Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Worrying Haringey Council priorities - investing £570,000 supporting fashion industry - where's the money from?
Haringey Council says it "will invest nearly £570,000 to overhaul an industrial unit" to help the fashion industry - does anyone know where the funding has come from ?
I find it very worrying that after vital services like elderly care homes, day care centres etc have been closed down through lack of funds, and when other services are still facing further cuts the Council is choosing to spend money assisting profit making enterprises rather than providing the vital services which vulnerable residents need.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by markb on
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£191 per head for infrastructure to upskill people strikes me as not a bad deal. Beats spending the same on benefits.
Government has always subsidized industry by cranking out educated people. I'll glady spend 1/150th of my council tax, ie. a tenner on giving kids a a better chance.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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The psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote: "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail". After the riots in August 2011 there were meetings where dozens of people represented businesses and agencies which needed and maybe deserved public funding. Their project was the tool which needed - even demanded - cash. Training projects; mentoring projects; small business support projects, sports projects, arts projects etc etc
Although to be fair, some of you HoL Dragons' Den investors have said you are more than willing to invest your own money in this venture - up to £191. Okay, how about you round that up to a significant figure which would really help. Let's say £1,000. Or £10,000 - if someone can afford it. How many people would be then happy to take all the estimated figures as hard information? Accepting the numbers of young people trained to be already achieved - as appears to be accepted.
Please forgive my scepticism. It's not because I don't believe in the commitment, inspiration and enthusiasm of the people involved. Nor because I have any special knowledge, or indeed any knowledge at all about the fashion industry. But I do know that public money once spent, can't be unspent. And that there will shortly be another horrendous tranche of cuts to the Council's budget.
I also recall umpteen past projects where public money flowed into highly worthwhile causes and ventures. Or so they seemed at the time.
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Often these things are somewhat speculative, but there's a big difference between going in blind & clueless and an educated punt. I assume due-dilligence has been done on the viability (market needs & size of both students & employers). If not, then it's appalling governance. Any evidence of that on this project?
Budget wise, of course it's a tradeoff. I don't know what it has been traded off against. Investing in people's employability (assumes this project has merit) seems like a good root cause fix to me over say paying out benefits or a council Cxx officer's salary (yeah, right).
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Yes, please do post the links to this. But if you mean the £1 billion "secured for" Tottenham - or according to Cllr Alan Strickland maybe "nearer £2 billion" - that claim is false. It was exposed by Martin Ball in a Freedom of Information Act question.
I'm not sure who is supposed to be "going off on an emotional tirade". I at least was trying calmly to set out what I have observed about public money being spent in local councils including Haringey on various initiatives and projects - some of which worked and some which did not.
A few were rigorously recorded and independently and often critically evaluated. (Sure Start for example.) Evaluation also costs money. But at least you get the chance to learn from an experiment. Having, as far as possible, accurate and objective information is good for democratic decision-making and accountability. Unfortunately the Koberites appear to confuse information-giving with having a marketing PR "spin" machine.
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An educated punt, Mark? I assume you mean a risky bet. Do we want councillors as punters?
You assume due diligence has been done? But why assume any such thing? Does Haringey Council have a good track record for due diligence on speculative/risky projects? Does it even have a good track record for managing the investment of public money in essential projects - like new computer systems? Or ensuring that contractors don't overspend on schools rebuilding? The answer is partly 'No'. Has the Council reliably put public money into voluntary sector projects which turned out to be viable and sustainable in the medium or longterm? Or how about public sector subsidies for commercially-run private ventures? Again there's strong cause for caution.
Maybe I'm being unfair but it is those which didn't work which stick prominently in my mind.
A trade-off. Sure. We spend the money on A - we can't spend it on B or C. But I too don't know what it's being traded-off against. Or more likely what will be the next big call on the budget where cash will have to be found. There are reserves. But they too can only be spent once.
Or does the council sell-off its assets? Same problem. Or increase income by raising fees and charges. How about running a lot more commercial events in the parks? Might be one or two people who think those trade-off options aren't so good.
Of course, you may be entirely right that in the medium or longterm this project might on balance save money. I can assure you that my sixteen years as a Haringey councillor all and every request for public funds which I knew about would always be said to meet this test. Sometimes it's true.
When times are good, there's fat in the budget. But those times are gone. Well, nearly. (Not for Tottenham Hotspur.) But on the whole local councils are down to the bone. And some are amputating whole limbs of public service.
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Investing always carries risk. Government bonds (US treasuries) are considered the closest thing to risk-free investing. The return is in line with that (ie. not much). So yes, councillors are effectively punters. Do I want them gambling - not really, but higher rewards tend to be correlated with higher risk (basic premise in Finance). Sure there's the occasional low-cost no-brainer policy win (like stopping the war on drugs or introducing a car seat belt policy), but not often.
There is as you point out, the opportunity cost/trade-off problem. That's where the due diligence comes in across the portfolio of candidate projects. I can't comment on how well Haringey council does that. It's government/public sector, so I have low expectations and expect a mild dose of Corruption-lite (no proof but the same rotten taste). Perhaps I should lower my expectations a bit more.
On a more constructive note, I'm a big believer in transparency (even if it chances fuck all). How feasible do you think it is, through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to obtain due-dilligence reports, portfolio cost/benefit analysis and effectiveness evaluations for everything the council undertakes.
It would be fun to publish that, including any access-denied or the total absence of said work. Or is someone already doing that?
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Permalink Reply by tania on
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Yes and the fire sale of the St Anns Police Station, apparently surplus to requirements after they locked the doors and cut the police service in the area, I did not know it was surplus, if known would have applied for community groups to use it.
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