Yet another candidate for the Boston North West county council by-election on 15th October has pulled out - leaving a race strictly along national party political lines.
After putting his hat in the ring before nominations closed, Independent challenger Richard Leggott, who also sits on Boston Borough Council, withdrew from the contest last week ... offering just two words - "job done" by way of a comment.
The remaining candidates are now:
Andrea Jenkyns, the previously successful Conservative candidate, who won on 4th June but was forced to resign on a technicality uncovered by Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate Paul Kenny ....
Labour's Pam Kenny, wife of Paul, and also a previous contender ...
David Owens, Boston borough councillor for Fenside, which shares much of the Boston North West footprint, who is the British National Party's new choice to fight the seat ...
... and Mike Sheridan-Shinn, another new candidate, picked to fight the seat for the Liberal Democrats.
With just over two weeks to go to election day, it's simply not possible to describe the contest as an election frenzy - at least as far as use of the internet is concerned when we last looked at 6am today.
The last entry to Miss Jenkyns's personal blog, which has been updated on and off since she resigned, was on 1st September, whilst her "candidate" site remains unchanged since her resignation was announced.
Councillor Owens has updated his blog regularly - but as yet has failed to touch on anything to do with the October election.
If Mrs Kenny is using the internet as a campaign vehicle, it is well hidden from any potential voters - certainly we can't find it.
And, aside from announcing his candidacy on 21st September, Mike Sheridan-Shinn has done nothing else by way of online campaigning.
And we're supposed to make up our minds who to support ....
The full results for Boston North West on 4th June were:
Andrea Jenkyns - Conservative 463
Colin Westcott - British National Party 374 Alison Austin - Boston Bypass Independents 283
Richard Leggott - Independent 279 Pam Kenny - Labour 205
Paul Appleby - Liberal Democrat 130
Andrew Bakewell -Independent 82 You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Wednesday, September 30
Tuesday, September 29
Boston turns down merger plan ....
Boston Borough Council has rejected the plan to merge five "back office" services with South Holland and East Lindsey district councils.
Despite the fact that Boston claimed to have pioneered the idea, and that the merger promised savings of millions of pounds over a ten year period.
How do we know this.....?
By reading a joint statement from SHDC and ELDC, issued this morning, which says:
"An innovative merged services deal which will deliver savings for our residents while maintaining service standards and improving efficiency has been given the go-ahead by South Holland and East Lindsey District councils.
Full Council meetings were held at each authority on 28th September. Members at East Lindsey and South Holland voted for the proposals, with Boston Borough Council voting against the recommendations.
"A spokesman for both councils said: 'This means that we will be working together on a revised business plan for our two authorities only. We will be carrying out a re-assessment of the figures and working on bringing in merged services within 15 months.
"'I believe that this deal, although now only with two councils signed up, will nevertheless deliver savings and offer residents better value for their council tax.
"'This landmark decision shows that we will be leading the way in the county and the region in providing better, more cost-effective public services.
"'All our staff have great experience of providing a high level of customer service and by working together with our neighbours we will be offering residents better value for their council tax, while continuing to provide good public services.
"'We will be able to generate savings through economies of scale and more efficient ways of working.
"'By voting for an in-house merger we get the best of both worlds - we will be building on our experience of providing top class public services and marrying that with stringent business processes to root out duplication, red-tape and bureaucracy.
"'We believe this is a good deal for our residents and for our district. Merging these support services helps protect front-line services and ensures we can continue to attract the highest calibre of people working for our area.'"
Doubtless Boston will get around to explaining the decision to the punters when it finds the time.
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Despite the fact that Boston claimed to have pioneered the idea, and that the merger promised savings of millions of pounds over a ten year period.
How do we know this.....?
By reading a joint statement from SHDC and ELDC, issued this morning, which says:
"An innovative merged services deal which will deliver savings for our residents while maintaining service standards and improving efficiency has been given the go-ahead by South Holland and East Lindsey District councils.
Full Council meetings were held at each authority on 28th September. Members at East Lindsey and South Holland voted for the proposals, with Boston Borough Council voting against the recommendations.
"A spokesman for both councils said: 'This means that we will be working together on a revised business plan for our two authorities only. We will be carrying out a re-assessment of the figures and working on bringing in merged services within 15 months.
"'I believe that this deal, although now only with two councils signed up, will nevertheless deliver savings and offer residents better value for their council tax.
