Welcome to Yorkshire counts £500,000 cost of ‘cult of personality’
THE FALLOUT from the expenses scandal which consumed Welcome to Yorkshire following the resignation of chief executive Sir Gary Verity has cost the troubled tourist agency almost £500,000, it has been revealed.
Details have been published by the privately-run company, which receives millions of pounds in public sector funding, at the direction of its new chairman, Wakefield Council leader Peter Box. Coun Box criticised the previous regime, saying the agency could no longer be run on a ‘cult of personality’.
It has been revealed that £482,500 has been spent in connection to the costs of two independent inquiries ordered in the wake of Sir Gary’s resignation in March on health grounds following bullying and expenses allegations, with the figure also taking account of “termination” expenses. Newly-published figures said £151,000 had been spent on “payments in lieu of notice, including National Insurance and pension”.
Welcome to Yorkshire said it was unable to confirm whether that money related to Sir Gary. He was unavailable for comment.
Two independent investigations ordered in the wake of Sir Gary’s departure cost the organisation £168,000, while £42,000 has been spent on legal costs, along with £49,000 on the ongoing efforts to recruit a new chief executive.
More than £70,000 has been spent on other related areas such as communications, accounting advice and consulting on a new tourism strategy.
The inquiries reported in July that Sir Gary’s behaviour towards staff had “fallen short” of expected standards, while it was found he had claimed around £26,000 in “personal” expenses “not incurred wholly for the benefit of Welcome to Yorkshire”.
Investigators were unable to determine whether a further £900,000 of expense claims by Sir Gary and other senior officials had been “reasonable” because of a lack of clear spending policies at the organisation.
Further details of Welcome to Yorkshire’s ongoing financial problems have also been revealed as two previously-classified reports were made public – with Coun Box saying a “spend now, worry about it later” culture had pushed the organisation to the brink of financial collapse.
Coun Box said that governance and strategic oversight at the tourism agency had been “largely absent”.
A previously-classified report has now been made public and reveals that WTY, which does not have an overdraft facility, had been on course “to run out of cash by November at the latest” unless it received over £1.5m in additional public funds – listing three expected sources of funding which were “essential” to ensuring the business remained a going concern.
Since then, two of those three sources of funding – a £500,000 loan from North Yorkshire County Council and a £1m cash injection from a business rates pool overseen by councils in North and West Yorkshire – have been approved. But the third source, an unspecified amount of money from the North Yorkshire Moors National Park, is yet to be paid.