What is the cost savings proposal about, another ruse?
This is a standard pitch in the BID Consultant Mo Aswat’s 'cut & paste' BID business plan template, but a couple consideration points:
1. Most BIDs are not centrally negotiating such services in the way you are being told, ask the Task Force if Mo has given them examples of where over 200 businesses have negotiated such deals where they’ve all moved provider together. Mo will be hard pressed to provide such evidence.
2. Ask the task force how they plan to do this, normally Mo recommends a consultancy company called Meercat Associates, the BID pays them a fee upfront (before any savings are made) of around £10k+/year just to look into savings with those businesses that want to be part of it. That’s a lot of money upfront and a big chunk of the BIDs' budget before any savings are even made. Does this sort of scheme sound like value for money? Is this a high priority for you in having a BID?
This proposal appears election promise propaganda with no substance, trying to entice you with something that hasn't been properly thought through. In reality a lot of BIDs drop this Business Plan idea, just as Yorkshire Coast BID did after trying the Meercat service last year because it was not working, poor value for money.
FYI if you want savings from Meercat Associates you don’t even need to be part of a BID, they actually offer this bill reduction service for free to any business anyway. See for yourself how you might benefit as part of Meerkat’s own group buying power at https://www.meercatassociates.com.
Get the Task Force to back up what they are proposing, key question is are they planning to spend money on a cost reduction service consultancy like Meerkat, and if so, what is the justification and associated projected costs for it?
For more information here are some town case study articles on this subject:
https://www.againstbid.org/.../go-compare-confusedcom-and...
A note about our scrutiny posts: Let’s remember that the BID Task Force will only ever tell you what they want to hear to secure a yes vote, that’s fair enough, they are campaigning you now for a yes vote. So naturally their documentation is going to be biased to a yes with 'election promises', and with that they won’t necessarily share the full story and both sides of any point they make, and misinformation and even mistruths can creep in. You are of course entitled to provide your own feedback to and ask questions of any member of the BID Task Group and we encourage that, such scrutiny is important because if BID gets in the plan needs to be as strong as possible. Our posts are designed to help you as a voter do this.