"'This landmark decision shows that we will be leading the way in the county and the region in providing better, more cost-effective public services.
"'All our staff have great experience of providing a high level of customer service and by working together with our neighbours we will be offering residents better value for their council tax, while continuing to provide good public services.
"'We will be able to generate savings through economies of scale and more efficient ways of working.
"'By voting for an in-house merger we get the best of both worlds - we will be building on our experience of providing top class public services and marrying that with stringent business processes to root out duplication, red-tape and bureaucracy.
"'We believe this is a good deal for our residents and for our district. Merging these support services helps protect front-line services and ensures we can continue to attract the highest calibre of people working for our area.'"
Doubtless Boston will get around to explaining the decision to the punters when it finds the time.
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Newell speech "shows how ill-informed BBI is"
Bypass campaigner Michael Borrill has responded with criticism and damnation with faint praise to the hair-raising performance by Councillor Ramonde Newell at the last full County Council meeting (see last week's blog)
In a letter to Boston Eye, he writes:
"The Boston Bypass Pressure Groups spent many hours of their valuable time contacting and discussing with councillors, officers and others of the vital need of a bypass for Boston to support the economic progress of Boston and the surrounding area.
"When the BBI was elected with a large majority, thanks partly to the help and support of the pressure groups, and took control of the borough, it was assumed pressure would be put on Lincolnshire County Council to give Boston 'a fair share of the cake.' How wrong this turned out to be!
"Leaving aside the problems that they have initiated or are failing to deal with adequately in the borough of Boston, their actions at Lincolnshire County Council are giving the town a poor image. "The latest speech by Councillor R Newell at the full council meeting at Lincoln shows how ill informed the BBI are.
"I realise that Councillor Newell now sits at Lincoln as an Independent (I cannot see how you can represent one party on one council and be separate on another) but that is entirely tactical. "Councillor Newell does not appear to have much knowledge of what has been happening in the county - especially with regard to the provision of roads and indeed, Grantham is a larger town than Boston ... although I would agree with him that the immigrant population would appear to be greater in the Boston area than elsewhere. The recently published birth statistics would certainly give grounds for this to be correct.
"The proposals planned for the county's road construction are public knowledge and it surprises me that before Councillor Newell stood up at a full council meeting he had not done his homework.
"Lincoln already has one bypass and is proposing that a further two, the Eastern and the Southern, are built to make a full circle of the City. There is also the prospect of a further major scheme from the centre of the City to Canwick Road.
"Councillor Newell does not seem to know much about 'the strategic route to the sea,' in that Burgh le Marsh does not have a ring road and is not a town. Burgh le Marsh does have a bypass. I am sure that Spalding will be very pleased that their push for a second bypass has progressed! In fact, Lincolnshire County Council are including this proposed scheme in the next Local Transport Plan.
"Councillor Newell will also be concerned to note that work is progressing with traffic problems in Stamford with the possibility of a bypass in the future.
"If Councillor Newell would like to read the notes/minutes of the Highways Policy Development Group of the 6th April 2009 I am sure he would find it most helpful.
"Boston is not included in any mention of a bypass.
"Having said all this, it is pleasing to note that at least someone is trying to look after our interests albeit not too well."
Michael Borrill
Wyberton Fen
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
In a letter to Boston Eye, he writes:
"The Boston Bypass Pressure Groups spent many hours of their valuable time contacting and discussing with councillors, officers and others of the vital need of a bypass for Boston to support the economic progress of Boston and the surrounding area.
"When the BBI was elected with a large majority, thanks partly to the help and support of the pressure groups, and took control of the borough, it was assumed pressure would be put on Lincolnshire County Council to give Boston 'a fair share of the cake.' How wrong this turned out to be!
"Leaving aside the problems that they have initiated or are failing to deal with adequately in the borough of Boston, their actions at Lincolnshire County Council are giving the town a poor image. "The latest speech by Councillor R Newell at the full council meeting at Lincoln shows how ill informed the BBI are.
"I realise that Councillor Newell now sits at Lincoln as an Independent (I cannot see how you can represent one party on one council and be separate on another) but that is entirely tactical. "Councillor Newell does not appear to have much knowledge of what has been happening in the county - especially with regard to the provision of roads and indeed, Grantham is a larger town than Boston ... although I would agree with him that the immigrant population would appear to be greater in the Boston area than elsewhere. The recently published birth statistics would certainly give grounds for this to be correct.
