Local council doing private/contracting work

[TIMON]

As they should. Not naming names but 'a' local authority near me don't seem to think that the rules of the T&CPA (regarding advertising) are even applicable to trees:sneaky2:

 

The same authority don't identify TPO trees online, because they say they get too many phone calls from irate customers (ratepayers) when people are working on them, thinking that the works being done illegally - so don't tell the general public which trees are protected:confused1:

 

And, they removed all of the CA mapping off the planning website, no explanation as to why, and wonder why a) there's contraventions, and b) the department gets loads of enquiries about whether trees are protected:001_smile: and then claim that they are understaffed for the level of enquiries

 

 

Sorry, I digress...

 

 

Similar thing happens at one of our LA areas. When you phone up to ask if there is a TPO at a certain address they won't give a straight yes or no answer. They want to come out to see what work you propose to do. Very difficult to secure work in that area.

 

 

 

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[kevinjohnsonmbe]

They can (should) only compete for private jobs (trees, roads etc) if there is an "arms length" company between the LA and the customer. LA can't (shouldn't) offer private services direct as they are a spending public money and are at an advantage over private sector. Public funds accounting page 1.

 

Cornwall council outsourced all the staff and equipment from roads to Cormac, a private company (albeit 100% share owned by Cornwall council.) Cormac is the preferred bidder for all Cornwall council works and can legitimately bid for commercial tenders. Cormac took ownership of all staff and equipment against a 5 year initial contract and repayment arrangement for plant / machinery. Cormac operates as a private company and provides a profit share back to Cornwall council.

 

It sucks, but you have to laugh because all the staff and bad practices of LA tendencies were simply transferred to Cormac.

 

OPs situation sounds, on initial assessment, quite inappropriate - be interesting to hear more detail!

[Gary Prentice]

Similar thing happens at one of our LA areas. When you phone up to ask if there is a TPO at a certain address they won't give a straight yes or no answer. They want to come out to see what work you propose to do. Very difficult to secure work in that area.

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

 

I've had that a few times, the "why do you want to know?/what do you want to do?" response.

 

I point blank refuse to provide that information!

 

When a planing officer, or anyone for that matter, can point out the section of the T&CPA where I'm obliged to, I will. Until then....

[richy_B]

These practices are wrong on so many levels. The TPO thing just has to be illegal in some way, its certainly not fair.

Completely agree. You can't have an authoritive control over something such as TPO's / conservation areas and have a commercial interest in it. It would be a huge conflict of interests. A council would need to be to prove a clear financial seperation between the different aspects of its operations, which it could not possibly do. VAT, corporation tax, are the staff in anyway subsidised by the tax payer, can council staff employ the tree contractors to work on their own property (anti bribery etc), split of equipment purchases/maintenance/depreciation, staff pensions, etc. No way this would stand up to property scrutiny.

 

I would email the leader of the council and copy in your MP, your local ward councillors and the leader of the opposition locally.

[TIMON]

Completely agree.

 

I would email the leader of the council and copy in your MP, your local ward councillors and the leader of the opposition locally.

 

 

That sounds like an excellent course of action. It would be really interesting to see what happened. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

 

 

 

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose"

[Gary Prentice]

Completely agree. You can't have an authoritive control over something such as TPO's / conservation areas and have a commercial interest in it. It would be a huge conflict of interests. A council would need to be to prove a clear financial seperation between the different aspects of its operations, which it could not possibly do. VAT, corporation tax, are the staff in anyway subsidised by the tax payer, can council staff employ the tree contractors to work on their own property (anti bribery etc), split of equipment purchases/maintenance/depreciation, staff pensions, etc. No way this would stand up to property scrutiny.

 

I would email the leader of the council and copy in your MP, your local ward councillors and the leader of the opposition locally.

 

I wouldn't be too concerned, in that I don't think a council run operation can be viable.

 

After all, after paying to;

hiring the vehicle, the chipper, saws and blowers from the LA,

a figure for PL & EL insurance,

a figure for training costs,

the cost of the Tree Officer time quoting the job (he wouldn't be doing that in council time while assessing the TPO application now would he?)

the cost of disposing of the arisings,

staff wages, Income tax and NI payments for the crew (& TO while quoting),

the clerical costs for the quote and invoice,

the book-keeping,

a proportion to pay sick pay/holiday pay pro-rata (Council employment/commercial employment)

 

 

There isn't going to be much in the way of profit:thumbup:

[TIMON]

I wouldn't be too concerned, in that I don't think a council run operation can be viable.

 

 

 

After all, after paying to;

 

hiring the vehicle, the chipper, saws and blowers from the LA,

 

a figure for PL & EL insurance,

 

a figure for training costs,

 

the cost of the Tree Officer time quoting the job (he wouldn't be doing that in council time while assessing the TPO application now would he?)

 

the cost of disposing of the arisings,

 

staff wages, Income tax and NI payments for the crew (& TO while quoting),

 

the clerical costs for the quote and invoice,

 

the book-keeping,

 

a proportion to pay sick pay/holiday pay pro-rata (Council employment/commercial employment)

 

 

 

 

 

There isn't going to be much in the way of profit:thumbup:

 

 

Does this mean that when it does happen it's just going in people's back pockets? Surely not! [emoji849]

 

 

Timon

 

"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep in order to gain what he cannot lose"

[walkerboys]

Completely agree. You can't have an authoritive control over something such as TPO's / conservation areas and have a commercial interest in it. It would be a huge conflict of interests. A council would need to be to prove a clear financial seperation between the different aspects of its operations, which it could not possibly do. VAT, corporation tax, are the staff in anyway subsidised by the tax payer, can council staff employ the tree contractors to work on their own property (anti bribery etc), split of equipment purchases/maintenance/depreciation, staff pensions, etc. No way this would stand up to property scrutiny.

 

I would email the leader of the council and copy in your MP, your local ward councillors and the leader of the opposition locally.

 

 

Now this is why I put it on arbtalk there's always some great advice 👍👍 glad you all have the same thoughts as me I lost a job I put the tpo application in for because it was that much cheaper for the council to do the job the home owner just paid me for the application a 3 day job the council priced it for 1 day but it took them 4 days to get it done we all miss price jobs from time to time but the council will never learn because they have nothing to lose

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Now this is why I put it on arbtalk there's always some great advice 👍👍 glad you all have the same thoughts as me I lost a job I put the tpo application in for because it was that much cheaper for the council to do the job the home owner just paid me for the application a 3 day job the council priced it for 1 day but it took them 4 days to get it done we all miss price jobs from time to time but the council will never learn because they have nothing to lose

 

 

Get together as much detail as you can and send it here:

 

http://www.lgo.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

 

PS don't bother complaining to the LA, it'll just waste your time and since they are (could be) implicated, it's not appropriate to ask them to mark their own homework. I've tried that before, waste of effort!

Edited April 15, 2017 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[Mike Dempsey]

Here's another thought. If a planning department passed on details of TPO application to fell or have work on it, wouldn't it then be a breach of the Data Protection Act. After all it includes the name and address of the applicant etc which they are then passing on to a third party (because the arb squad aren't in the planning dept)

Just a thought and maybe worth following through!

 

Mike