Swansea City Deal and the Wellness Village...the dream unravels?
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Title : Swansea City Deal and the Wellness Village...the dream unravels?
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Title : Swansea City Deal and the Wellness Village...the dream unravels?
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This week's Carmarthenshire Herald features a detailed report on the troubled Swansea Bay City Deal as well as a scathing Cadno opinion piece (not online). As we know this all ties in with the luxury spa Wellness Village planned for the Delta Lakes Swamp in Llanelli. Listening to Carmarthenshire Council, and more particularly the City Deal lead chief executive, our very own Mark James, it's all wonderful, so wonderful in fact that neither he, not Emlyn Dole bothered to answer questions posed by the newspaper.
The Herald reports that Carmarthenshire Councillors will be briefed at a meeting next week as to the progress of the City Deal - it is very likely that this will be another PR stunt like the 'presentation' back in February.
I have given my views on the Wellness thing in previous posts and reported Pembrokeshire's doubts over the City Deal last month.
Last week it was the turn of Neath Port Talbot. Their chief executive provided a damning report on the City Deal and expressed serious doubts about the level of public funding required and seemingly insurmountable governance issues.
Just in case our own chief executive doesn't furnish councillors with a similarly honest report next week, here's a link to the document - I urge them all to read it.
To summarise just a couple of points, at least six months of time, and copious amounts of external legal advice have been used to try and formulate a governance model for the 'Joint Working Agreement' to oversee the City Deal projects. The conclusion is that it's not fit for purpose and will need to start from scratch.
Some may remember Sian Caiach being shot down by the chief executive when she asked how liable the council would be for covering interest payments on the millions of pounds worth of loans the council would be required to take out. Mr James snarled back saying it would all be covered as the government was allowing the councils to keep some of the business rates from the proposed developments.
The NPT report reveals that the government has made no such firm commitment and the four councils will, in all probability, have to stump up all the costs (£386m) without any idea if they'll get any of it back.
Furthermore the strangely PR obsessed ARCH (A Regional Collaboration for Health) programme, essentially made up from the health boards and a major player in the Wellness thing, was refused Welsh Government funding before the City Deal was even signed. NPT has said it will definitely not plug any funding gaps.
As for the promised millions from private investors, there's little evidence of anything concrete and if there is, the governance issues around public/private partnerships are an equally tricky problem - there are plenty of costly PFI failures to draw on.
Reading between the lines it appears that the language used behind closed doors has been somewhat stronger than that outlined in the report. Rowing chief executives perhaps, and with Mr James in the lead role...well, taxpayers' money, governance issues...what could possibly go wrong? After what has been revealed to me through several years of litigation with Mr James I would question whether they've got the right chief executive in the 'lead role' at all.
This blog is primarily concerned with Carmarthenshire. The Yr Egin cultural centre which involves Trinity St David University has already gone ahead and is currently at the large empty shell stage, What this has cost the council remains unknown although as Mr James, (with his many declared and undeclared hats), is also a Director of the University, he could probably tell us.
As soon as the Wellness concept came to light alarm bells were ringing. A bit of research uncovered the fact that this is all about luxury health tourism and private health care; a concept put forward by a privately run US based organisation, the Global Wellness Institute. Then, last year, after the costs escalated, the council by-passed usual procedures to enter an 'exclusivity deal' with a private company, Kent Neuorosciences Ltd to manage the project. It's not clear if they're still on board or whether the council are committed to a contract which may never materialise. The promise of a leisure centre and care home for Llanelli has, in the words of Cadno, 'metastasised' into something else entirely.
We also know, through Freedom of Information, that the council and the welsh government have already spent £1.3m on the project, roughly half each, without, it appears, a clear idea whether it will even go ahead.
So, whilst the chief executive of NPT says it how it is, our councillors are kept in the dark, and always have been. Have any of them read the report? You would think its revelations might have prompted a question or two at next week's full council meeting. Instead, the leader of the opposition Cllr Edmunds (Lab), claiming to be concerned about the lack of openness and transparency has suggested a tweak to the constitution to try and get straight answers to councillors' questions.
