Future delivery of Public Services
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Dear wrexham.com community
In my capacity as a County Councillor I along with others have recently challenged the Lead Member, Cllr Hugh Jones, to focus on delivering our Library services and management of our four Resource Centres (Acton, Coedpoeth, Gwersyllt and Llay) by way of a Wrexham Trust. The current thinking is that for expediency we ought to look to have these services run by a recently formed Trust in Blanau Gwent or Merthyr Tydfil. Thankfully Cllr Jones has provided his personal assurances as portfolio holder for Communities to come back with a full risk assessment of both options and his view of the best way forward.
For me we need to show some vision by setting up our own umbrella Trust, which can accommodate the needs of those services mentioned as well as Heritage, the new Arts Hub, Leisure facilities, Community Centres and even the management of Wrexham Town Centre. Such a Trust could in time be used as the vehicle for running similar services in Flintshire or Denbigshire.
We are fortunate in Wrexham in that we already have examples of well run Trusts with a track-record of delivering for our communities – Tennis Centre in Rhossdu, Wrexham Supporters Trust and the North Wales Miners Association Trust to name those that readily come to mind. I also need to mention Splash Magic who have taken over what was a service costing the Council many hundreds of thousands of pound per year to run.
My wish to see WCBC officers fully explore and hopefully deliver a Wrexham Trust is one shared with many fellow County Councillors.
However I would appreciate your thoughts and comments, especially if you have experience of Trust run services which can help shape the future delivery of much valued public services in our County.
Cllr Phil Wynn
Phil I admire your openness and the fact you are trying to engage which is more than can be said for may of your colleagues and officers.– That said you clearly have an ambitious vision which potentially has merit to bring all these together for Wrexham and I certainly support the idea of possibly doing the same over the border in other counties. Wrexham being an expansionist area not one of contraction which seems to be the vision of the Lead Member and officers.
The problem with all of these ideas is the Council (Members and officers) have buried their head in the sand in terms of preparing for the cuts and if only they started looking at the potential impact 3/4 years ago the way forward would be totally different.
As you say there are people in Wrexham with vision and knowledge so why not bring them all together in a Pubic Meeting to start sounding out the real level of interest to take the ideas forward and make Wexham an expansionist leader not a follower with only one thought – how to off load all our Pubic Services to faceless people based many miles away from the delivery point.
If we don’t then give up now and hand everything lock stock and barrel to Capita or another such service company.
I say bring it on and lets take the vision to the people- people power worked on Plas Madoc and Gresford it can work again.@PhilWynn 18956 wrote:
Dear wrexham.com community
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However I would appreciate your thoughts and comments, especially if you have experience of Trust run services which can help shape the future delivery of much valued public services in our County.
Cllr Phil WynnThere is a great deal of support for your proposal. It is quite clear from discussions locally that people want better solutions. Trusts work highly successfully in many areas in the UK, you have given good examples for Wrexham. Generally, these are organised and supported on a localised base, by people who are ‘in reach and to hand’ – a South Wales based management agent would probably become remote and disconnected to the day to day issues over time, and that is when such outfits loose client and customer focus. Supporting localised people, who have a stake in seeing Wrexham do well, for this generation, and the next generation, can only be progress.
The people of Wrexham have a history of doing things for themselves, think Nightingale House, Shooting Star, Memorial Hall and Wrexham Supporters Trust.
Health, Social Care, Open Recreation Space, Community Buildings, Education all had their roots in the community, faith groups and philanthropists– it may have been 100 plus that the communities started to take control before the state moved in to do what they thought was a ‘better’ job. That clearly is very debatable in the current climate. Many of these initiative started with ‘public subscription’ and people making their own decisions about what they wanted to support.
Lets be really radical slice the Community Rates and empower the people to decide through subscription what they would like. — A Gym in an area is an added service that not everyone wants – so what do you do you create a membership scheme and those that want the service pay. This concept could apply to libraries, community centers, arts centers etc. If the finances don’t stack up then those facilities will close — why should funding from non users be used in this manner to keep facility for the few.
Subscriptions could be proportionate for those able to pay — this is no different to the concept of rates on property with various rates depending on property values etc.Had a conversation in the pub about this lunch time. A strong consensus is still that the Council should start by looking at the overall budget, and first publish a very simple and straight forward account of what is and is not affordable. The list from the accounts (which I’ve put up in the forum before) is:
Central Services to the Public
Cultural and Related Services
Environmental and Regulatory Services
Planning Services
Children’s and Education Services
Highways and Transport Services
Local Authority Housing and Other Housing Services
Adult Social Care
Corporate and Democratic Core
Non Distributed Costs
Other Operating Expenditure
Finance and Investment Income and ExpenditureThere are only 12 areas in the budget, and Education, Housing, and Social Care take up the greatest share of spend. There is about £230m we are told, which in industry is dealt with by 3, 4 or 5 people. Here, there are 50 councillors, and probably 50 managerial roles, involved in budget setting and management. This model is probably the first thing that makes a lot of community and Council activity unsustainable
The use of the funding by the Council should be split into three very similar categories —
1. Statutory — absolutely essential with no options such as Education, Social Care
2. The desirable — essential but not statutory
3. Non essentials – nice to have but not essential and totally at the control of Council Members
Baffling everyone with pages and large numbers of columns of figures is a total turn off and does not help the public understand the situation.
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