Somerset this week: 8 March
A busy week has seen the Yeovil stroke unit on the agenda again, questions over a Taunton head's salary, politics in Wellington and Somerton and questions about the enterprise centre in Chard. Enjoy!
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Somerset this week: 8 March
Could try harder
It is hardly news that Somerset Council is short of cash. The budget has not helped. As the Local Government Association noted on Wednesday after the Chancellor sat down: “It is disappointing that the Government has not today announced measures to adequately fund the local services that people rely on every day.”
However sometimes organisations could do more to help themselves. Somerset Council over the past few years has invested in a series of local “enterprise centres”, business units to encourage start ups and growing businesses in our market towns. Chard Enterprise Centre for instance. Offering flexible office and light industrial workspace to support small and medium enterprises, it cost £4.2m after securing £1.7m of funding from the European Regional Development Fund.
So far so good. But the payback for schemes like this is getting in tenants to pay rent. Important revenue for a cash strapped council. We were therefore surprised to hear from one local business owner who had wanted to rent a unit there. He explained that when he first approached Somerset Council, on two separate occasions council officers told him it was fully let.
Then shortly after he saw an article on BBC Points West in which Cllr Ros Wyke (Executive Lead Member for Economic Development, Planning and Assets) explained to the interviewed that the site was 40% let. A week or so later he saw a post on Facebook suggesting only two businesses had moved in.
Somerset Confidential® approached Somerset Council to ask what had been going on? They told us: “Chard Enterprise Centre consists of two light industrial units, alongside an office suite comprising 10 small offices and two meeting rooms. Taking both types of accommodation into consideration (light industrial units and small offices) the total lettable space is 4,948 sqft. At the time of the press release and social media activity earlier this month, one of the light industrial units had been let and two offices. The occupancy rate stated at this time accounted for 49% of the total space let.”
Which does not explain why council officers were telling a potential tenant that the units were fully let. When we pushed this point they responded again: “Since November our agents Alder King have been in discussion with a business interested in the lease for the second light industrial unit. At the time of the press release this lease was in the process of being finalised and has now been completed. While this second lease was being finalised any enquiries about the unit would have been informed that it was unavailable.”
Is this good business practise? To choke off demand for space on the hope that a lease will actually be signed at a point when it has not been. What would have happened if the lease had fallen through? It is hardly as if leases never fall through between initial discussions and signing. Surely the best practise is to encourage other interested parties to at least register an interest, then they can be followed up if things do not progress as planned.
It is not as if Somerset Council can afford to lose income by choking off potential demand for space which could ensure the maximum amount of space had been let.
The biggest irony of all, is that when they came back to us, despite having told our contact there was no space available, even after signing the lease on the second building referred to above, Somerset Council told us: “The total let space now is 82%. We now only have two small office space available and we would welcome enquiries emailed to somersetenterprisecentres@somerset.gov.uk”
No doubt it is fully let now. But what a shame that a business that might have taken space, was told none was available at a time when it was. We can only hope that this rather casual approach to business is not ultimately going to cost the council in lost rental income.
Change ahoy?
There are changes coming to the political make up of Somerset Council. The first is a result of the sad passing of Dean Ruddle, Somerset Councillor for Somerton. Dean will be irreplaceable to the town of Somerton, but nevertheless a new councillor will be needed.
The by-election will be held on the 28 March and the candidates list has now been confirmed with Conservative, Greens, Labour, and LibDems all competing for the right to represent the town. Under the current arrangements for Somerset Council, each division (like a constituency only for a council) has two elected councillors. So whoever is chosen by the electors of Somerton will join LibDem Tim Kerley in representing Somerton.
The last election (well it was actually the first election for the new Somerset Council) was in 2022. It saw both LibDems, Dean and Tim returned, with Dean taking nearly half the total votes cast with 1,906 votes and Cllr Kerley 1,761. Conservative David Hall, a former cabinet member at Somerset Council missed out coming third with 1,436 votes.
David Hall returns to the fray for this by-election. He says “We need a councillor here who can champion our community and make sure that the Liberal Democrat Council cannot continue to take our area for granted - such as their recent threats to close recycling centres and cut vital bus services.” David is an experienced former Councillor who also chaired the Somerset Rivers Authority.
In a message to the people of Somerton, David Fothergill and Faye Purbrick add “The choice is clear. This by-election is your chance to elect a councillor that will take action on the issues that matter to you, or a Lib Dem candidate that will just oversee more of the same from a Council out of control and on the brink of financial collapse.”