It could possibly have been triggered by a question at the last council meeting when Cllr Madge (Lab) asked Cllr Dole if Ammanford Town Hall was now safe after the misleadingly titled 'Agile Working Plan' report had been withdrawn from a earlier Exec Board Meeting. The 'Plan' suggested that, amongst other buildings, the Town Hall would be sold off.
Instead of just saying that he couldn't give any reassurance, That would have been an honest answer. Cllr Dole decided to go on the attack and say the report hadn't been discussed so the question was 'mythological'. The report, despite being deferred it had actually been through various stages of senior management approval and, although the plans to sell the buildings might be shelved, he couldn't guarantee it. And despite being deferred, had been published on the agenda for all the world, and the staff employed at the Town Hall, to see.
It works both ways of course and Cllr Madge was equally evasive when he was put on the spot as leader. The day that a politician, from a prime minister to a mediocre county councillor, gives a straight answer to a mildly probing question, will be a moment to remember and unlikely to be achieved by tweaking the constitution. That said, it wouldn't hurt.
I am digressing though, the point being that our councillors need open their eyes to the big wide world and in particular to the potential lasting drain on the taxpayer of County Hall vanity projects. Take the blinkers off. Lessons should have been learned, and the common denominator is Mr James himself. Remember the independent accountants warning against investing in the Parc Y Scarlets' stadium? It's drained the taxpayer ever since. If we go further back the people of Boston were stuck with a massive bill and an audit investigation thanks to another of Mr James' vanity projects which proved far more costly than predicted.
The taxpayer was equally shortchanged over the notorious car park deal a couple of years ago, thanks to Mr James' last minute intervention, it was nothing short of a generous bung. His own actions regarding the pension tax avoidance scam, let alone the illegal libel indemnity shows a senior public official who has less regard for the public purse than his own precious wallet.
We have yet to see how his interests in the residential letting element of the Wellness village squares with his own property interests in Cardiff Bay...
I have been following, as best I can, the various organisations involved in the Wellness thing, as well as the City Deal and there has been virtually nothing in the way of public information, from Minutes of meetings to risk reports, it's all been public relations nonsense. Emlyn Dole, our Council leader has swallowed the lot, hook line and sinker.
Mr James has committed the council to the Wellness vision, it will become one of those visions which cannot fail, no matter what; it is not just his councils' reputation which is at stake but his own. Which, in the world of Mr James, is all that matters. When councillors attend the briefing next week they should remember this, and before they commit millions to a flawed vanity project, plug any funding gaps, and leave a costly legacy for auditors to clear up, they should demand some straight answers, and they should never, ever, assume that they're being told the truth.
The Herald reports that Carmarthenshire Councillors will be briefed at a meeting next week as to the progress of the City Deal - it is very likely that this will be another PR stunt like the 'presentation' back in February.
I have given my views on the Wellness thing in previous posts and reported Pembrokeshire's doubts over the City Deal last month.
Last week it was the turn of Neath Port Talbot. Their chief executive provided a damning report on the City Deal and expressed serious doubts about the level of public funding required and seemingly insurmountable governance issues.
Just in case our own chief executive doesn't furnish councillors with a similarly honest report next week, here's a link to the document - I urge them all to read it.
To summarise just a couple of points, at least six months of time, and copious amounts of external legal advice have been used to try and formulate a governance model for the 'Joint Working Agreement' to oversee the City Deal projects. The conclusion is that it's not fit for purpose and will need to start from scratch.
Some may remember Sian Caiach being shot down by the chief executive when she asked how liable the council would be for covering interest payments on the millions of pounds worth of loans the council would be required to take out. Mr James snarled back saying it would all be covered as the government was allowing the councils to keep some of the business rates from the proposed developments.
The NPT report reveals that the government has made no such firm commitment and the four councils will, in all probability, have to stump up all the costs (£386m) without any idea if they'll get any of it back.
Furthermore the strangely PR obsessed ARCH (A Regional Collaboration for Health) programme, essentially made up from the health boards and a major player in the Wellness thing, was refused Welsh Government funding before the City Deal was even signed. NPT has said it will definitely not plug any funding gaps.
As for the promised millions from private investors, there's little evidence of anything concrete and if there is, the governance issues around public/private partnerships are an equally tricky problem - there are plenty of costly PFI failures to draw on.
