Thursday 1 December 2011

That £7,000 party - Right of Reply by Harry Phibbs

Cllr Harry Phibbs
My story last Friday on the £7,184 party for departing H&F Chief Executive Geoff Alltimes triggered much comment, claim and counter-claim with the local media eventually following it up as well. The Council, many of you thought rightly, was heavily criticised for this use of our money.


But this blog is also about a conversation and it's never simply been about bashing one side or another blindly - so I've agreed to carry a 'right of reply' in the form of a guest post from Cabinet Member Harry Phibbs. 

I always get a welter of criticism whenever I do this, irrespective of which party the politician is a member of - so on this occasion can I remind people that I have also carried numerous columns by Labour MP Andy Slaughter. It's about a debate - so whether you agree or disagree with what Harry says below, he deserves credit for engaging with local people on the blog.

So here's Harry, on *that* party:

"Last Friday the Shepherd's Bush Blog ran an item challenging Council spending of £7,000 on a retirement party for Geoff Alltimes who has stood down as Chief Executive of Hammersmith and Fulham Council after 35 years. I can hardly complain about our spending being scrutinised. Part of my job has been to promote this accountability by making our spending more transparent than that of any other council. Not only do we publish payments to suppliers, and senior salaries, but also a detailed breakdown of our Council budget by cost code. We also publish our register of property assets and a Debtometer tracking our progress on reducing Council debt.

But I do believe that in this case the criticism has been misleading and unfair, and astonishingly hypocritical coming from Labour councillors and the Labour MP for Hammersmith, Andrew Slaughter. For his retirement party, Geoff paid for all the alcoholic refreshments himself, the Council paid for the food and the caterers.

Some argue that the Council should have made no contribution to funding the event - which I think would be churlish. Geoff was well paid but that does not mean he was bad value for money. He showed outstanding leadership and professionalism. 

He served both Labour and Conservative administrations with energy and ability in getting their policies implemented. Under Labour administrations he delivered their spending schemes and higher Council Tax. But when residents elected a Conservative administration in 2006 with a radical and controversial agenda including lower spending and cuts in Council Tax he accepted that democratic verdict. Where there were problems for either administration he would be determined to find solutions rather than the more familiar bureaucratic mindset of claiming the obstacles were insurmountable.

With colleagues his behaved with courtesy and would listen, finding this a more effective way of motivating them than shouting and banging his fist.

Others have suggested that £7,000 was too high and a smaller party should have been held. It was certainly a big event with over 450 present - including several Labour councillors and the former Labour council leader Stephen Burke. But many council staff appreciated the chance to go and thank Geoff who had been their boss for many years. He wanted to thank them. Staff morale is important and I think there was a benefit in extending the invitation beyond a few senior managers.

Labour have got an almighty nerve in condemning the reception given their own record. In the summer of 2004 a lavish leaving party was held at Fulham Palace marking the retirement of the Director of Education, Christine Whatford. The full cost, including alcohol, of £20,000 was picked up by the Council Taxpayer. The following summer another extravagant event was held this time for Henry Peterson, departing as the Director of Policy and Administration, at the Corinthian Sailing Club. It was also entirely paid out of Council coffers. Andrew Slaughter was Council leader at the time, Stephen Cowan a Cabinet Member. The idea that they presided over an era of frugality is laughable.

Shortly before the 2006 elections they paid £6,000 for a steel band that had only just performed at Glastonbury the week before to play in the middle of Shepherd's Bush Green for an hour amidst the litter to celebrate a "Smarter Borough". The audience consisted of a couple of drunks and a man with a dog. Few passers-by saw or heard much of the band between the traffic. It was a fiasco.

Even more extraordinary is that Andrew Slaughter should be criticising Geoff Alltimes' pensions arrangements. The comparison with Geoff's predecessor as Chief Executive, Richard Harbord, is instructive. Harbord was brought in when Slaughter was leader in 1999 with a starting salary of £110,000 (equivalent of £150,000 in current prices.) Within a year Harbord was given a pay rise to £140,000, and a further hike in 2001. Harbord's departure from the authority was brought forward a year earlier than planned, in May 2002. This was due to his "lack of progress" in the post. He was given a £110,000 pay-off plus a £62,400 booster to his total pension to over £200,000. This, after just three years, compared to Geoff's service of 35 years for the borough. 

Geoff has got the pension he was contracted to get - not one boosted by an "additional retirement grant" or any pay-off. In fact, Geoff waved £75,000 of redundancy pay that he was legally entitled to, as the post of a Chief Executive solely for Hammersmith and Fulham has been abolished. It should also be remembered that part of the cost of his salary was met by the Primary Care Trust.

It is true that as Council Taxpayers we have paid a lot of money to Geoff. But we should still be grateful because he has played a key role in the last five years in delivering lower Council Tax and improved services. It is his success that has fuelled the Labour Party's resentments, but their complaints are without credibility".

17 comments:

  1. 450 guests still makes it over £15 per head (just for food?). I'm sure some of the guests could've had a whip-round for the retirement party as a leaving present, significantly reducing the cost.

