Roger Evans, Shropshire Councillor for Hanwood and Leader of the Lib Dems on the Council, has strongly challenged Shropshire Council’s assertion that the ‘ The Connecting Shropshire programme remains in a very positive position with delivery on schedule to cost and timescale.’
In an open letter to the Council, Roger said that it was patently clear from the report to the Cabinet this week (Capital Outturn Report 2014-15 – see below) that the whole scheme is running behind schedule.
Letter to the Council:
A letter or press release published by Shropshire Council should contain accurate facts. Broadband is not being delivered as per the programme, it is behind schedule. It is a straight fact, as shown in the Capital Outturn Report 2014/15 presented to Cabinet and to the Performance Scrutiny Committee earlier this week. It is either being delivered to programme or it isn’t.. The paper and press release published and sent out by Shropshire Council, to repeat yet again states:
The Connecting Shropshire programme remains in a very positive position with delivery on schedule to cost and timescale
Yet in the Cabinet papers on P42 it clearly shows:
Budget Revised Budget Q4 Actual Spend Slipped to
31/03/15 31/04/15 2015/16
Broadband Project Phase 1 £3.785,379 £3,785.379 £3,139,195 £648184
Broadband Project Phase 2 £1,753,512 £1,753,512 £1,347,289 £402,224
Finally, as far as I can remember no explanation was given to the Scrutiny Committee. I asked the question and was told by the chairman sorry but there was no one there able to answer it. He also apologised to me after the meeting for the non-attendance as thought Cllr Charmley would have been there. He said to me that he was also going to discuss this with Cllr Charmley, later that day he confirmed they had spoken. Notification of the question I was going to ask was sent to Cllr Charmley at 14.20 on Friday 12 June. I did finally receive a personal answer from Cllr Charmley after the meeting had finished. No doubt you have seen it but the relevant part is
I am surprised the last update was September 14 and there was no idea until now of where we were as that is the impression given. I note other authorities complain about the secrecy attitude of BT and the lack of information they provide. Never the less can the information you have sent out be corrected please. I do also note the message has now appeared on ‘Blogtotter’, this has appeared since I originally complained to your section. Finally how do we know what is to be delivered in 2015/16, could that money be rolled forward into 2016/17 or even 2017/18. From the above it appears to me it could.