I thought I may have been a little harsh on Mr Beveridge, last week, when I criticised Cumbria LEP. He did, after all, admit their website needed updating.

I never dreamt, however, that he would go straight back from the interview and make sure it was updated (see below)

What surprised me though was that the document, they added, is dated September 2010 and is, in fact, the original proposal document put forward to the Government to apply to set up and run the local enterprise partnership.

Either Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership think we are all idiots or they are all idiots themselves, for thinking they can get away with this cynical disregard for Cumbrian businesses.

If you have a spare 30 minutes over the weekend, and have been wondering why the Cumbrian economy has languished over the last ten years,  listen to Radio Cumbria interviewing George Beveridge, “interim chair” of Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership.

This link will take you to BBC iPlayer. The interview itself is 2 hours 28 minutes 35 seconds into the programme (2:28:35).

Alternatively, fast forward to 2:54:29 when he answers my question on the internet, Twitter and the Cumbria LEP website. I especially liked his comment about “updating” the website with details of the Growing Places Fund which was announced nearly three months ago!

P.S Coincidentally the website has been updated this afternoon!

The North West Evening Mail has launched a campaign to save Furness Enterprise which is closing because of lack of funds.

I will not be signing this petition for the following reasons:

1. Furness Enterprise’s  annual accounts for the year ended 31 March 2010 (see Note A below) showed a turnover of  £1.7m which I understand ‘supported’ 18 jobs. Unfortunately the 2011 accounts do not show turnover, but if Furness Enterprise’s income has been reduced to 30% of the 2010 figure, because of cuts, that is still nearly £500,000. Surely they can carry on, albeit in a much reduced manner?
2. If they are in the business of ‘helping Furness businesses’ common sense would suggest they should be able to help themselves survive in these changed circumstances?
3. When all is said and done they are still a quango.
4. Like all quangos they are spending taxpayers’ money which may explain why the Chairman had a consultancy agreement with the company for £25,000 per year (see Note B below).
5. The directors’ pay and benefits totalled £ 87,000 in the year ended 31 March 2010 (see Note C below), bearing in mind that there were probably only two directors being paid (the Chairman, Stephen Murray, and Harry Knowles). All the other directors were from local councils, public bodies and private businesses.  And hopefully, as the Chairman was already receiving £25,000 per year  (see 4 above), not too much of the £87,021 was his!

Notes

A) Turnover

B) Consultancy

C) Director’s pay and benefits

Last week I received an e-mail from our local “enterprise agency” (one of the many Cumbrian quangos)  titled Preparing for the year ahead with this opening paragraph

We want to do everything in our power to ensure that businesses in Cumbria have the opportunity to prepare their business and staff for the challenging year that lays ahead of us!

Great news I thought until I read the rest of the e-mail which detailed the support on offer:

We have just added a comprehensive programme of CIEH (Chartered Institute of Environmental Health) training courses which will be held in Penrith, they are:

Tuesday 31^st January 2012                Level 2 Award in Health and Safety

Wednesday 8^th February 2012          Level 2 Award in Manual Handling

Wednesday 22^nd February 2012        Level 2 Award in Environmental Principals and Best Practice

If these people think that this is preparing businesses for “the challenging year that lays ahead” then their knowledge of the problems facing businesses is even less than I thought.

Most business owners I meet would respond along the lines of

When you’re up to your neck in alligators, it’s easy to forget the initial objective was to drain the swamp.

In other words ‘help us make more money and have fewer financial problems‘.

Next Monday (December 5th) is the start of Mintfest’s appeal to raise vital funds for next year’s festival.

I have said before that there are more deserving causes than Mintfest at Christmas but what really puzzles me is why do they need this money?

I know they have lost £250,000 of funding which was previously provided by the Northwest Regional Development Agency but they did receive £290,000 of “new money” earlier this year from Arts Council England, which in very simple terms means they are £40,000 “better off”, rather than facing “a hole left after the closure of the North West Regional Development Agency”, as reported in the Westmorland Gazette this week.

I am very conscious that I am not in possession of the full facts behind Mintfest’s appeal for “vital funds” but if Mintfest was a charity, which it isn’t, it would have to publish very detailed accounts like the ones from  Multi Cultural Arts .

At least the public would then be able to make an informed decision about how great Mintfest’s needs really are.

Last March the Office of Tax Simplification published  Review of tax reliefs – final report.

I have not mentioned the 191 page report before because I have spent the time since it was published trying to buy a bottle of Black Beer, which is described on the label as

“….. a drop of Yorkshire history.”

Dating back to 1901, Mather’s is the last known surviving Black Beer being produced in the UK.  Famous enough to feature in the Yorkshire Post, the beer’s  high Vitamin C content meant it was popular with mining communities. During the Second World War when rationing was brought in there was a move to stop its production, but because miners were so important to the war effort and needed their supply of Black Beer it was saved.

Its origins can be traced back to the mid 16th-century and a drink made from the mashed leaves of the Spruce Pine. A 100 or so years later, and with the addition of a little barley and malt, the story goes that Captain Cook became one of its greatest advocates believing that a large daily dose kept his sailors free from scurvy and setting up a brewery in New Zealand to make sure they had enough supplies for the long journey home.

