In his own words. Ed
In response to Cllr Pugh’s earlier statement, I am a qualified investment manager and invest millions of pounds in the stock market on behalf of many very wealthy clients. Hardly a left wing agitator.
I just happen to believe in social justice and understand Politics, having completed my degree in the subject, unlike him.
No practical business experience
In fact, he is unable to demonstrate any practical business experience or attainment in higher level education, which is possibly why he so confidently defends the practices that led to the PFI Highways decision being made under his leadership.
Time wasting
As for wasting time in Council, he does that all the time, wasting time with long drawn out responses that are open political attacks on the opposition groups, accusing them of the very things he himself has made a career from and indulging in self adulation of his policies that have led to the absolute mess that this Council is now in.
Seeking to divert attention
He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself over the completely inadequate Child Protection Ofsted, which definitely blames the political leadership for the risks we are exposing vulnerable young people to. He is seeking to divert attention and focus on election he knows he unlikely to win, as the chickens all come home to roost.
Cllr Welsford’s motion
His motion asks:
That Council notes:
1) Any assessment of a bid for an important tender with long term financial consequences for this Council and the Isle of Wight, must take into account the probability of that bid being deliverable, with or without recourse to contractual penalties.2) The need for a new dedicated Asphalt Plant is an important strategic requirement that will enable VINCI Concessions, Meridiam Infrastructure and Ringway to successfully comply with the terms of the PFI contract.
3) The Isle of Wight Council’s Environmental Health Department expressed serious concerns regarding the proposed Asphalt Plant, recommending that planning permission be refused, which was information available but not disclosed to cabinet members at the time of the Cabinet decision taken in May 2012.
4) The Highways PFI decision, takenbyCabinet andratifiedby Full Council breached the Council’s constitution in the following ways:
The following constitutional “Principles of Decision Making” highlighted in bold, were not complied with (bracketed letters correspond with those sections from the Constitution):
1. (a) That relevant matters are taken into account:
- Relevant Information relating to a significant component of the winning bid was not evaluated and was in fact deemed irrelevant (under the terms of (b) “Nothing irrelevant is considered”)
- The decision to ignore this information provided a false impression to Cabinet Members and to Members, meaning that they voted without full knowledge of pertinent facts relevant to their assessment of the bids
2. (d) That proper advice is taken and considered before the decision:
- Proper advice relating to the quality of the Vinci Meridiam bid was not made available to cabinet members and was therefore not taken.
3. (g) Proportionality (i.e. the action must be proportionate to the desired outcome):
- Because the requirement for a new Asphalt Plant is an important part of the Vinci Meridiam bid, for which there is no stated “plan B”, Environmental Health’s advice and recommendation for refusal of planning permission, on such fundamental environmental health grounds, was highly relevant to the desired outcome.
- The proportionality requirement would suggest that consideration should have been made as to the comparative virtues of preserving the separateness of the two processes or allowing information to be shared between the two in the interests of a desirable outcome for the bidding process.
4. (j) Presumption in favour of openness:
- In this case the presumption appears to have been in favour of non-‐disclosure of information that was relevant to the Cabinet evaluation and decision-‐making process.
Proposing Speech:
I do not want to discuss the merits of the Asphalt Plant planning application as that is a matter that will be discussed at length by the planning committee and I have no wish to prejudice that committees work or the decision that they will come to based on the facts at their disposal at that meeting.
I also do not want to focus on the role of officers in this matter. Ultimately, officers of this authority are here to implement policy and follow procedures that are the responsibility of politicians.
Debate should be on policy and procedures
Whilst I am deeply unhappy about the way in way the Highways PFI decision was reached, the focus of this debate should be on policy and procedures and the role of the constitution in our decision making processes.
My assertion that the constitution was not followed in this case has implications for decisions that will be made in the future. The main reason given by the Cabinet Member for ignoring the information that was provided by Environmental Health, in making the Highways PFI decision, was that this information was irrelevant to that decision and that the two processes, PFI and Planning, are completely separate.
Additionally he told members that “how the successful bidder fulfils the contract is entirely a matter for them” and this point has been reiterated time and time again, based on the fact that the planning process is a quasi judicial process that cannot be influenced by political interests, whereas the Highways PFI decision is a political matter.
Information from planning process should be used
Whilst I entirely accept that these are indeed discrete and legally separate processes, there is absolutely no reason why information that becomes available from the planning process cannot be used to help inform a decision that is to be made regarding another matter separate from that planning process.
In this case I have been told that the contract specification is capable of being met without the planning application being successful. Whilst that may be true, the chance that financial penalties will be imposed as consequence of Vinci having to source Asphalt off Island becomes far more likely. Is this really any way to begin a 25 year relationship.
A sour start to 25 year contract
It seems to me that there is a real risk that this could turn very sour in the first year. I do not want to be in a position where the provider of all our highways services is financially damaged from the off and then spends the rest of the term of the contract trying to fond ways to cut costs to recoup the initial and possibly on-going losses.
All of this could have been avoided had the means by which the contract was to be fulfilled been properly considered. But as Cllr Giles has told us, he is not interested in how the contract is fulfilled, only that it is.
Information could be used confidentially
There is no reason why the information supplied by environmental health on the 24th May could not have been used confidentially by Highways PFI Team and members of the Cabinet charged with agreeing the final bid. But that information was not made available because of the procedures and policies of this council that say the two processes are separate and because of the insistence of the cabinet member that “how the successful bidder fulfils the contract is entirely a matter for them”.
All information should be deemed relevant
That would not work in a commercial setting. In business, all information would be deemed relevant to such an important strategic decision. Nothing would be excluded and quite frankly, it is clear from reading our constitution, that we should be ensuring that relevant matters are taken into account. But because of the way that politicians decided to approach this, that never happened.
I do not know what can done about the decision made in May and ratified by full council in August. What I do know is that I do not feel that we had sufficient information at our disposal to make that decision.
You simply ignore what I am saying
I suspect that you, the ruling group, will simply ignore what I am saying and carry on as before although I hope not.
What I want you to do is to look at the reasons why you have acted in the way you have and put in place procedures that will in future allow the confidential use of information that emerges from any other process, including planning, so that decisions in future are made in a fully informed and business-like way. In that way we will avoid the same thing happening again.
