WHY COUNCIL OVERSPENT £460k ON GODIVA

A £460,000 overspend on the Godiva Festival last year has been blamed on two failed shows at the Ricoh Arena – which were meant to help raise funds.

Coventry City Council spent more than four times its initial £150,000 budget on last year’s free music festival, it was revealed last month.

Speaking at a full council meeting on Tuesday, cabinet member for finance Cllr John Mutton said the overspend was largely down to two acts who had been booked to perform at the Ricoh Arena, before being switched to Godiva when ticket sales flopped.

The council funded a string of concerts at the arena in early 2018 in a bid to earn extra income.

But Ronan Keating – supported by Gabrielle – and Jonas Blue were switched to the Godiva schedule in March last year, largely accounting for the huge overspend, Cllr Mutton said.

But the huge financial liability was not disclosed when the gigs were cancelled 11 months ago, or at a scrutiny board meeting in December.

At that meeting, finance manager Paul Jennings said “there might have been a small administrative loss”.

Cllr Mutton told this week’s meeting: “Yes there was an overspend, we all know why.

“Two of the headline acts that were supposed to go at the Ricoh didn’t go ahead there as the tickets didn’t sell, so they came to the Godiva instead.

“Of course, those kind of people charge the Earth.

“The council had two choices.

“They could have continued to go ahead at the Ricoh knowing the acts were not selling and could have lost even more money than transferring the acts to the Godiva, which resulted in a massive overspend.”

As a result of the overspend, the council has factored an additional £379,000 into this year’s festival budget.

At full council on Tuesday, plans were also approved to introduce car park charging and introducing sponsorship/naming rights, which could generate £50,000 a year.

Plans for merchandising were also approved, which is hoped to bring in £25,000 a year.

The council is also considering a proposal to introduce an entrance fee to non-Coventry residents in 2020.

Cllr Mutton said: “If you look at the budget there is money put in for one year [£379,000] so the cabinet member can look at how to drive down costs or bring in more money.”

Leader of the council George Duggins added: “We will ensure that over the coming years the budget pressures associated with the Godiva festival will be addressed.

“Godiva brought something in the region of £2.3 million to the economy over that one weekend.

“In my view, that means we should be seeking sponsorship.”

WE live in an age where we have to try to make people understand that trusted local journalism is vital and worth protecting - and paying for.

Only yesterday, the Culture Secretary and Kenilworth MP Jeremy Wright wrote in CoventryLive and the Telegraph about the vital role we play in maintaining a healthy democracy, something we can surely all agree on.

But it can be hard to convince some people that those we trust to look after your taxes need proper scrutiny. Everything is ok, yes?

Thankfully, Coventry City Council has stepped up to the plate with a timely example of why, more than ever, we are needed to shine a light on what they are up to with YOUR money.

Last year the council tried, and failed, to make a profit by staging concerts at the Ricoh Arena. It needs to find other sources of income as the government has squeezed it until the pips have stop squeaking - and how it does that is another debate.

This is about transparency. This is about how open they are with what they are doing with your cash - especially when it goes wrong.

The council’s first opportunity to tell you that it had lost seemingly hundreds of thousands of pounds of your cash “supporting” concerts (its words) at the Ricoh Arena was in March 2018 when the Ronan Keating and Jonas Blue gigs were cancelled. They didn’t take it.

We say lost. The council might argue that the money wasn’t lost as by moving these stars to the Godiva Festival line up, those losses instead became an ‘overspend’ on the free festival.

As well as the media, the council is also scrutinised by itself, and the council had a second opportunity to give you the full facts about these concerts at a scrutiny board meeting in December. That meeting was told: “The artists were instead booked to the Godiva Festival, so we cut our losses in that respect. We do not have a figure but there might have been a small administrative loss.”

We are not suggesting for a second that anyone was lying but that is a second opportunity missed to lay all the cards on the table.

Third time lucky? In January, we learned that the Godiva Festival cost a whopping £610,000 in 2018 - 300% more than what the council had budgeted for. This was the obvious opportunity to explain where that money went. It was not forthcoming. You were still kept in the dark.

Forward to this week - 11 months after the Ricoh Arena gigs were cancelled - and cabinet member for finance Cllr John Mutton tells the full council meeting about the Godiva budget blowout: “Yes there was an overspend, we all know why.”

Which is a stunning thing to say because, actually John, we didn’t know why. It was a secret outside of the Council House.

“Two of the headline acts that were supposed to go at the Ricoh didn’t go ahead there as the tickets didn’t sell, so they came to the Godiva instead,” he revealed.

So there it is, 11 months after losing your cash in a failed venture and blowing the Godiva Festival budget, the council tells you it lost your cash but, crucially, not how much.

As this drip, drip, drip of information slowly comes out there are more questions than answers.

So here is the council’s fifth chance to give you the full facts - not counting the times that different media, including our colleagues at the BBC, have asked questions on this subject.

These questions have now been submitted in writing.

The questions that

need answers

If last year’s £150,000 Godiva budget was too low (2019 is set at £529,000) how was it set?

What was the budget and spend in the previous three years?

What was the spend on the acts booked for the Ricoh Arena and moved to Godiva that have been blamed for the 300% overspend on Godiva in 2018?

If the overspend in 2018 was down to the expensive Ricoh Arena acts being moved - surely a one-off mistake you wont repeat why have you budgeted for a similar amount for 2019?

Why did the council not come clean on the costs and the loss to taxpayers when it cancelled the gigs nearly a year ago in March 2018?

Why did the council not come clean to its own scrutiny board meeting in December, when the cancelled gigs were said to have led to a “small administrative loss”?

In light of this, how can anyone be assured the council’s scrutiny board meeting and its internal checks and balances are fit for purpose?

Why is the council risking taxpayers’ money hosting concerts?

What experience and expertise does the council have to do this?

Godiva is a free festival so very different to a profit-driven commercial enterprise. Clearly, we need to up our game to ensure we ask the right questions at the right time and, with the help of the BBC-funded Local Democracy Reporting Service which pays for a reporter to cover the council, we promise to do that more than ever.

If they have taken 11 months to sort of confess on this one, it begs the question, what else aren’t they telling us and you?