Returning to the report of the Office of Tax Simplification you must be wondering what on earth Black Beer has to do with tax. All is revealed on page 169 when the report states

Black beer is exempt from excise duties. This exemption was originally introduced in FA
1930 s2(1) and is now in the Alcoholic Liquor Duties Act 1979 s1(3)(a). It is also exempt from
customs duties by virtue of a derogation negotiated by the UK17

Quite frankly, who cares? Well the Office of Tax Simplification does because it is suggesting that this exemption is abolished to “simplify” tax law.

Really?

How much difference will this make to the typical small business trying to understand the complexities of Self Assessment, corporation tax, VAT and PAYE?

I can think of a better way to simplify tax law, abolish the Office of Tax Simplification and speak to some small businesses and their accountants.

The NWDA, through Capital for Enterprise Limited, have replied to my Freedom of Information request which was

Their reply makes interesting reading and doesn’t seem to fit with what the NWDA’s fund managers told Private Eye in Issue 1296 (2 September to 15 Sept. 2011), which was that they are

pursuing repayment of outstanding amounts via the administrators

The important point is that it appears Lucycooks could repay this money but for some reason the liquidators have said it is worth nothing.

Yet again, I just don’t understand!

Julie Tait, a director of Kendal Arts International, is still using the figures prepared by CRESC despite the doubts raised by Private Eye and others about their independence.

This time it’s to encourage the public to give money through The Big Give telling us all that

Mintfest is the flagship festival of Lakes Alive and takes place in Kendal. It attracts 25,000 people a year as well as creating significant economic impact for the local area (estimated at £1.1 – £1.5m), generating massive PR Value for Cumbria and, most importantly of all, bringing joy and happiness to its audiences.

Rather than dispute the calculations I thought it would be better if I “translated” what Julie Tait is saying into plain English.

Mintfest adds £1,500,0000 to the local economy at a cost of (let’s be generous) £100,000. It’s actually less than this but let’s forget that to keep the figures simple.

Which means the audiences spend the rest. So if 25,000 people attend Mintfest and spend in total £1,400,000

every man, woman and child spends £56 each on average at Mintfest

Judge for yourself.

My post about Mintfest – you must be bloody joking prompted this comment from LB 1968:

Many, if not most, arts organisations are limited companies. If they are registered charities, they are probably a limited company as well. This affords them the same protection as any limited company ie it limits personal liability. I don’t know what other structure you would expect them to have, given that they lease property, hire staff, etc.

They are, however, limited by guarantee, not share capital. They are not allowed to distribute dividends to directors, nor are they allowed to make a profit and this will be laid out in their Memorandum and Articles of Association. If this were not the case, they would not be allowed to apply for funding from the Arts Council or many other sources which explicitly state the type of organisations they will support.

If you are a funded arts organisation, funders will pay you when a funding bid is successful or at agreed periods during a funding agreement. This takes no account of a company’s year end so a company with a high level of cash in their bank account will most likely have received funding for its activity over the next few months. It won’t be a “profit” from the previous year’s activities because they are not allowed to make a profit. There are checks in place to ensure this is the case with funders requiring stringent reporting and copies of accounts.

Whether you approve of Lakes Alive or arts funding generally, surely it’s better to have accurate facts to support your argument?

I am always very careful what I say, it’s essential if you’re a Chartered Accountant in practice, so I would just like to make the following points:

1) My comments were not aimed at the structure which Kendal Arts International use i.e. a company limited by guarantee, but were made to highlight the fact that it’s a business not a charity.

2) LB1968 is quite right when she says “they are not allowed to distribute dividends” but they are allowed to make a profit as shown by this entry in their latest accounts

and they are allowed to pay their directors salaries.

3) My reference to the £128,000 sitting in the bank at 31 March 2011 was to point out the money available at that date. I am fully aware that it may have been received to fund future projects and did not suggest it was “profit” (a word which incidentally  I didn’t use at all in my post ).

4) Finally,  and this is one of my worries when public money is handed to companies such as Kendal Arts International, what “checks are in place”? Given that one of of the major donors was the NWDA I hope they are better than the ones applied to this fiasco.

This caught my attention when I was looking at TweetDeck earlier today

Cov & Warks 100in100: Apprenticeships can support all aspects of a business’s operations including support functions like IT and accountancy

November 22, 2011 09:51 via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@CW_LEP

Cov & Warks LEP

It’s a tweet (post) from The Coventry & Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership LEP. Forget the content and think about the message; or, more importantly how it was sent and who sent it.

The economic future of Cumbria has to be based on the internet. Our location demands it.

Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership LEP in its own words

provides a strategic lead in all activities contributing to the growth and vibrancy of the county’s economy

Take a look at their website and ask yourself

Is what they say reflected by what they do and, more importantly, how they do it?

Sadly the answer, in my opinion is no. I have compared Cumbria LEP  with Coventry and Warwickshire LEP previously when I mentioned Twitter specifically.  I have also criticised Cumbria LEP for sitting on its **** but nothing has changed.

Until the board members realise that their inaction is costing us and our children dearly in wasted opportunities Cumbria’s economic growth will continue to stagnate.

If you agree with what I’m saying you should do something to change things.

I have sent a copy of this to my MP, the chairman of my district council (who incidentally is a LEP board member) and to the editor of my local paper, the Westmorland Gazette and asked for their help in changing things.