Green Party candidate Matthew Geen (no “r”!) is standing in a seat where the Greens have not always fielded a candidate. However, with green issues to the fore and with something of a surge of interest in them locally (not least with the arrival of a new EV battery factory in the county) the Greens are bullish this time around. Matthew told us: Recent election results in Somerset at county and Westminster levels have shown that it is no longer necessary for voters here to hold their noses and vote tactically for the party that they think will beat the Conservative candidate. Even in rural areas, the chances of the Conservatives winning are low and falling.”
And Mr Geen says now is the time to make a difference: “People now have the chance to register a positive vote for what they believe in. As for my chances of winning; things are changing fast. In recent elections, many people told us on the doorstep that they wanted to vote Green, but were persuaded to vote tactically. Now that they don't need to do that, we can expect the Green vote share to rise significantly.”
“we can expect the Green vote share to rise significantly.”
The Labour candidate this time around will be Somerton resident and former Labour candidate for the North Somerset parliamentary seat, Greg Chambers. Greg stood against Liam Fox in North Somerset in both the 2015 and 2017 elections. Across the two elections he nearly doubled the Labour vote from 8,441 votes to 16,502. Somerton may prove a tougher nut to crack though as Labour has not had much of a presence here in the past. However, with the mood of the country and national opinion polls swinging heavily in Labour’s favour, you never know.
Greg is based in Somerton where he grew up, going to Montecliffe School. He has been a member of the Labour Party since 2005. He is a junior doctor working in Dorchester for the Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
On Somerset Council’s finances he says: “We now receive around £67m less from the government than we did under Labour in 2010. Labour voted against the Council's February budget as it erodes standards and services, cuts over 1,000 jobs, and relies on a ‘Transformation Programme' that remains unclear.”
And Labour Leader on Somerset Council Leigh Redman, adds: “Greg will make a great addition to our group. We work hard to make Somerset residents' lives better and I know that Greg is an effective communicator and already works hard for his community. Somerset Council & Somerton will benefit greatly from having him as a Councillor.”
Stephen Page should need no introduction to the good folks of Somerton. The LibDem candidate was previously a District Councillor for Somerton serving alongside Dean Ruddle on South Somerset District Council. Stephen’s professional background is in education and he works as a lecturer at a local college. He says that during his time there, he has been privileged to help hundreds of young people from Somerton and surrounding villages progress to apprenticeships, employment and university.
As to the election coming up, he adds: “I have a track record of getting things done, and delivering for Somerton and our villages. As a district councillor, I spoke up for the local community, holding regular surgeries and securing extra funds for local groups and activities.”
What would he like to do? Stephen tells Somerset Confidential®: “My priorities include supporting our local economy and jobs, and improving education and training opportunities. I also will champion better transport links and faster broadband provision. And I passionately believe in protecting our local environment and supporting the need for affordable homes for local people.”
Those dear readers are the runners and riders. It will be an interesting election to follow and in a small way, a barometer of the political state of Somerset as a whole. We’ll bring you the result in due course.
Wellington wobble
The outcome of the Somerton by-election may not be the only change coming to Somerset Council. Others are discontented too and one who is not afraid of speaking his mind is Cllr Marcus Barr. Cllr Barr is currently a town councillor and Mayor of Wellington. Cllr Barr was elected as a Conservative to Wellington Town Council however he has decided to sit for the remainder of his term as an Independent. He is also a Somerset Councillor for whom he still sits as a Conservative.
He told Somerset Confidential® that: "I might well leave the Conservative Group on Somerset Council, the decision is hanging by a thread."
He explains his rationale: "first and foremost I'm here to represent the people of Wellington, the people who elected me. I don't like the whole pantomime of politics in local government. Politics should not enter the equation. We are here to get things done. For me that means making Wellington a better place."
Politics should not enter the equation. We are here to get things done.
Which is what you would hope all people who get elected to serve in local government would think. But he adds: "the whole system is broken. If we are honest both the LibDems and the Conservatives are responsible for the current financial crisis. But if I'm to get things done for Wellington, I have to get on with the LibDems, they are the administration and hold the purse strings. That means if I want a road repair, I have to be able to talk to Richard Wilkins, I have to be on good terms with the Leader of the Council. Yet we go into full council meetings and it is like a pantomime. Lots of posturing, accusations, name calling. What benefit is it to me when the Conservative group are mindlessly annoying the LibDems? How does that help me serve the people of Wellington and get done the things that need doing?"
