Council funding scrutiny: Are Taunton BID deceiving the Council & businesses?
We’ve discussed the £45,000 SWT Council have given to Taunton BID for their YES campaign in this article, but let’s take a look at some council documentation approving the second grant of £20,000, where there appear to be some exagerations and even mistruths on the Executive Decision form the Councillor was given to sign. This could be the fault of the Council employee author, but she is only likely to have completed this form following consultation with the Taunton Chamber of Commerce for the detail. The original Executive Decision document is at the bottom of this page, and from what we can show it certainly appears to have been pushed through without proper examination or scrutiny, it would even be reasonable to suggest that the Taunton Chamber of Commerce have possibly misled the Councillor in order to get the money!
The quotes below in italics are taken straight from the original Executive Decision document (below), and under each part are our comments.
DETAILS OF DECISION:
“Taunton Chamber of Commerce are facilitating the initial Feasibility Study for the Taunton BID. This work is supported by the Taunton Retailers Group and Taunton Deane Borough Council. Initial funding of £25,000 was provided by the Council to support the consultation and feasibility study stage.”
Who is this “Taunton Retailers Group” supporting the BID? The Taunton BID proposers have failed to openly declare this interested party to anyone else. Must be really big and important supporters if they are provided to the Council as a BID stakeholder, yet they’re not being openly declared as behind the BID to levy businesses, not even in Taunton BID FAQ’s which you can read more about here.
So as far as the Council understand, both the consultation and feasibility stages have been conducted, but since the launch event in July 2019 Taunton BID have been telling everyone they are currently in “Consultation stage to consider having a BID”. See more on this here.
“Following a formal tender procedure, completed during November and December 2018, Destination Management and Marketing was duly appointed as the consultant to liaise with businesses (420) in the area and to produce a Feasibility Study. Businesses were able to influence the proposed boundary, exemptions and the levy rates.”
So as part of the feasibility study, the impression that the Council have been given is that 420 businesses have been consulted with about the BID? This is not a true statement, very misleading, to start with only a small proportion of business were ever spoken with at the time, including businesses outside of the BID area.
But what is more worrying is that the Council thinks the businesses have already been able to influence the boundary, exemptions (i.e. RV rate under which businesses won’t pay the levy and whether to make charity shops exempt) and the levy rates, but from what is stated in the feasibility study all of this appears totally untrue. In her feasibility study the BID consultant made recommendations on all three factors to the Taunton Chamber of Commerce which were duly accepted and have been put forward as the proposal for the current consultation stage with the businesses. Most BID’s will normally use the Consultation stage we’re in now to decide on factors such as boundary, exemptions and levy rate. But Taunton BID have already categorically stated that exemptions and levy rate is already decided, although the BID boundary could be changed as a result of consulting with the businesses at this stage;
All hereditaments with an RV of £5,000 or more will pay the levy (so any hereditament with an RV less than £5,000 is exempt).
There are no other exemptions such as charity shops.
The levy rate will be 1.5% of RV, fixed and no discussion about it.
The ability of BID business to influence these factors has been negligible to say the least, and when this £20,000 grant was applied for the formal Consultation stage we’re now in hadn’t even started.
“Initial findings concluded that there is strong support for a BID in Taunton and the Feasibility Study recommends proceeding to the development of a full business plan and formal ballot in January 2020.”
32 business of a possible total of 420 businesses said they would support the BID, which is 7.62% of the voting businesses, is this defined as strong? Let’s also remember that the BID Consultant chose which businesses to survey, no doubt approaching many who are already known to be warm to the idea of a new BID, and as she says in her feasibility study this number included businesses outside of the proposed BID area. It’s hard to find an example anywhere in the UK where a BID Consultants’ feasibility study has not recommended full development of a BID, it’s well known they want the business that’s why. There are now even BID Consultants offering FREE feasibility studies!
Q&A reply with Taunton BID 12th September 2019. Why are they refusing to be open with dates yet tell the Council and a handful of businesses?
Then we have the admission that plans are to develop a full business plan and hold a ballot in January 2020. But wait there, since July Taunton BID have been telling us that they are currently consulting with businesses to consider whether we have a BID or not! So whom are they lying to; the Council or the voting BID businesses, has to be one or the other, see our article on this here.
Then there’s a January ballot date mentioned which will be news to most! The closest businesses have been given to a date is Spring 2020, and in our Q&A with Taunton BID they replied ‘next year’. This is despite being asked the past few months (without reply) for the timetable they shared with a few BID businesses in their steering group meeting back in May 2019. Another example of a lack of openness and transparency.