Reading between the lines it appears that the language used behind closed doors has been somewhat stronger than that outlined in the report. Rowing chief executives perhaps, and with Mr James in the lead role...well, taxpayers' money, governance issues...what could possibly go wrong? After what has been revealed to me through several years of litigation with Mr James I would question whether they've got the right chief executive in the 'lead role' at all.
This blog is primarily concerned with Carmarthenshire. The Yr Egin cultural centre which involves Trinity St David University has already gone ahead and is currently at the large empty shell stage, What this has cost the council remains unknown although as Mr James, (with his many declared and undeclared hats), is also a Director of the University, he could probably tell us.
As soon as the Wellness concept came to light alarm bells were ringing. A bit of research uncovered the fact that this is all about luxury health tourism and private health care; a concept put forward by a privately run US based organisation, the Global Wellness Institute. Then, last year, after the costs escalated, the council by-passed usual procedures to enter an 'exclusivity deal' with a private company, Kent Neuorosciences Ltd to manage the project. It's not clear if they're still on board or whether the council are committed to a contract which may never materialise. The promise of a leisure centre and care home for Llanelli has, in the words of Cadno, 'metastasised' into something else entirely.
We also know, through Freedom of Information, that the council and the welsh government have already spent £1.3m on the project, roughly half each, without, it appears, a clear idea whether it will even go ahead.
So, whilst the chief executive of NPT says it how it is, our councillors are kept in the dark, and always have been. Have any of them read the report? You would think its revelations might have prompted a question or two at next week's full council meeting. Instead, the leader of the opposition Cllr Edmunds (Lab), claiming to be concerned about the lack of openness and transparency has suggested a tweak to the constitution to try and get straight answers to councillors' questions.
Instead of just saying that he couldn't give any reassurance, That would have been an honest answer. Cllr Dole decided to go on the attack and say the report hadn't been discussed so the question was 'mythological'. The report, despite being deferred it had actually been through various stages of senior management approval and, although the plans to sell the buildings might be shelved, he couldn't guarantee it. And despite being deferred, had been published on the agenda for all the world, and the staff employed at the Town Hall, to see.
It works both ways of course and Cllr Madge was equally evasive when he was put on the spot as leader. The day that a politician, from a prime minister to a mediocre county councillor, gives a straight answer to a mildly probing question, will be a moment to remember and unlikely to be achieved by tweaking the constitution. That said, it wouldn't hurt.
I am digressing though, the point being that our councillors need open their eyes to the big wide world and in particular to the potential lasting drain on the taxpayer of County Hall vanity projects. Take the blinkers off. Lessons should have been learned, and the common denominator is Mr James himself. Remember the independent accountants warning against investing in the Parc Y Scarlets' stadium? It's drained the taxpayer ever since. If we go further back the people of Boston were stuck with a massive bill and an audit investigation thanks to another of Mr James' vanity projects which proved far more costly than predicted.
The taxpayer was equally shortchanged over the notorious car park deal a couple of years ago, thanks to Mr James' last minute intervention, it was nothing short of a generous bung. His own actions regarding the pension tax avoidance scam, let alone the illegal libel indemnity shows a senior public official who has less regard for the public purse than his own precious wallet.
We have yet to see how his interests in the residential letting element of the Wellness village squares with his own property interests in Cardiff Bay...
I have been following, as best I can, the various organisations involved in the Wellness thing, as well as the City Deal and there has been virtually nothing in the way of public information, from Minutes of meetings to risk reports, it's all been public relations nonsense. Emlyn Dole, our Council leader has swallowed the lot, hook line and sinker.
Mr James has committed the council to the Wellness vision, it will become one of those visions which cannot fail, no matter what; it is not just his councils' reputation which is at stake but his own. Which, in the world of Mr James, is all that matters. When councillors attend the briefing next week they should remember this, and before they commit millions to a flawed vanity project, plug any funding gaps, and leave a costly legacy for auditors to clear up, they should demand some straight answers, and they should never, ever, assume that they're being told the truth.
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You are now reading the article Swansea City Deal and the Wellness Village...the dream unravels? With link address https://newstoday-ok.blogspot.com/2017/10/swansea-city-deal-and-wellness.html