He has plenty to offer on national politics too. "I voted for Boris. I know he had plenty of faults but people liked him and voted for him. Nobody wants Rishi. The Conservatives are not listening to the public. And in Wellington and Taunton I don't think residents are well served by Rebecca Pow. But Gideon Amos is no better. He's lost twice already against Pow. Nobody wants to vote for a loser. The LibDems should have chosen a new candidate."
If Cllr Barr does leave the Conservative Group, he tells me he'll sit as an Independent. With the present make up of Somerset Council that won't change the balance of power. But Cllr Barr hopes it might make some people sit up and listen.
Getting her teeth into it
LibDem MP for Somerton & Frome has been getting stuck into data and asking questions about it. Asking the questions is one thing, dealing with the answers can be a tad trickier. Earlier this week she raised a question in Parliament noting: “Figures obtained by the British Dental Association project that £8 million of the NHS budget in Somerset is going unspent. Will the Minister explain to my constituent, who is suffering in dental agony, why that is happening?”
A good question and one many residents of Somerset would like an answer to. So what did the Minister have to say? Andrea Leadsom is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care and as such the person charged with providing an answer. She told the MP: “I encourage the hon. Lady to hold her integrated care board to account. We invest more than £3 billion a year in dentistry, and our dental recovery plan means that significant money is available for NHS dentistry. It is for the integrated care board to commission those units of dental activity, which now offer more money—a minimum of £28 per UDA. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady if she finds she is not getting anywhere with her ICB.”
The Minister, having had higher status roles in the past may now be cruising a little, or simply off piste in her thinking. It is a wonderful idea to hold the ICB to account. But tricky. Why? Because they are an entirely unelected body and hence answerable to, well frankly no-one. This is precisely the problem with the NHS in Somerset and the imbalance in democratic accountability which we pointed out in our article “Calling Time on Somerset Council” which you can read here .
an entirely unelected body and hence answerable to… frankly no-one
We of course contacted the ICB (these days they prefer to go about under the title of NHS Somerset) and asked the question of them that Sarah Dyke asked of the Minister. They didn’t see fit to reply to our email. Maybe MPs are seen as higher status and have more chance of being considered worthy of a response. We shall see.
Yeovil demands more
Meanwhile the self-same NHS Somerset is fighting off an increasingly angry and agitated populace in and around South Somerset. Last Friday they held a public meeting in Yeovil in which they attempted to explain why they would be shutting down the hyper-acute stroke unit (HASU) in Yeovil. Something they have always intended doing, but are required by law to consult on.
The public consultation took place last spring but the results were, rather unfortunately only published at the last minute. The public have not behaved themselves, telling NHS Somerset in no uncertain terms that they do not want to see the Yeovil HASU closed.
Faced with a consultation in which the public have given the wrong answer, NHS Somerset did what they did the last time this happened (over the closure of mental health beds in Wells). Ignored it completely and carried on with the planned closure.
The outcry that followed was something they had, perhaps, not bargained for. Fortuitously (or not, depending on what side of the argument you are on) that coincided with new legislation allowing members of the public to request the Secretary of State for Health to “call in” decisions made by their local NHS. To the dismay of NHS Somerset, lots of local people and patient groups immediately did just that. Giving full vent to their angst at being ignored and having what they clearly regard as a poor decision, foisted on them.
That is no exaggeration. We know that to date Sherborne Town Council, Yeovil Without Parish Council, Thornhackett Parish Council and the Quicksilver Community Group have all sent letters to the Secretary of State. Somewhat belatedly on Tuesday they were joined by Yeovil Town Council. Cllr Graham Oakes put a motion to the meeting that: “This Council is opposed to the decision to reduce Stroke Services at Yeovil District Hospital and calls on the Secretary of State to call in the decision to centralise stroke services in Taunton.”
Whilst several councillors declared an interest, not least Andy Kendall who suffered a serious stroke last summer and was initially treated at Yeovil HASU (as regular readers/listeners of Somerset Confidential® will know, you can find his podcast interview published here.) the motion was passed with just one vote against.
Hence the public meeting held last Friday as NHS Somerset desperately try to head off the public before too many letters land on the Secretary of State’s desk. The meeting generally went down like the proverbial lead balloon, or if you prefer a cup of Vladimir’s special polonium tea.
Despite the lack of notice of the public meeting, and holding it at 2pm on a Friday afternoon when the minimum number of members of the public would be able to attend, the Westlands Centre in Yeovil was bristling with angry residents.
The purpose of a public meeting is usually to hold it at the convenience of the public, which is why they are more often held on mid-week evenings at around 7-8 in the evening.