“To enable progress further £20,000 will be awarded to the Chamber of Commerce to support the completion of the final stages of the ballot.”
Further progress from June is the Consultation stage to develop the BID we’ve all been told is currently happening, followed by vote YES campaigning and the ballot, all of which is a marketing and PR propaganda exercise. Did the Council even ask for a breakdown of what the £20,000 would be spent on? Surely public money grants of this size would have much more supporting detail but there’s not one bit of information provided on what the £20,000 would specifically be spent on, apart from “support the completion of the final stages of the ballot”.
Q&A reply with Taunton BID 12th September 2019 saying they’re in a Consultation period do decide whether we have a BID at all, which contrasts with what they’ve told the Council and all their other messaging.
The other key point here to highlight yet again, is that to businesses Taunton BID are saying they’re currently consulting in order to “consider whether to have a BID”, but this statement shows us all what they’re really doing, having already decided to hold a ballot with a date in mind. Clearly there’s ‘no considering’, they’ve already told the Council they’ve made the decision that the BID ballot is going ahead, and this is what the money is for. So Taunton BID are either telling mistruths to the Council or the voting businesses, which one is it we wonder?
REASONS FOR THE PROPOSED DECISION:
“This initial support from the Council will enable a BID in Taunton that will generate over £230,000 in levy annually for the benefit of the business and community.”
So the first reason to grant the money is that the BID will raise £230,000; not exactly a stark revelation or strong justification, although they have said it’s for the benefit of both the businesses and community. Lets get this right, the Council want to support putting an extra business rate on a select number of town centre businesses, because besides the BID businesses it also benefit of the wider Taunton community? Tax some for the greater good benefit for the whole of Taunton is their reasoning; sounds like a business rate even more.
“The levy will also draw significant match funding into the Town Centre in Taunton.”
Q&A reply with Taunton BID 12th September 2019 re match funding, saying “most other BID’s manage this”.
Taunton BID have already been banding around the phrase ‘match funding’ too much already, and clearly we can also see that even the Council have been led to believe the BID can draw ‘significant’ match funding. In the press Taunton BID have even put numbers to this significant match funding claim, saying they can turn £1.3mn into £2million ‘because other BID’s manage it’ – but this is categorically untrue and we have proven this already (see our article here). How on earth can Taunton BID be using such unsubstantiated match funding promises to the Council to secure the grant?!
So in summary, Taunton BID have told the Council it’s worth them investing another £20,000 because together with the initial grant of £25,000, they’ll turn that into £1.3 million over 5 years from the businesses, which will be turned into significantly more with match funding. What Council would turn down such an offer of money being pumped into their back yard if they thought it would be true - and all for a total investment of £45,000 in the vote YES BID campaign!
ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED AND REJECTED:
“To not award the funding to the Taunton Chamber of Commerce and suggest that they attempt to find funding from alternative source.”
“Rejected: The process to develop a new BID in Taunton is underway and support is strong. Any delay in the process will require further consultation to be carried out, incur additional costs and may result in a loss in confidence in the process.”
Even alternative options have not been properly considered. All that was meant to have happened up to this date in June, was a feasibility study in order to decide whether to move forwards with BID development, which is the Consultation stage anyway. Appears the Taunton Chamber of Commerce were even using melodramatic scare tactics on the Council by mentioning additional costs and loss in confidence in the process, when only a minority of businesses actually knew BID could be in the pipeline and the proper consultation process hadn’t yet started, so what these additional costs are we have no idea. Time isn’t of essence either, we’ve heard that the Taunton Chamber of Commerce have been discussing and saying they’ll be going for a BID for over 18 months now, so it could easily have been ‘paused’ whilst other sources of funding were investigated. Perhaps an examination of a proper Taunton BID spending plan might have shown they didn’t even need the full £20,000? Going back to the early stages of their planning, Taunton BID could have applied to government backed BID Loan Fund, which if they had been granted would not have put pressure on SWT Council to feel obliged to giving them all this money.
When you look at the detail of what we’ve presented, hopefully you’ll also agree that it appears the Taunton Chamber of Commerce as the BID proposers look to have presented mistruths to the Council in order to get all their vote YES campaign money. But it’s also worrying that the Council have granted it so easily without much scrutiny, and that there is evidence Taunton BID are also deceiving the BID businesses with mistruths about their real intentions and plans. All this matters because the last BID failed for reasons including reputational problems and lack of transparency, and Taunton BID are showing exactly the same traits yet again.