    Comparing this spending to what previous Labour administrations did, whilst outlining their hypocrisy, does not automatically make it "right". The Labour Party was (rightly or wrongly) in a "spend, spend, spend" phase. The Conservative Council saying that they've spent less on this than the exact political party they've been criticising for spending too much is a little bit like (the completely hypothetical and exaggerated situation of) finding out that the Daily Express was entirely responsible for Diana's death.

    The Conservatives are the ones who are imposing austerity measures and saying that we need to spend less. H&F Council can't afford to look to the past to justify not towing the party line - it simply undermines all of their arguments on spending cuts. For Greg Hands MP to say that the party was fine because the council has made cuts elsewhere completely misses the point. Those cuts were there to reduce a deficit, not to fund a party.

    I'll finish on a slightly lighter note: it does sound like Mr Alltimes was an extremely agreeable man. It also sounds like he did do a lot for the borough. It is merely unfortunate that this issue has cropped up at a time when the council has said it wants to spend less. I wish him all of the best in retirement, and hope that we can see more pleasant, pro-active and enthusiastic council staff in the future... but I think we all know that that particular era has now passed.

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  2. "...he has played a key role in the last five years in delivering lower Council Tax..."

    Any 'savings' we made have gone towards this party! Good work, chaps!

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  3. Two wrongs don't make a right.

    Having worked in the private sector for 30 years I have never, ever known such profligate spending on partying at someone else's expense.

    We have to pay council tax or go to prison. You have an absolute responsibility to examine the necessity of spending every single penny of other people's hard won, hard earned wages.

    Shame on all your houses.

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  4. A few years ago at the Greene King pub I worked in we had to pay for own bloody Christmas party because the company didn't want to stump up. On minimum wage.

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  5. If this guy was so popular the staff should have been happy to pay for it with a whip-round.

    Clearly that test of popularity wasn't applied.

    Labour are even worse. At least the Tory paid for his own booze.

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  6. At least I now know where those late fines on my children's library books went. On another party, like the royal wedding, that I helped to pay for but, didn't get an invite to. It's alright though... 'cos it didn't cost as much of OUR money as the other lot used to spend.... That makes me feel so much better about stumping up my council tax every month.... They can't even clear the dog shit from my local park where I take my kids to play.

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  7. I am a touch surprised that Cllr. Harry Phibbs (Con) has spent 830 words on this piece but still missed the point.

    I appreciate that the Conservative Administration held Geoff Alltimes, the former CEO of H&F Council, in high regard but that is irrelevant. The point is they should not have put their hands into the pockets of local council tax payers and plucked out an astonishing £7,104 (exc VAT) to pay for this bash which began at 4.00pm on a Monday afternoon. And to do so in the middle of the worst economic crisis since 1929 is, at best, insensitive to the fears and hardship being suffered by many households across this Borough.

    I want it to be absolutely clear that if Labour wins the Council elections in May 2014, I will ban any tax payer funded leaving dos or parties. People can have their celebrations in their own time funded by private donations – which is what happens for most of us working in the private sector. Things will still be very tough in 2014. I cannot imagine wanting to waste a single penny on anything - let alone a knees-up.

    It will be our priority to improve services, reverse police cuts and cut Council Taxes. We will publish detailed plans, prior to the election, in a manifesto which we will treat as a contract with the people of this Borough – should they decide to make us the new Administration.

    I hope that clarifies exactly where I stand and what Labour would do.

    Regards

    Cllr. Stephen Cowan
    Labour Leader of the Opposition
    The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

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  8. A good effort Mr Phibbs but that doesn't really cut it.

    In debt-ridden times such as these £7,000 parties at the public's expense are unjustifiable, whatever the merits of the celebrant.

    It isn't your money!

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  9. Monstrous.Central Government comes in for a lot of flak, but it's a point of principle that their people dig into their own pockets. Outgoing ambassadors get less lavish send offs. Heads should roll,and Henry Phipps should write a personal cheque today or resign.

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  10. Re: Stephen Cowan, "I hope that clarifies exactly where I stand and what Labour would do."

    It doesn't clarify what you actually did.

    Words are cheap Mr Cowan. How about accounting for our money that Labour actually spent on partying when you actually were in office.

    You will be judged by your past actions, not by your empty words.

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  11. Totally off-topic, but does anyone know anywhere good to buy a Christmas tree in Askew Road area? Thanks. Tom

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  12. Hacked off with useless politicians2 December 2011 at 14:16

    OK the Tories are one thing, but these Labour politicians make me sick. Everything they say just sounds negative, negative, negative.

    How about starting with a humble & meaningful apology for the state of things when you left office. This borough was a badly run, wasteful, inefficient, unimaginative mess.

    For example, where I live in The Bush my bins are now collected properly by two or three polite blokes who turn up without fail, come rain or shine.

    When Labour ran things we had a shambolic army of swearing, shouting, oafs who seemed to take pleasure in doing the job as loudly as possible at any time of day or night & didn't turn up at all half the time & seemed to delight in being as rude as possible to the citizens paying their wages. That's just one example Cowan of how things have changed.

