Funding boost for Hastings

[Richard]

Hastings has been granted £24.3m boost for regeneration.
Hastings has been awarded £24.3m from the Government’s Towns Fund.
£24.3m is a significant amount, a further £85m of funding has been approved.
This amounts to a remarkable £100m+ investment in Hastings.

https://www.hastings.gov.uk/news/latest ... l-funding/

[seahermit]

Over the last few years, Hastings has won many millions in government or EU handouts. Where does all that money go? Does anybody really know, except for the council and some local development agencies?

Far from the money making a big difference to the quality of life, Hastings sadly seems to have become much scruffier and rougher with deep and unresolved problems. Tramps, beggars and homeless people everywhere, little reduction in crime, police and street wardens almost completely absent. I walk a lot and can guarantee that in nearly EVERY street you will find atleast one empty property - some have been derelict for many years. But there is no strategy for using those empty premises and no interest from politicians or local authorities.

Cynics might guess where the handouts end up - but that is venturing into libellous territory.

[UncleB]

Cynics might guess where the handouts end up - but that is venturing into libellous territory.

I have worked in civil service and also housing authorities in the past - your suspicions are well founded. Like with the government, there will be contracts awarded to companies with questionable links to those in charge with ropey results and no consequences.

The watchdog bodies are toothles and kept that way for a reason.

I doubt it will change in our lifetimes, so it may be worth setting up your own company and getting to know the local councellors, make what deals are necessary and do good with what little is left over.

Cynical? With good reason!

[Richard]

Hastings council is a tame creature compared with Liverpool's council, fiercely anti-Tory and one of Britain’s most powerful councils with a “rotten culture” of dubious contracts and backroom bullying, where staff were silenced and official records dumped in skips.
In the mid-1980s Hatton’s Militant-led council plunged the city into near-bankruptcy.

[seahermit]

I worked in a government department too, for a few years, then an insurance company which dealt largely with local authorities and public bodies. Phew! What an eye-opener! I was appalled by the waste of money on mis-planned and badly-executed projects - many of the failures were never heard about by the ordinary public.

There are of course dubious things going on in Hastings, some are fairly obvious and known about, but getting solid evidence and changing the culture - not a hope.

[Richard]

If a council, in this case Hastings, is offered money for government-sponsored projects then you can't really blame Hastings for eagerly accepting the cash.
If money offered is then the council in Hastings cannot be expected to insist on conditions, rules, regulations.
That is down to whoever offers the cash.

[seahermit]

The source of the funding is not the issue, nor what conditions are attached. If the Government decides to dish out some financial help to a deprived town - good.

It is where the money ends up which is the problem. The supposed controls and oversights are not effective and much of the money disappears into a large hole, without any visible changes or benefits to the town. Hastings has as many problems as it had twenty/thirty years ago. The council constantly "talks up" the town, nobody believes it (bit like the old USSR's propaganda!) ... but what can you do?

[UncleB]

It is where the money ends up which is the problem.

You hit the nail on the head!

Think of the PPE scandal when the Covid pandemic started - all those companies with no track record appearing and getting millions only to never deliver or just deliver stuff unfit for purpose.

Oh and they were largely run by people with connections to the ministers involved - surely just a coincidence...

If there is an oversight committee for the councils spending or review of their finances then I would very much like to know about it.

[Richard]

Local authorities spend public money and must tell local residents and taxpayers how their money is spent. They do this by publishing yearly accounts and details of their spending.
As an interested person you can inspect an authority’s accounts and related documents.

Most of the management and coordination of procurement for items such as PPE has been outsourced.
The NHS should be given a chance to bid for contracts.

[seahermit]

There have always been systems in place for the auditing of local authority accounts ("Public Auditor" or some other body?) - but over many years I don't remember any mentions of auditors making public pronouncements about local authority finances. The general public never hear half of it.

Whatever systems currently exist, they didn't stop Liverpool Council going virtually bankrupt nor the "council flats for Tory voters" scandal in Westminster. To name just a couple of abuses.

Anyone who thinks that local councils' annual accounts, or even auditors' reports, give a clear, unmanipulated view of how the power operates and where the money goes is very naive indeed. Like any big organisations, local councils are experts at covering up and protecting themselves - many scandals are not uncovered until many years afterwards.

Human nature, with its greed and self-interest, remains the same and the world goes on revolving ..