"The proposals planned for the county's road construction are public knowledge and it surprises me that before Councillor Newell stood up at a full council meeting he had not done his homework.
"Lincoln already has one bypass and is proposing that a further two, the Eastern and the Southern, are built to make a full circle of the City. There is also the prospect of a further major scheme from the centre of the City to Canwick Road.
"Councillor Newell does not seem to know much about 'the strategic route to the sea,' in that Burgh le Marsh does not have a ring road and is not a town. Burgh le Marsh does have a bypass. I am sure that Spalding will be very pleased that their push for a second bypass has progressed! In fact, Lincolnshire County Council are including this proposed scheme in the next Local Transport Plan.
"Councillor Newell will also be concerned to note that work is progressing with traffic problems in Stamford with the possibility of a bypass in the future.
"If Councillor Newell would like to read the notes/minutes of the Highways Policy Development Group of the 6th April 2009 I am sure he would find it most helpful.
"Boston is not included in any mention of a bypass.
"Having said all this, it is pleasing to note that at least someone is trying to look after our interests albeit not too well."
Michael Borrill
Wyberton Fen
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Monday, September 28
Boston's £1 million gamble on shared services
Tonight is make or break night for the plan to merge the back office operations of Boston, South Holland and East Lindsey.The first two councils are voting on the issue at their regular meetings, whilst East Lindsey is holding an extraordinary meeting to discuss the plan.
Timing is crucial, and if if any council fails to decide tonight it will be taken to mean that it doesn't want to move on to the next phase.
The report recognises that the risks are "significant" and if the project goes forward, they would need to be incorporated in the council’s corporate risk strategy.
The main risk is that the assumptions made by the consultants, Tribal, are wrong, and affect the council's financial position.
But if Tribal is right, there are significant potential benefits to be had in terms of profit for Boston.
The borough's population of 58,300 represents 20.6% of the proposed merged area and it would eventually save £5,486,000 on an investment of £1,082,000 - gaining a 51% return producing average annual savings of £548,000 over ten years.Unlike the two other councils, which will fund the project from revenue costs, the proposal is for Boston to fund its share of the overall set up costs using capital only, as it doesn't have the revenue reserves to afford an investment of £814,000 so the proposal is for the borough to finance the project by borrowing for capital purposes. This funding cannot be made available until 2010/11 as the 2009/10 programme is fully committed, and the decision may affect the affordability of its plans for 2010/11. The financing costs will be deducted from the savings.
The report runs to 90 pages, which makes it far too long to cover in detail - but you can read it in full by clicking here
In a nutshell, members are being asked to make three strategic key decisions:
- To agree a merger of five back office, high volume transactional services between Boston, East Lindsey and South Holland. The departments concerned are: customer services, finance, human resources, information technology and revenues and benefits.
- To agree a preferred delivery mechanism through an in-house stand alone organisation, jointly owned by the three authorities
- To delegate to the Chief Executives, in consultation with the of the Council, signing a legal agreement between the three authorities to continue this joint working.
Among the benefits are said to be greater staffing resilience achieved through the creation of larger shared service teams; increased skills, and greater efficiency and focus.
The timetable from decision to implementation will be 12 – 18 months.
The report quotes from the Boston Borough Council Branch of their union, Unison, which gave comments towards the end of August.
It said there had been little feedback from staff, and the general consensus of opinion is 'what will be will be.'
Morale was at an all time low, with most staff convinced that their jobs were at risk. Not all staff were given the chance to attend the service review board workshops, and felt that their comments were not always taken on board. Various suggestions made were ignored and decisions were made prior to the workshop so they saw attending as a pointless exercise. Some staff felt that staging the workshops during the holiday period meant that their opinions could not be heard as they were unable to attend at short notice.
Sadly we won't be at tonight's meeting, but if anyone wants to share what went on with us, we'd be glad to hear from them.
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Friday, September 25
Week ending 25th September
Our Friday miscellany of the week's news and events
Counting them out ... after our piece on the last minute announcement of last Sunday's service at Boston Stump, we received the following from a reader: "I was interested to read your article about the late publication by the council of the Battle of Britain Flight. Perhaps that would explain why so few councillors bothered to attend the service. In the not so distant past it was almost a full attendance, but by my calculations (and I apologise if I missed any, but my vantage point in the church was not great) there were only eight of the current council in attendance (including Mayor and Deputy) and they were almost outnumbered by ex-councillors. I did wonder whether it was because the council had cut the budget for refreshments afterwards."
