Sandy sure is guilty

​A unanimous verdict on all counts. Cue lots of tutting, head-shaking and eye-rolling across Thanet and east Kent. Cue many changes of underwear at TDC, as the police widen their enquiries...

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Former Conservative Thanet council leader Sandy Ezekiel has been found guilty of four counts of misconduct in public office.

Ezekiel, 59, has been on trial at Maidstone Crown Court to answer charges of using confidential information to buy a property for himself , trying to force the owner of a neighbouring building to sell up by instigating enforcement proceedings against him, failing to disclose his interest in two Margate properties to Thanet council and misconduct in public office.

A jury brought back a unanimous verdict of guilty on all charges this afternoon.Co-accused Philip Emanual, 64,of Margate has also been found guilty of aiding and abetting Ezekiel by acting as a proxy buyer for 12a King Street.

The offences took place between September 2009 and February 2011. Ezekiel used inside council information on bids for a12B King Street, Margate, to secure the property for himself.

He then got pal Emanuel, who was best man at his wedding, to act as a proxy buyer for the property, and used his  position to ask for enforcement proceedings be brought against Alan Douglas , owner of 12A King Street, to persuade him to sell that property.

He failed to disclose his interest in 12B  to the council or Mr Douglas until after the sale had been agreed.

It is thought to be one of the first cases of a councillor being convicted of such a charge. Misconduct in public office is a rare offence but sentencing guidelines usually involve a custodial term.

Judge Andrew Nicol has retired to consider pre-sentence reports for the pair with sentencing due later this afternoon [1st March 2013].

thisiskent 1st March 2013

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Thanet councillors and officials are under investigation in the wake of the trial of former leader Sandy Ezekiel.

Property deals and personal interests of politicians and public servants, past and present, are being probed by police after extensive research and interviews with figures past and present. Several former elected members could face further questioning for undeclared business connections to developers and council contracts.

A Kent Police detective confirmed that officers are gathering evidence on several cases of major planning applications where councillors or officers may have had an undeclared personal interest in a scheme. The council is under increasing pressure to disclose more information about high-profile developments and the expenditure of European Regional Development Fund money.

Separately, the independent Information Commissioner, responsible for openness in public life and data privacy, is investigating claims of a Thanet council cover-up, after the authority has repeatedly refused to comply with requests under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. Most senior councillors conduct official business on personal e-mail accounts and therefore communication on matters in the public interest may have remained hidden from view.

A council spokesman said:

"Councillors carry out both TDC public duties, which are subject to FOI, and constituency business and surgeries, which may often be referred to as council business, but as private individuals they are not subject to FOI where any council inspection of these e-mails would be tantamount to hacking."

FOI legislation is clear: information commissioner Christopher Graham said in his 2011 guidance to councils:

"It should not come as a surprise to public authorities to have the clarification that information in private e-mail can be subject to Freedom of Information law if it relates to official business. This has always been the case – the act covers all recorded information in any form."

thisiskent 1st March 2013

Council throws good money at bad airport

KCC + KLM + KIA = WTF

Getting a straight answer out of KCC is hard at the best of times - even with the legal leverage of the Freedom of Information Act it can take months. But it's usually worth the wait, and the dogged persistence is rewarded. And let's not forget, anything that's released under the FoI Act is stuff that they should have told you in the first place. By definition.

A man of Kent, showing the finest British bulldog determination and tenacity set about finding out if there are any hidden deals behind the recently announced KLM-Manston story. Eventually, he managed to prise these three sentences out of them:

I can confirm Kent County Council has not been asked for any contributions from KLM nor have we been asked to fund KLM.

We were however, asked by the owners of Manston airport if we would contribute to a marketing package to market both the route and the opportunities in Kent.

We have agreed a contribution of up to £100,000 subject to approval of a marketing plan and for the monies to be managed by Visit Kent.

Regular readers will remember that KCC and Infratil colluded in a bid to central Government which included a generous £600k sweetener for KLM - effectively "we'll pay you to use this airport". They were turned down, quite rightly.

We'll probably never know whether KLM had put pressure on them to cross their palm with silver, or whether KCC and Infratil are simply very generous (with other people's money), but it's depressingly unsurprising to find that they're at it again.

Everyone knows Infratil is selling Manston airport. More accurately, Infratil is trying to sell Manston airport - it's been on the market since March 2012, and the asking price seems to be sinking to the same level as airport-free agricultural land. Despite this, they have the balls to ask KCC for money to market and promote the highest profile route they've got (even though it isn't even running yet). KCC, unspeakable idiots that they are, agreed!

For reasons best known to KCC - but I suspect connected to EU competition regulations - they will be "laundering" the money through Visit Kent. So Kent County Council is happy to use public money to market a French/Dutch airline flying from a New Zealand-owned airport. And, yes, this is the same KCC that's cutting funding to things that people care about.

What makes KCC think this will be money well spent? And what exactly are Visit Kent going to be doing? Good questions, which we have asked on your behalf.

Why Steer Davies Gleave?

This is from the internal KCC document that describes how the contract (to produce the supporting report for the £10m RGF bid) was awarded.

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Outline of Project

Although KCC has previously carried out some outline feasibility work for the proposed Thanet Parkway station (most recently in July 2009), this requires significant updating and development; including more comprehensive passenger demand forecasting and a full feasibility design of the station and car park, if a robust and credible RGF bid is to be prepared. The Government is particularly interested in the job creation potential (both direct and indirect) of proposed schemes, which has not previously been a requirement of traditional transport appraisals. For these reasons, and in light of the challenging timescale for the submission of a first-round RGF bid, it was agreed with the Director of Integrated Strategy and Planning that KCC should invite three technical consultants to tender for this work. [You can read the Invitation to Tender below.]

Reasons for appointing this particular Consultant:

Steer Davies Gleave have been appointed to work on this project primarily due to their proposed approach to the calculation of the additional employment created (directly and indirectly) as a result of the construction of the Thanet Parkway station. This is the key criterion against which RGF bids will be appraised by Government and therefore it is crucial that the consultant's approach in this area is thorough and robust.

The approach proposed by MVA and Jacobs was relatively primitive, relying heavily on consultation with a limited number of local employers (specifically Kent International Airport and Pfizer) to establish the likely number of additional jobs arising from the development of the Parkway station. By contrast, Steer Davies Gleave propose to use their Spatial Economic Impact Model (SpECTRa), which takes as inputs the results of Benefit Cost Analyses of the station and models the structural changes these impacts cause on the local economy via productivity gains and increases in attractiveness. The outputs of the model include changes to wages and prices, to jobs by occupation, to productivity and output, as well as to trade with the rest of the UK, by economic sector.

The SpECTRa model has been approved by the DfT in previous transport scheme appraisals and represents a more comprehensive and sophisticated approach to economic analysis than those proposed by MVA and Jacobs.

Benefits Expected of appointing this Consultant:

The principal benefits expected from appointing Steer Davies Gleave to work on this project are those relating to the quantification of the economic benefits of the Parkway station, as described above. Steer Davies Gleave have extensive experience of preparing business cases and funding bids for rail infrastructure projects, including Liverpool South Parkway and the proposed Stratford Parkway.

The fixed fee of £42,723 proposed by Steer Davies Gleave is considered reasonable. The funding will be made up of contributions from KCC's Sustainable Transport and Transport Policy Teams and Thanet District Council.

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Did you spot any key phrases?

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Dear Reader, you can download your copy of the once-secret KCC Bid Document below, and if you can deduce (or already know) the identities of the airline, or the European hub airport, that are painstakingly blacked out throughout the document, do let me know. Thank you.

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Manston unmonitored

Like getting blood from a stone, corpuscles from concrete, plasma from paving stones... you get the picture. It can be frustrating for information vampires, thirsting after a few drops of information from TDC. But patience and persistence is rewarded:

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Q. Thank you for your communication received on 10th November 2010 where you asked who is responsible for allowing the current and past operators of Manston airport to flout the S106 and allow TDC to ignore the requirements of the S106 due to the perceived usage of it (the airport) as being low?

A. No one person has made a conscious decision not to pursue action against the airport for breaches in the S106 agreement. Our enforcement regime is based upon a protocol which means that we react to complaints and investigate accordingly. On receipt of complaints we investigate and respond to the complainant to inform them of the action taken.

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So there you have it folks, make of it what you will. One person made a sub-conscious (unconscious?) decision, or maybe several people made a conscious decision, to ignore the rights and responsibilities imposed on TDC by the S106. Either way, the "enforcement protocol" consists of "investigation", reacting to complaints.

Those of us who fondly imagined that there was any form of active monitoring stand corrected.

Council reveals unsuccessful bid to develop Manston services

It's like pulling teeth

Kent County Council has been forced to reveal details of its unsuccessful £10.8 million bid for Government money to develop services for Manston airport.  Campaigners, No Night Flights, challenged KCC's refusal to release details of the Regional Growth Fund (RGF) application.

The county council had to disclose its bid, made with airport owner Infratil, but withheld some commercial details.  KCC and Infratil want £7.7 million towards the cost of building a new "parkway" train station serving the airport and £2 million towards setting up faster rail services between the new station and London.  The second part of the bid is for £600,000 to set up a trial route between Manston and a European "hub" airport - details of which airline and airport were removed from the information published.  The bid also asks for £500,000 to help Infratil turn the first phase of its "master plan" into reality.

In return for the public money Infratil has pledged £7.6 million over 10 years including £100,000 a year to provide a bus service between the airport and new train station.  KCC and Infratil justify the bid, made to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis), saying it would help to boost the economy in south east Kent in the wake of Pfizer pulling out.  They claim that it would help Infratil to meet its development aims and increase employment at the airport and in surrounding businesses.  Campaigners say the KCC bid, titled Access to East Kent, demonstrated a poor return on investment.

On the No Night Flights website the group claims that it would equate to £415,384 per job generated by the £10.8 million, adding:

"RGF wants to help make the transition from public sector to private sector jobs. KCC's application was looking for a level of public subsidy that would have embarrassed the British Leyland of old. In the over-crowded sweepstake that is the Grand National economy, the Government decided not to back this particular three-legged donkey."

Campaigner Susan Kennedy, from Ramsgate, said:

"It is unbelievable that in such difficult times KCC has put in for a bid that requires subsidies of millions to create such paltry numbers of jobs."

The bid was turned down in the first phase of applications for the RGF but KCC plans to resubmit it for the second round.

thisiskent.co.uk

A closer look at that bid

The once-secret KCC funding bid

Bureaucracy being what it is, KCC and Infratil were obliged to spell out in detail the brazen cheek of their cash plea. Do please remember that Infratil is a New Zealand-based investment company, and that whatever profits it can (finally) squeeze out of this lemon of an airport will be going straight back to their antipodean investors, still smarting from years of multi-million pound losses.

Infratil Airports Europe Ltd (IAEL) will progress the introduction of a twice-daily direct air service from Manston (Kent International) Airport to [censored] ...  As with any new venture of this nature, however, the proposed service presents significant financial risks to [censored]. It will therefore be necessary for IAEL to underwrite the service for its first three years of operation, representing a total financial commitment of £600,000. Funding for this purpose is being sought through the Regional Growth Fund.

Translation: We would like you to join us in treating Air Anon as a special case, and exempt them from the everyday commercial realities, risks and pressures that apply to everyone else in Thanet and Kent. We were rather hoping the airport owners would cushion them with a generous sweetener, but Infratil are tired of throwing good money after bad, and obviously don't regard this as a good bet. So we would like a handout.

The commencement of the new air service will trigger the employment and training by IAEL of 23 personnel at Manston (Kent International) Airport. This represents a revenue cost over three years of £500,000, which is being sought through the Regional Growth Fund.

Translation: The airport owners aren't even prepared to pay their own staff. So we would like a handout.

IAEL will fully fund a dedicated bus shuttle service for air passengers between the Thanet Parkway Station and Manston (Kent International) Airport. This service would commence immediately following the opening of the Parkway Station and would represent an ongoing annual revenue cost to IAEL of approximately £100,000.

Translation: Because we're planning to build the Parkway station where there are no other public transport links, Infratil are obliged to pick up the tab for chauffeuring their handful of passengers to the airport. We're only mentioning this in the hope that it is construed as Infratil being generously public-spirited, rather than grudgingly accepting commercial necessity.

As part of the first phase of the Manston (Kent International) Airport Master Plan, IAEL will fund the capital cost of a new Airport Southern Approach Road, to reduce interchange times by bus between the Thanet Parkway Station and the airport terminal and to divert airport-related traffic away from Manston Village. The capital cost of the road has initially been estimated as approximately £6.5 million. It is anticipated that the road would be constructed once throughput at the Airport reaches approximately 3 million passengers per annum.

Translation: Infratil "anticipate" a throughput of "approximately" 3 million passengers only in their wildest forecasts and know, in their heart of hearts, that their £6.5m is safe. But the never-to-be-realised promise makes them look good.

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Dear Reader, you can download your copy of the once-secret KCC Bid Document below, and if you can deduce (or already know) the identities of the airline, or the European hub airport, that are painstakingly blacked out throughout the document, do let me know. Thank you.

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Yet another job forecast

From the once-secret KCC funding bid

What a wondrous thing is the Freedom of Information Act. Without it, we wouldn't know what KCC had said to the money-bags at BIS in their plea for free money. They have repeatedly tried to dodge FOI requests, until finally cornered by our tireless truth-seekers.

It will come as no surprise to the more cynical of our international readership that it's not just the tone and emphasis of what KCC and Infratil say in their bid that differs from what they've been saying publicly, it's the numbers too.

Here's just one example from the ill-fated bid document:

The commencement of twice-daily air services to [censored] would provide a catalyst for the wider development of Manston (Kent International) Airport, which is expected to create up to 2,800 direct and indirect jobs by 2018, rising to 6,000 by 2033. In the short-term, it would trigger the employment and training of 11 Airport Fire and Rescue personnel, 9 Airport Security personnel, and 3 Customer Service personnel on a full-time, permanent basis. This would enable the Airport to expand its operating hours from the current 12 hours per day to 18 hours per day and to handle up to 750,000 passengers per annum and more than double the existing levels of freight, making the best use of its existing facilities. This wider availability of the Airport – combined with its direct access to the Thanet Parkway Station – will improve its attractiveness to potential operators of both passenger and freight services. Each additional weekly cargo flight would generate between £150,000 and £200,000 in revenue, which is likely to be re-invested in airport infrastructure, staffing and services, thereby further enhancing its capacity to handle larger volumes of flights.

I've already introduced you to the laughable basis of the "thousands of jobs" forecast. What is interesting about this piece of immortal prose is the short-term forecast.

Manston are happy to state in this once-secret document, that with 23 extra staff they would be able to handle twice the current tonnage of freight, and 750,000 passengers a year. In 2010, they handled 21,000 passengers, and the latest figures from the CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) show about 2,000 a month so far in 2011.

This is the first indication yet of how the number of jobs would increase with the number of passengers. An annual increase of three-quarters of a million passengers would require only a couple of dozen extra staff. This is a far cry from the 1,104 jobs per million passengers that Manston's PR machine has been touting about the county in recent days.

Incidentally, another of the once-secret documents (which will star in a number of further posts) "forecasts" the growth and impact of the top-secret, anonymous, censored and redacted airline that KCC wanted to "sweeten" with public money to use Manston. It "forecasts"  that the service would take three years to mature, at which point it would be carrying 119,000 passengers a year, tops. So where is the rest of the ¾ million coming from?

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Dear Reader, you can download your copy of the once-secret KCC Bid Document below, and if you can deduce (or already know) the identities of the airline, or the European hub airport, that are painstakingly blacked out throughout the document, do let me know. Thank you.

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KCC's empty begging bowl

In the middle of last year, the Government (in the form of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills - BIS) launched the Regional Growth Fund (RGF). The RGF aims to "support projects and programmes that lever private sector investment creating economic growth and sustainable employment. It aims particularly to help those areas and communities currently dependent on the public sector to make the transition to sustainable private sector-led growth and prosperity".

Across the length and breadth of our proud nation, there was a cacophony of snorts and oinks as snouts were pressed to the trough, greedy for their share of the £1.4 billion on offer. KCC was there, looking for a handout to support their crackpot proposal for a Parkway station at Manston, and some free money for the airport. Here's why they failed:

Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we can now see what KCC were doing on our behalf (if they had their way, this would still be secret). They were after a total of £10.8 million from the Regional Growth Fund, which breaks down thus:

• £7.7 million towards the capital cost of the Thanet Parkway Station;
• £2 million towards the capital cost of the St Pancras-Ramsgate Journey Time Improvement Scheme (Phase 1);
• £600,000 towards the underwriting of the proposed [censored] air service from Manston (Kent International) Airport to [censored] for three years from summer 2012; and,
• £500,000 towards the delivery of the first phase of the Manston (Kent International) Airport Master Plan, including the training and employment of 11 Airport Fire and Rescue personnel, 9 Airport Security personnel, and 3 Customer Service personnel on a full-time, permanent basis.

The balance of the cost of the Parkway station would be met by Infratil (£560,000) and by borrowing (£1.96m).

The £2m would achieve a journey reduction time of 2 minutes. (Time really is money!)

The £600,000 would be a, er, "sweetener" to persuade an unnamed airline to use the airport.

The £500,000 would be, er, paying Manston to be an airport, and thus returning to them most of the £560k they would have stumped up towards the cost of the station. Nice!

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The RGF application form clearly states:

The Regional Growth Fund seeks to encourage sustainable private sector-led growth.

It appears KCC didn't read the RGF guidelines very carefully, as the application is littered with bullets, aimed squarely at their own feet.

The operation of an air service from Manston (Kent International) Airport to a European hub would be unlikely to happen at all without the Airport subsidising the airline operation. In the current economic environment, the Airport, operating as it does at an annual loss, is not in a position to provide that subsidy to the level that would sufficiently encourage the airline to commence operations.

Translation: No airline can be persuaded to operate out of Manston without being paid. The airport is skint and getting poorer, so can't afford the sweetener. Bang!

The alternative funding sources for underwriting the proposed air service from Manston (Kent International) Airport to [censored] are principally either from the airline, the Airport, or external third parties. In this case, the airline would already be making a contribution through the risk level it would take in covering the operating costs of the service. It should be remembered that airlines have completely mobile assets which they are able to deploy at a wide range of airports on a variety of routes. The support that an airport and its community are able to provide towards the start-up costs and risks, is regularly influential in their route development decisions.

Translation: The airport can't afford to pay the airline, and the airline thinks just being there is risk enough. Airlines are flighty, and need to be lured with cash. Bang!

Manston Airport is operating at a loss, and has done so for many years. Whilst Infratil is prepared to invest in the development of the Airport’s infrastructure, and to cover the existing level of losses together with a contribution to the additional costs for the first years of a new service, it would not be prepared to cover 100% of the route support costs for this new route. In addition, the commitment of the local community that would be illustrated by a successful funding bid will be viewed by the airline as a significant statement of support for the route.

Translation: The airport really is skint, the owners are tired of seeing their money disappear, and aren't even prepared to take a punt on this new airline. Bang!

The RGF application form goes on to say:

In order to ensure good value for money for the taxpayer, it is important that the additional economic benefits associated with supporting a project exceed the costs of Government support.

At this point, KCC reloads and blunders on:

While the Thanet Parkway Station will not require ongoing public support once it is operational, as revenues are forecast to exceed operating costs, the initial capital cost results in the scheme not being commercially viable, namely financially positive. The introduction of twice-daily direct air services between Manston (Kent International) Airport and [censored] will create 23 additional direct jobs at Manston Airport. Along with the three jobs created by the opening of Thanet Parkway station, there are estimated to be 26 direct jobs.

To save your calculator batteries, that's £415,384 per job generated by the £10.8 million. Remember that bit at the beginning of this post, about RGF wanting to help make the transition from public sector to private sector jobs? KCC's application was looking for a level of public subsidy that would have embarrassed the British Leyland of old.
 
In the over-crowded sweepstake that is the Grand National economy, the Government decided not to back this particular three-legged donkey. Quelle surprise!

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Dear Reader, you can download your copy of the once-secret KCC Bid Document below, and if you can deduce (or already know) the identities of the airline, or the European hub airport, that are painstakingly blacked out throughout the document, do let me know. Thank you.

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How much did KCC's trip to USA cost the public?

Kent County Council has asked for extra time to respond to a Freedom of Information request about the cost to the taxpayer of a recent KCC trip to America.  Deputy leader Alex King led a Kent delegation to Virginia last month to take part in celebrations to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first English-speaking settlement in the New World.
 
KCC said Cllr King was helping to build long term trade and tourism links with Virginia. It said he held meetings with business leaders, universities and the State Government of Virginia aimed at strengthening trade initiatives.  But KCC refused to answer questions on how much public money was spent on the trip and how many people it sent.  So Kent on Sunday newspaper submitted a Freedom of Information request.

Under statutory timescales, authorities are required to provide a response within 20 days.  But on the 20th day, Caroline Dodge, who is the Corporate Access to Information Coordinator in the Chief Executive's Department, said in a statement:

"Councillor King’s staff officer has recently advised me that he is still collecting receipts and collating information about details and costs of the visit to Virginia, which was still ongoing at the time you submitted your request for information about it. We would therefore be obliged if you would allow us [an extra week to] respond to your request. This will help us ensure that the information we provide you with will be as up-to-date and accurate as possible."

KentNews 7th Jun 2007

Council told to disclose legal advice over night flights

Thanet Council has been ordered to make public legal advice it received over controversial night flights from Manston Airport. The council caused controversy when it entered into an agreement in 2005 with the airport’s operators Planestation that permitted additional scheduled flights to take place beyond 11pm.

At the time, many residents in the area were dismayed, saying they faced noise disruption. There were claims that the change was one that should have required planning permission. Council chiefs had initially refused to disclose the advice of its lawyers, relating to a variation in the terms of what is known as a Section 106 agreement.

It rejected a request made under the Freedom of Information Act, saying the advice was legally privileged information and there was no public interest in releasing it. But now an information tribunal has officially ruled that the council was wrong.

A panel that considered a formal appeal said councillors had already referred to the legal advice during the course of a public council meeting when the issue of the impact of night flights had been raised. As a result, the full contents of the lawyers’ advice, which addressed the issue of whether the change in policy needed planning permission should be released, the panel concluded. In a statement, the council insisted it had not deliberately sought to suppress the information. The statement said:

“Thanet District Council is committed to providing as much information as possible to the public. However, the council took legal advice in this case and we were advised not to release any information which would jeopardise the future of a passenger service at Kent International Airport.”

kentonline 2nd Aug 2006