    Everywhere I look I see improvement in the Borough. Improvement that you don't want because it means that lazy Labour MP will finally pay the price for coming out with self-serving opportunist criticism for years on end, rather than actually doing something useful.

    Labour is done for here for decades. If I were you I'd look for office somewhere else because this place is going up in the world. Not down.

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  13. Hacked off with useless politicians said...2 December 2011 at 14:22

    And Tom, I get my tree in the market.

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  14. Going up in the world? Yeah, when half the borough's been knocked down and the population shipped out to the suburbs.

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  15. "Words are cheap Mr Cowan. How about accounting for our money that Labour actually spent on partying when you actually were in office.

    You will be judged by your past actions, not by your empty words."

    Much as I usually prefer not to respond to anonymous post or false smears from Conservative politicians I don't believe I ever gave the go-ahead for any such parties out of tax payers' money when I was in the Cabinet.

    Indeed, I do not go to any of the Council's lavish Christmas parties or indulge in tax payer funded food and drink after the Council’s AGM. I don’t think that is a good use of public money.

    As for past actions: I was the Cabinet Member for Housing between 2002 and 2006 and Deputy Council Leader in 2005/06. I worked with housing associations to ensure they built more affordable homes than any other London borough; I secured £200m of “Decent Homes” government funding to do up people's council homes and introduced a range of policies that tackled homelessness. As Deputy Council Leader I paid off more council debt in that year than the Conservatives have ever managed in any year since. There are certainly things I wished I had done differently as well as those I think were good. I think anyone that's been in charge of anything will reflect on the past in the same way.

    I also think the different people that formed the Labour Administrations between 1986 and 2006 had some truly wonderful and progressive achievements that changed tens of thousands of people's lives for the better. It also did things I wouldn't support. That's the nature of politics. And so on that note, I support some things the current Conservative Administration is doing or trying to achieve.

    But I don't accept that any of that is the point here. This £7,104 should not have been taken from tax payer funds. The current Conservative Administration has cut a record £33m from the budget this year. That means police numbers have been cut, Sure Start nurseries cut, disability and elderly person's services cut, vulnerable children's services cut and lots of stealth taxes have been introduced as you can read here:

    http://www.thecowanreport.com/2011/02/h-tories-cutting-faster-and-further.html

    These are also precarious times for the UK economy. Budgets are tight and it could well be worse next year. I know this money could have been put to much better use. I am genuinely surprised by the excuses of the Conservative councillors trying to justify this waste as you can see here:

    http://www.thecowanreport.com/2011/11/h-conservatives-say-7000-tax-payer.html

    My colleagues and I are in the process of writing a new manifesto. That will set out what a Labour Administration would do from 2014 onwards should local people vote us into office.

    If anyone wants to write to me about that or to discuss any of this further them please do so at stephen@thecowanreport.com. I would appreciate it if you would add your name and address.

    Cllr. Stephen Cowan
    Labour Leader of the Opposition
    The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

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  17. I don't usually respond to anonymous post or false smears from Conservative politicians but I don't believe I ever gave the go-ahead for any such parties out of tax payers' money when I was in the Cabinet.

    Indeed, I do not go to any of the Council's lavish Christmas parties or indulge in tax payer funded food and drink after the Council’s AGM. I don’t think that is a good use of public money.

    As for past actions: I was the Cabinet Member for Housing between 2002 and 2006 and Deputy Council Leader in 2005/06. I worked with housing associations to ensure they built more affordable homes than any other London borough; I secured £200m of “Decent Homes” government funding to do up people's council homes and introduced a range of policies that tackled homelessness. As Deputy Council Leader I paid off more council debt in that year than the Conservatives have ever managed in any year since. There are certainly things I wished I had done differently as well as those I think were good. I think anyone that's been in charge of anything will reflect on the past in the same way.

    I also think the different people that formed the Labour Administrations between 1986 and 2006 had some truly wonderful and progressive achievements that changed tens of thousands of people's lives for the better. It also did things I wouldn't support. That's the nature of politics. And so on that note, I support some things the current Conservative Administration is doing or trying to achieve.

    But I don't accept that any of that is the point here. This £7,104 should not have been taken from tax payer funds. The current Conservative Administration has cut a record £33m from the budget this year. That means police numbers have been cut, Sure Start nurseries cut, disability and elderly person's services cut, vulnerable children's services cut and lots of stealth taxes have been introduced as you can read here:

    http://www.thecowanreport.com/2011/02/h-tories-cutting-faster-and-further.html

    These are also precarious times for the UK economy. Budgets are tight and it could well be worse next year. I know this money could have been put to much better use. I am genuinely surprised by the excuses of the Conservative councillors trying to justify this waste as you can see here:

    http://www.thecowanreport.com/2011/11/h-conservatives-say-7000-tax-payer.html

    My colleagues and I are in the process of writing a new manifesto. That will set out what a Labour Administration would do from 2014 onwards should local people vote us into office.

    If anyone wants to write to me about that or to discuss any of this further them please do so at stephen@thecowanreport.com. I would appreciate it if you would add your name and address.

    Cllr. Stephen Cowan
    Labour Leader of the Opposition
    The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham

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