Central Bedfordshire Council - Useful Information

Your Unitary Councillors:

MarkSmith (Independent)

View Contact Details, Attendance Record and Declarations at meetings, Register of Interests & Committee Appointments

Mike Blair (Consevative)

View Contact Details, Attendance Record and Declarations at meetings, Register of Interests & Committee Appointments

Paul Duckett (Conservative)

View Contact Details, Attendance Record and Declarations at meetings, Register of Interests & Committee Appointments

Useful Links

• Committee structure
• Council Meetings & Committees
• Calendar of meetings
• Council Decisions

Ampthill Town Council - Useful Information

• Meeting - Agendas & Minutes
• Councillors  

Council Watcher

• Central Bedfordshire Council has spent £533,443 (compared with £19,000 for Bedford Borough) on rebranding since becoming a unitary authority in April 2009. A Freedom of Information request made by the BBC revealed it spent the money on items such as a logo and signage. The Conservative council tops a list of newly-formed English unitary authorities ranked by the amount they have spent on branding.
• Nearly 240 staff at Central Bedfordshire Council were paid more than £50,000 last year (2009) - That is the equivalent to one tenth of the 2,615-strong workforce, the top three of which each received more than £150,000. The person who received the highest was Jaki Salisbury, who was paid a total of £368,788 as temporary chief executive - £250,000 of which came in the form of a golden handshake. She left her post in October 2009, with the permanent job going to Richard Carr, who commands a salary of £185,000.
• Central Beds Council Projected overspend of nearly £6m vs £22,000 spent on needless Central Beds Signage - in the same week that it was revealed that Central Beds Council was likely to go £5.809m further into the red for 2010/11 it was revealed that the council had spent £22,000 on erecting signs welcoming people to Central Bedfordshire!
• Central Beds Council Accommodation Fiasco - Central Bedfordshire Council spent £898,932.95 between January and June 2010 on staff travel costs. That is the equivalent of more than £307 per member of staff employed by the authority in April 2009. The authority says the high figure is due to a major programme of reducing office space that will save the taxpayer £1million over the next four years. However does this show insufficient planning at Central Beds Council's inception? One of the reasons given for the construction of the Council Offices at Chicksands was to cut down staff travelling between the Mid Beds District Council Offices at Ampthill and Biggleswade, now a few years latter Central Beds Council is operating from a number of sites across Bedfordshire (including Chicksands, Dunstable and Technology House, Ampthill Road, Bedford. The former Mid Beds Offices in Ampthill and former adjoining County Council Russell House lie derelict! Perhaps with a little more foresight this who site could have been developed to accommodate all of the new Central Beds Council's accommodation needs!
• Central Bedfordshire Electoral review - www.lgbce.org.uk/all-reviews/eastern/bedfordshire/central-bedfordshire-electoral-review - Big Changes afoot for us in Ampthill as the current review is proposing that Ampthill joins with Maulden & Clophill in electing 3 unitary councillors. This is supported by the Conservative group. Is this a case of Gerrymandering?
• Church Meadows Development - Ampthill Town Council's decision to not adopt the car parking provision with this development may seem perverse, as it would have been an asset for the town, plus with the change in developer there is every possibility that those seeking long stay car parking will be charged.
• Council Tax - Ampthill Town Council's precept for 2010/11 is £498,150, and represents a 0% increase over last year
• Key Tory blasts his party over the running of the council - Conservative Central Beds Councillor David Lawrence & Audit Committee Chairman has slammed his party for mis-spending public funds, namely for raising council tax by over 3% (amongst the highest in the UK), for freezing their councillor allowances (when an independent panel recommended a reduction), for their plans over restructuring the senior management team and he also taised 'concerns across the whole council agenda'.Liberal Democrat Group Leader Peter Blaine stated that 'Taxpayers are paying one of the biggest council tax increases in the country and yet getting substantial reductions in service and they are seeing their money spent on allowances for senior Tories that the independent panel said were too high'. (Source: Beds on Sunday - 7th March 2010)
• Central Beds Council Computer System Failure - on Monday 15th February 2010 the Central Beds 'state of the art' IT system crashed as did it's back up server. What cost this failure!
• Central Beds Council Tax to increase by 3.5% - this from the council that had promised to cut or not increase council tax in it's original bid for unitary status. In addition the workforce is to be cut by 20%. Was Central Beds Council blinded by becoming a unitary and inheriting the debts of Beds County Council to the detriment of the residents of Ampthill & the rest of Central Beds. Due Diligence was perhaps not a priority!
• Central Beds Chief Executive get £250,000 'Golden Goodbye' - Jaki Salisbury receives a 'golden goodbye' package in October 2009, when new Cheif Executive Richard Carr (from Wolverhapton Borough Council) takes over on a salary of £185,000
• Central Beds Cut Ampthill Bus Serices - the Red Rose 223/231 Sunday Service Bedford to Dunstable via Ampthill is scrapped
• Central Beds Budget Overspend - the new authority is likely to have an overspend of between £5.9m & £7.9m
• Lack of Shared Services - where are the savings in Central Beds & Bedford Borough duplicating services rather than sharing services!
• Councillor Allowances - the Conservative led authority asked an independent panel to determine the level of allowances for councillors of the new authority and then choose to ignore their recommendations and award themselves nearly £2000 per annum. Go figure with 66 councillors that's an extra £132,000!
• Cllr Tricia Turner becomes the first Leader of Central Beds Council - her deputy is Cllr Richard Stay who had expected to be leader post the June 2009 Election (perhaps a case of 'keep your friends close and your enemies closer' (Cllr Stay's Blog always makes interesting reading at  http://cllrstay.blogspot.com)
• Central Beds Council operating from 3 Sites - ironic that part of the rational for building the new Mid Beds District Council offices at Chicksands, was that the council should operate from one site instead of two (Ampthill and Biggleswade), unyet with the creation of the new council they will be operating from three sites (Chicksands, Dunstable & Bedford). So much for savings in travelling between the sites!