The rapid increase in amounts of public sector activity out sourced to private companies is matched only by the equally rapid decrease in transparency and openness over such spending.
Taxpayers money is being increasing foisted on companies to deliver public services whose cost and effectiveness are not open to public scrutiny.
Recently the Birmingham Post reported that Birmingham City Council was spending £345,000 a day on its IT, call centre and assorted extras deal with Service Birmingham – but as pointed out elsewhere this week the contract is not open to public scrutiny.
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Neither are the likes of Amey and Capita, carrying out billions of pounds worth of work for the city council, required to disclose details of services under the Freedom of Information Act.
In one of his first acts as Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles ordered councils to list all expenditure over £500, which for an organisation the size of Birmingham City Council led to pages and pages listing payments being published, with no context to allow people to consider if this is good value or even what was being purchased. It offered the veneer of transparency.
Meanwhile Birmingham City Council, and other authorities, are going further down the secrecy road, with more and more being pushed onto private blue paper agendas.
Instead of by default releasing information, some council officers, no doubt given support from the in-house legal advisors, seem increasingly to adopt the opposite position.
Only a few years ago the cost implications to the city council of the new Biomedical Innovation Hub it is building in Edgbaston, in conjunction with the University of Birmingham and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, would have been included in a public report – not any more.
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As opposition deputy leader Robert Alden (Cons, Erdington) said: “There are no public facing financial figures in this report. It does not mention how the business plan or business model will operate.
“This is disappointing when it is the taxpayers of this city who are paying for it.” He said he saw no reason why more information could not be made public.
The response from the council’s deputy leader Ian Ward (Lab, Shard End) was to hide behind that well-worn excuse of ‘corporate confidentiality’. The trouble is, without knowing what is in a private report it is difficult to argue what should be revealed.
The Post was earlier this year served with an injunction from another West Midlands authority which successfully prevented publication of finances around a project which had suddenly become a lot more expensive.
This would not have been the case in the past. The more the public sector retreats from direct service delivery it is becoming harder and harder to follow the trail of taxpayers’ money.
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It is widely known that as well as drawing a £44,500 a year salary as Birmingham City Council cabinet member for buying things and negotiating contracts Stewart Stacey is also a security guard at Birmingham International Airport.
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In fact several political types have privately confided that they fear returning from a foreign jaunt to have their baggage rifled through by an eager Coun Stacey at customs.
Now, you might think he would be well-versed in the niceties of international travel and able to handle a trip to some Euro conference. So council leader Sir Albert Bore, a seasoned jet setter, had no hesitation in asking Coun Stacey to accompany him to Brussells recently.
Well, poor Coun Stacey got to the check in only to find, after rifling through various pockets and bags, that he’d left his passport at home.
He missed the flight and had to wait around the airport while the passport was retrieved, before taking a later flight.
He admits it was a schoolboy error.
“I had everything ready to go the night before, and managed to remember everything else.”
He remains philosophical that he was able to get some work done in the pleasant surroundings of the airport rather than endure a wet and wind-swept evening in Belgium.
“What’s worse is that it was the first time Albert has let me out of the country,” he added.
Birmingham politicians are not known for being on the cutting edge of trends, fads and fashions.
So it will come as little surprise that the latest craze sweeping the Labour group is a diet which came and went among the celebrity world about a decade ago – the ‘no carbs’ Atkins diet.
Backbench trouble-maker John Clancy happens to have shed a stone-and-a-half and admitted at planning committee last week that he perhaps needs to find a suit with a little less room.
He claims it is all a result of shunning carbs rather than his gruelling war of words with Labour group leader Sir Albert Bore taking its toll.
Such as been his success that the diet is now making its way around the group as councillors get fighting with the election season around the corner.
Sparkbrook councillor Tony Kennedy is said to have benefitted from the regime, as has chairman of the social cohesion scrutiny committee Waseem Zaffer and both have indeed slimmed down.
I even hear someone has even passed the book onto Sir Albert. But, alas, no confirmation has been forthcoming from the leader who has been off to Copenhagen for another Euro summit.