Even so over 100 turned up and they were not happy. People complained about the one-sided nature of the presentations. There was a mix of heckling from the floor and some impassioned pleas, urging NHS Somerset to back down on what the public clearly believe will be a terrible mistake.
They said that the meeting was one-sided, not explaining the pros and cons, simply putting the case for NHS Somerset to close the Yeovil HASU. This seemed to go down badly. No-one from Yeovil Hospital was part of the presentation and residents were particularly cross that Dr Rashid had not been given a slot in the presentation.
Dr Rashid who heads the Yeovil HASU, has expressed concern about the decision to close it and questioned the clinical efficacy of doing so.
What was especially interesting was the degree of cross-party agreement that this was the wrong decision, with comments from Labour, LibDems, Conservatives as well as non-aligned community groups all condemning the decision.
The Yeovil meeting was the second of two, the first being held in Taunton as a briefing to councillors. It didn’t go unnoticed that the Taunton presentation was cut short to allow the presenters an hour and a half to get to Yeovil. One of the key supporting arguments for the closure of the Yeovil HASU is that you can get to Taunton from the Yeovil corner of Somerset in 40 minutes!
Others at the meeting expressed disappointment to Somerset Confidential® that whilst LibDem and Green Party candidates for the Yeovil constituency were in the room., the sitting MP, Marcus Fysh was nowhere to be seen.
Oddly enough although many expressed angst at the presentation being one-sided, at least one of the slides showed that closing the Yeovil HASU would give 64% of residents a better outcome, but for 30% (primarily those in South Somerset) it would be worse.
If the purpose of the public meeting was to sway the public to the view of NHS Somerset, it was a dismal failure. But as is often the case with these things, the public will not be making the decision. However given the volume of call-in requests, it seems more likely that the decision will rest with Secretary of State Victoria Atkins, than it will with the board of NHS Somerset.
NHS Somerset will be considering the financial aspects of the decision to close the HASU at their next meeting later this month.
Nice work if you can get it
Whilst teachers are struggling to get the sort of pay they regard as suitable reward for preparing the next generation of the workforce with their careers and qualifications, others in the teaching profession are more lucky. The advent of academies and academy groups known as multi academy trusts has seen some at the top of the tree getting very well rewarded indeed.
Somerset Confidential® was contacted by readers about the remuneration of John Abbott, CEO of Richard Huish Trust. He was, we were told, given a huge pay-rise from 2022 to 2023. This, on investigation turns out not to be correct.
He may be well remunerated (of which more later) but he has not had a huge pay rise. That said it is easy to see why readers may have concluded that he had. Comparing like with like using the Richard Huish accounts is not easy.
It does not help that Richard Huish College has chopped and changed its accounting periods. There was a 14-month period to 1 October 2021, then it joined the Richard Huish Trust on 1 October 2021 (which has a year to 31 August 2022 and then 31 August 2023). Mr Abbott moved from being CEO of the College to being CEO of the Trust.
So the reported figures for Mr Abbott’s remuneration are 14 months’ worth in the accounts of Richard Huish College to the 1 October 2021. Followed by 11 months’ worth of remuneration reported in the accounts of Richard Huish Trust to 31 August 2022 and 12 months’ worth in the accounts to 31 August 2023.
What each set of accounts has in common is that Mr Abbott was disclosed as the highest paid director in each case.
Richard Huish Trust are unwilling to disclose the precise remuneration of their highest paid director, something that Richard Huish College routinely did. We approached them and while they were happy to tell us where our guesstimate of the figures may have been wrong, they were not willing to tell us what the accurate figures were.
So to some extent we are left having to do our best guess. Not least because Richard Huish Trust only disclose figures in bands of £5,000.
The actual remuneration assuming the numbers are time apportioned would work out as:
2021 £134,570 (based on 12/14 of the reported sums) plus pension of £32,000
2022 £130,000 - £140,000 (based on 12/11 of the reported bands in the Richard Huish Trust accounts) plus pension of £30,000 - £40,000
2023 £150,000 - £160,000 (based on the reported sums) plus pension of £30,000 - £40,000
Perhaps he has not benefited from the massive a pay hike that some have assumed he had. But even so it is worth noting. Not least for the purposes of comparing his package with the salary of the Prime Minister.
The salary of the Prime Minister is currently £167,391. So for running a multi academy trust, Mr Abbott gets a package which in total exceeds the pay we give to the man running the entire country.
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Marcus Barr, every parish, town and county authority needs people like him.
Putting the local community before party politics.
On the Richard Huish head's renumeration package, I went to Huish's when it was a grammar school! Disappointing to see anyone working in the public sector, being paid more than an MP, let alone the PM.