and has been urged to come clean about future plans.
It wants to centralise services at the council’s Wallfields HQ in Hertford, moving about 100 jobs out of Stortford, the district’s biggest population base, and claims the move will save the authority from a £1.9m repair bill for its Causeway offices.
But the figures show the shift will in fact rack up costs of £1,815,200 for council tax-payers.
That’s on top of £5m the council must hand to landlord Henderson simply to surrender its lease on the Causeway building in a £7.35m deal which also involves giving up the Causeway and Waitrose car parks for redevelopment.
According to the confidential draft document – written by the council’s programme director for change, Philip Hamberger, and finance chief Alan Madin – over the next two years the capital cost of upgrading Wallfields is estimated at £1.3m alone.
During the same period the council will have to find £110,000 to upgrade its computer network plus £138,900 to fund home working, £253,000 to finance mobile operations and £107,500 to cover implementation of an electronic document and record management system. Ongoing revenue costs are estimated at £112,000.
Leaving just a skeleton front-line staff in Stortford at a new base in Charringtons office block will mean tax-payers have to foot a “disturbance payment” for relocated workers, estimated at £72,287 a year payable for the next three years, compared with the current £12,375-a-year bill for fuel claims for travel.
To fund the upgrade, the briefing document for the council’s Tory executive, which was dated for presentation in private before June’s full meeting of the authority, warns the council will have to increase its borrowing from £700,000 to £1.6m.
The leaked document breaks down the costs for Conservative chiefs – despite a denial by the key member, Little Hadham’s Cllr Mike Tindale, that the figures were available.
As executive member for resources and internal support, he is named in June’s leaked draft report but told the
Observer as late as July 29 that he was unable to say how much moving to Hertford would cost compared with keeping the Causeway open.
Instead he insisted: “We are 100 per cent sure that this is the right deal for the council and in the best interests of the council taxpayers.”
In the
Observer of August 13, council leader Tony Jackson said: “While there are a number of good reasons for bringing all our back-office staff under one roof, I would have thought the least difficult one to understand would have been around the cost effectiveness of such a move. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that one office is cheaper than two!”
But this week the executive’s sternest critic, Independent Sawbridgeworth councillor Nigel Clark, renewed his attack on the complex and costly deal.
He said: “There’s no capital left. The Conservatives have been spending it like water. The big pot of money that the council had has gone.
“I just don’t understand where £1.5m savings will come – let’s see the numbers. All I can see is a black hole and a large proportion of the council’s costs is employing people. If we’re talking about [reducing] head count let’s have an honest and open discussion.”