Salford Council has approved in secret a three year extension to its contract with joint venture company Urban Vision which the company states, "is worth up to £90m in total".
Salford Council has a 19.9% stake in Urban Vision, with Galliford Try Infrastructure holding 30% and Capita Property and Infrastructure holding a 50.1% stake. The joint venture company was set up in 2005 to handle property development, planning, highways and project management, and the Council had 199 employees seconded to Urban Vision according to its last accounts.
The decision to extend the contract, from February 2017 to January 2020, was made on 6th April, with the meeting's agendas and papers not available to the public due to a broken link on the Council's re-hashed website.
Even if the public could have got hold of the papers, there was nothing to see, except a Public Interest Checklist, which didn't even mention Urban Vision only a `Development Services Partnering Agreement', which put the decision in the secret Part 2 of the Council's Procurement meeting.
The Checklist insisted that any disclosure of information on the contract would "damage the Council's interests without giving the public any useful information" and would "damage another organisation or person's interests, without giving the public any useful information".
Instead, there is a Record of Decision, signed by outgoing Mayor, Ian Stewart, which notes "the reduction in cost and increase in income opportunity amounting to
£8.825m over the period of the extension". Without seeing any documents, no-one actually knows how this figure was calculated or whether it is credible.
The Notice adds that "Robust and appropriate accountability arrangements are in
place to ensure the effective management of the Partnership which mitigate elements of risk."
However, the Salford Star has received numerous allegations about Urban Vision recently, including from an ex-employee, that question whether "robust and appropriate accountability arrangements" are actually in place.
Indeed one email, seen by the Salford Star, to Monitoring Officer Miranda Carruthers-Watt and copied to Urban Vision, states that Council City Director, Jim Taylor "will get a stiff neck if he looks the other way much longer".
Research carried out by the Salford Star shows that Urban Vision costings can be double those of other councils. Last December, Salford Council approved the creation of a Toucan Crossing on Ordsall Lane, outside Ordsall Hall, at a cost of £138,018.87, submitted by Urban Vision Highway Services.
However, the cost for a Toucan Crossing (including `high friction surfacing on approaches') quoted on Wiltshire Council's website is "between £50,000 - £60,000".
At the last meeting of East Salford Community Committee, residents were quoted an estimated £20,000 for putting in (an unnecessary) mini-roundabout on the corner of Moor Lane and Oaklands Road. Wiltshire Council costs for "a typical mini-roundabout with signing, lining, street lighting" are "between £6,000 and £10,000".
One of the reasons given in Salford Council's Record of Decision for the extension of Urban Vision's contract is "To introduce better services and more efficient systems of working"...
Allegations against Urban Vision include what one resident called a `rip off', in that "Urban Vision cannot ever demonstrate best value or value for money for the Council. On the contrary, they rip off the Council by having no incentive to bring contract tender costs on budget because their fees are based on contract price: the bigger the contract price, the greater their fee; kerching!"
An example of this was a fee increase relating to the Bridgewater Canal project last year. In April 2014, Urban Vision was appointed as lead designers and contract managers for the £5.5million Heritage Lottery/Salford Council/Peel Holdings scheme, for which the company was paid 10.7% of the construction budget, £350,469.
Included in this fee was £128,470 for the Worsley Delph scheme, which had an original cost of £1.2million. However the costs, presumably originally worked out by Urban Vision, then more than doubled to £2.8million and Urban Vision's fee also more than doubled, to an extra `maximum' of £171,530...
"As professional fees are calculated as a percentage of the construction budget, officers are therefore seeking approval to increase Urban Vision's fees..." stated the Council report at the time. The extra fee for Urban Vision was found, in part, from Section 106 monies which should be spent on improving community facilities.
Meanwhile, an ex-employee of Urban Vision has copied the Salford Star in on questions and allegations he has sent to Salford Council.
"As a public service `loyalist' I was concerned at the obvious conflict of interest and the scope already being exploited for manipulation of costs and charges to the City Council" he wrote "For example I was instructed to write a new Service Level Agreement to differentiate services such that some could be charged in addition to the basic `management fee', despite being carried out by staff already paid for within that fee. This was a general approach throughout the organisation..."
He also questions the accountability of Galliford Try... "Given the Supervising Engineers work for the other half of UV [Urban Vision] it is difficult to see how robust cost or value measures can be demonstrated" he wrote "The problem is not conflict of interests it is both sides have the same interests and paymasters!"
Salford Council's response was that such allegations "go beyond the level of criticism that the Council should reasonably expect to receive."
Neither Salford Council nor Urban Vision will speak to the Salford Star or answer any questions so we cannot put these allegations to them directly. The ex-Urban Vision employee did write to the Council about the extension of its contract...
"Given the scale and implications of the now impending decision to renew or extend the UV Partnership" he wrote "is there (or will there be) a City Council document open to the public which sets out the criteria, timescale, process about probably the single most financially significant decision they will make this year?"
The Star can certainly answer this one. The decision was pushed through in secret, or Part 2, and even senior Labour Party councillors, we understand, are not happy with the total lack of transparency in the process.
After the decision was made, Urban Vision put out a press release. Jim Taylor, Salford's City Director, said: "Urban Vision has been a valuable partner since we first formed the alliance. The partnership extension will provide further efficiency gains and more savings for the Council, without affecting service quality and performance."
According to its last accounts, Urban Vision made a gross profit of £10.5million, and an operating profit of £1.8million.
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