£40,000 Wasted! Before Consultation has even begun (Twickenham & Richmond Liberal Democrats)

£40,000 Wasted! Before Consultation has even begun

September 8, 2010 6:05 PM

cllr gareth roberts • [Sep 08] Gareth Roberts writes: DAVID Williams and I attended the council cabinet meeting on Monday 6th September to urge the Conservative administration to take time to rethink its plans regarding the proposed All In One consultation.

Not only are we concerned that the new administration is considering spending over £100,000 on a survey which nobody has asked for, what is truly shocking is that the plans in their current form include a projected waste of £40,000 of taxpayers' money. To add insult to injury they are fully aware of this enormous waste and yet they plan to plough ahead regardless.

According to the Conservatives' own cabinet report they intend to spend a total of £45,000 on printing and posting the survey to every household in the borough, yet they expect to receive only 10 % of these surveys to be returned. It follows, therefore, that £40,000 will be wasted on printing and posting surveys that they do not expect to receive back.

This is a disgraceful waste of taxpayers' money, particularly at a time when the Conservatives are presiding over one of the biggest cuts programmes in the borough's history. I urge the council to take a step back and decide whether they should be throwing money away in this fashion. They should, at the very least, consult market research professionals and other councils to see if they could advise more cost effective ways of achieving a more representative picture of public opinion. As we pointed out, no borough resident would mind if the cabinet was to be honest with residents and acknowledge that they may need to change their plans if it meant saving £40,000 of tax payers money. If they press ahead regardless then residents will be justifiably angry'

The Liberal Democrat group would be more than willing to discuss any realistic consultation exercise which would offer real results and value for money. We regret to say that in our opinion the present All In One Survey proposals will produce very little in the way of meaningful results, will cost money that the council can ill afford and what will cause many residents concern is that £40,000 of tax payers money will be wasted without the Conservatives giving it a second thought

• EXTRACT from the report to Cabinet (Sep 06):

' . . 5. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

5.1. Costs

• Survey printing: around £9.75K (based on estimates for a shorter version of Arcadia and a print run of around 85,000).

• Survey distribution costs: around £35K for posting one copy to each household. Free post return costs could be up to £1,500.

• Data input and analysis: this will depend on the length of the survey and style of the questions asked (open or closed), based on a 5%-10% response rate approximate costs could be from £4K to £10K

• Road show costs: predominantly officer and Councillor time, hall hire.

• Staff time: Two full time members of staff from the Community Engagement Team throughout September to December to manage the all in one programme and related activity.

5.2. The total cost of the survey would therefore be in the range of £50,000 to £60,000 depending on the approval and options selected. Additional publicity costs would be around £35,000.'

Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats: