Once in a while a pile of loose ends comes together – and this week sees one of those occasions.

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Is the idea of a night-time economy task and finish group about to be kicked into touch?

Tomorrow’s meeting of the Environment and Performance Committee is being given just such an option.

At its July meeting it was resolved that a Task and Finish Group should examine the night time economy of the Public Space Protection Order area and of the

Borough … classing night-time until 8am.

But now, a report to the committee is suggesting ‘preliminary scrutiny’ by way of an initial ‘Inquiry Day.’

It adds: “If, at the conclusion of the Inquiry Day, Members feel they have received sufficient information to make recommendations directly to the Committee and onto Cabinet (if appropriate), there is always that option.”

There appear to have been one or two bumps in the road towards getting this group going – and it wouldn’t surprise us in the least if councillors decided not to bother with a full-blown committee procedure in favour of doing the job themselves ... despite agreeing the need for a thorough and searching inquiry into the after-dark problems that Boston faces.
It sertainly seems to be something that the officers would prefer.

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Regular readers will recall that back in July we broke the news that Worst Street had offered itself for inspection by the Local Government Association ‘improvement’ squad.

The LGA describes itself as “the national voice of local government, working with councils to support, promote and improve local government” – and specifically, its improvement service “provides a range of practical support … to enable local authorities to exploit the opportunities that this approach to improvement provides.

“This includes support of a corporate nature such as leadership programmes, peer challenge, and programmes tailored to specific service areas.”

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We don’t know whether or not Worst Street felt that the time had come for a wash and brush-up – but even if it hadn’t, the signs of the need for a health check have been there for all to see for long enough.

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The LGA visitors included elected members and senior officers from other councils plus a ‘challenge manager.’

Worst Street told us: “The Local Government Association provides a Corporate Peer Challenge to all member councils once every four/five years.

“The aim … is to provide external challenge to the council’s own self-assessment …

“We’ve shared strategic plans and documents with the peer team, and provided them with a position statement describing where we currently are.

“This highlights what we think are our strengths and areas for improvement, as well as our priorities for the future, and our key challenges and risks.

“Through this process Boston Borough Council demonstrates its own improvement. These documents aim to be open and honest and to act as a guide for the peer challenge team, providing them with areas to focus on during the peer challenge itself.”

The LGA team was here for three days and during that time met a cross-section of people including councillors, staff, and partner organisations and ‘may include service users.’ 

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By the latter, we imagine that Worst Street means taxpayers – although as we didn’t see any request for volunteers to get involved, we suspect that any such input will have comprised hand-picked members of the great and good who think that the sun rises and sets in the West.

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We hope that when the promised report is published, that the LGA will take the opportunity to remind councillors of what it sees as their role  – which includes statements of the obvious which simply don’t take place in Boston ... such as: “Councillors provide a bridge between the community and the council. As well as being an advocate for your local residents and signposting them to the right people at the council, you will need to keep them informed about the issues that affect them.

“In order to understand and represent local views and priorities, you need to build strong relationships and encourage local people to make their views known and engage with you and the council.”

The list goes on – but we mention the need for a reminder as we fear that some councillors are now thinking that they are what matters rather than the people that they promised to represent when they were desperate for our votes.

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A good example appeared last week as part of events to commemorate Battle of Britain Day.

Whilst the event is designed to pay tribute those those who fought and died defending our island it appeared to be considered locally as more of a chance to show our councillors in a good light instead.

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A post by Boston Conservatives reported: “This morning, councillors from Boston Conservatives joined councillors from other parties to pay respects to the lives sacrificed during the Battle of Britain 79 years ago in the town’s annual memorial service at the War Memorial and at Boston Stump.”

So much for the entente cordiale announced with much fanfare after councillors agreed that they were all on the same side just a few weeks ago – this was a definite ‘them and us’ announcement.

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To make matters worse, it included a message from the portfolio holder for tourism that in five lines used the personal pronouns I and us and the determiner my no fewer than four times.

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Years ago, there was a quite acrimonious debate about whether or not Worst Street councillors should have blogs or websites.

Now, it seems that many of them do – but not, as you might think, so that they can tell us what they are doing, or inform us of what’s going on behind closed chamber doors …

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No. Instead, they use social media to pose and boast about themselves.

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We note without surprise that Boston in Bloom has won its fifth consecutive gold award.

It would be interesting if that success had not occurred – given that BiB gets to choose the route that the judges follow, and has months in advance to make sure that everything along the way is rosy as well.

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Gold of a different kind is being sought by Boston Borough Council through its investment of a borrowed £20 million in commercial property funds.

The issue came up in the annual audit of Worst Street’s activities, when experts Mazars reported that the loan is ‘assumed’ to deliver an annual revenue yield of £665,000 (3.5%) and annual capital growth of £475,000 (2.5%), equating to an annual average net return after borrowing costs of £1,720,000 over the proposed 50 year term. That's £94 a week.

But the report also says that the council is proposing to set aside any revenue gains from these funds as a short-term earmarked reserve to provide a buffer for future losses.

Given the Brexit situation, and the warning of a slump in property values, it may be that this turns out to be more than just a prudent measure.

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More disconcerting – especially given the gung-ho noises surrounding all of this – is how few people appear to know what is going on.

The auditors caution: “We have identified the need for the council to strengthen its arrangements in respect of the on-going monitoring and governance of its commercial property fund portfolio as follows:  

-          “Members currently do not have the strength and depth of necessary knowledge or skills to appropriately review and challenge the council’s investments.

-          “The council should consider reviewing its committee structures and establish a suitable training package to provide members with sufficient knowledge and skills to discharge their roles.

-          Whilst there is provision for the fund managers to attend Audit and Governance Committees to present an update on their funds the council has not taken advantage of this and should do so.”

Well, it’s only £20 million isn’t it? And not even ours.

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Earlier this year, 3GS – the company responsible for patrolling the streets and issuing fixed penalties for environmental crimes including littering, fly-tipping, graffiti, street urination, dog fouling and fly tippers pulled out of its contract with the council.

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The service was cost free to taxpayers and whilst it was never clear how many people were employed, we were told that hundreds of fixed penalty notices were issued to offenders.

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Now, for those of you who enjoy a sense of déjà vu, Worst Street is at it again.

This time a ‘team’ of two people have been taken on to hand out tickets  to anyone they spot either dropping litter, urinating, spitting, failing to pick up after their dog or failing to be able to provide the means to pick up after their dog as well as being given the powers to deal with other problems such as graffiti, fly-posting, exposing vehicles for sale on the highway, repairing vehicles on the highway, abandoned vehicles, failure to produce a waste transfer note, failure to produce a waste carrier licence and Duty of Care.

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As is becoming commonplace we are not told which bit of the council is paying to provide this new service.

And we are taking no bets on how long it is likely to last.

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We note a tweet which features on of our senior officers far from home as a guest speaker at a “Focus on Footfall” event in Nottingham.

Worryingly, we note that the subject under discussion is headed “How BIDs and local authorities can support local business, creating vibrant places that people want to visit.”

Please, don’t even suggest that we might go down that route again.

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Boston’s casual attitude towards £20 million in borrowed cash is big money – but as we reported last week, lower down the chain is Boston’s weekly market … which if it keeps losing money at the present rate will have vanished by around 2025.

Whilst Worst Street thinks it can delay debating the problem until the new year, other local authorities are less complacent.

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Note this loss leader from Newark Town Council

Or now about this from West Lindsey District Council?

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But don’t despair – Boston still has a few tricks up the official sleeve.

How about this –  a chance to own a localised version of what's ... quite fairly ... often described as the world's most boring board game.

We’ve long thought that Boston Big Local had run out of ideas on how to waste a million pounds – but it seems there are still a few silly ideas left.

And we won’t reproduce the board that one Twitter follower devised as an example …

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But by far the greatest leap for Boston came from this Tweet by a senior officer whose job it is to improve the town’s business.

What next?

Coals to Newcastle?

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There’s no blog next week.

All things being equal, we’ll be back on 7^th October. 

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com

E– mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

Our former blog is archived at: http://bostoneyelincolnshire.blogspot.com

We are on Twitter – visit @eye_boston