X certificate viewing ... When first we read about the performance of Boston Borough Councillor Major (Retired or not, depending) Ramonde Newell at last week's County Council meeting, we couldn't believe that he could have put up such a disastrous performance. Then we watched the webcast of the meeting, and decided that if anything, the account on Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire's blog was understated. We recall that Councillor Newell's thumbnail sketch on the borough website declares that he is fluent in Cantonese, and laudable as that may be would feel happier if tries for a better level of English next time he addresses his peers at County Hall. In the meantime, we are grateful after all that he declared his party allegiance as Independent, as at least this keeps Boston's name out of it as much as possible, which makes it less embarrassing for the rest of us.
Good news ... Congratulations to Boston United for hosting the county's first disability football tournament on Sunday. Bad news ... The club's initiative again underlines the failure of the Princess Royal Sports Arena to live up to its multi million pound claims to be THE facility for organising sport for the disabled.
Countdown 1 ... Since he ignores the idea of defeat so obdurately, we've decided to keep note of how much longer Borough Council Leader Richard "Papa Dick" Austin clings to the inaccurate claim on the Lincolnshire Independents' website that he is still the Independent County Councillor for Boston South. It is now 16 weeks since 4th June, when he lost his former seat to Conservative Paul Skinner.
Countdown 2 ... refers to the feature in this week's Boston Standard headed "Countdown to Christmas." For the benefit of the innumerate in Church Lane today is exactly three months away from the festive date -- far too early to be ramming it down our throats!
Picture this ... Not for the first time, letters to the local press bemoan the fact that artworks of local scenes bought by the borough of Boston - often with Boston taxpayers money - are languishing in the basement of the Haven Gallery when once they were on show in the Guildhall. We agree that this is a disgraceful state of affairs, and given the pathetic level of "art" displayed in the Haven can see every reason why they should go on display once again.
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
Counting them out ... after our piece on the last minute announcement of last Sunday's service at Boston Stump, we received the following from a reader: "I was interested to read your article about the late publication by the council of the Battle of Britain Flight. Perhaps that would explain why so few councillors bothered to attend the service. In the not so distant past it was almost a full attendance, but by my calculations (and I apologise if I missed any, but my vantage point in the church was not great) there were only eight of the current council in attendance (including Mayor and Deputy) and they were almost outnumbered by ex-councillors. I did wonder whether it was because the council had cut the budget for refreshments afterwards."
X certificate viewing ... When first we read about the performance of Boston Borough Councillor Major (Retired or not, depending) Ramonde Newell at last week's County Council meeting, we couldn't believe that he could have put up such a disastrous performance. Then we watched the webcast of the meeting, and decided that if anything, the account on Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire's blog was understated. We recall that Councillor Newell's thumbnail sketch on the borough website declares that he is fluent in Cantonese, and laudable as that may be would feel happier if tries for a better level of English next time he addresses his peers at County Hall. In the meantime, we are grateful after all that he declared his party allegiance as Independent, as at least this keeps Boston's name out of it as much as possible, which makes it less embarrassing for the rest of us.
Good news ... Congratulations to Boston United for hosting the county's first disability football tournament on Sunday. Bad news ... The club's initiative again underlines the failure of the Princess Royal Sports Arena to live up to its multi million pound claims to be THE facility for organising sport for the disabled.
Countdown 1 ... Since he ignores the idea of defeat so obdurately, we've decided to keep note of how much longer Borough Council Leader Richard "Papa Dick" Austin clings to the inaccurate claim on the Lincolnshire Independents' website that he is still the Independent County Councillor for Boston South. It is now 16 weeks since 4th June, when he lost his former seat to Conservative Paul Skinner.
Countdown 2 ... refers to the feature in this week's Boston Standard headed "Countdown to Christmas." For the benefit of the innumerate in Church Lane today is exactly three months away from the festive date -- far too early to be ramming it down our throats!
Picture this ... Not for the first time, letters to the local press bemoan the fact that artworks of local scenes bought by the borough of Boston - often with Boston taxpayers money - are languishing in the basement of the Haven Gallery when once they were on show in the Guildhall. We agree that this is a disgraceful state of affairs, and given the pathetic level of "art" displayed in the Haven can see every reason why they should go on display once again.
You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.
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