Footpath Friends

[2112]

Just reading on the IOM Newspaper website, the offshoot of Beach Buddies awarded a £75000 contract by Government with no tendering involved, to maintain footpaths. Needless to say, it’s come in for criticism from people, newspapers comments and another shit storm on IOMNP Facebook. I think people are fed up of Government using Charities as free labour, and a perception that they are gaining out of it. One minute a hero the next a ………..

[Andy Onchan]

1 minute ago, 2112 said:

Just reading on the IOM Newspaper website, the offshoot of Beach Buddies awarded a £75000 contract by Government with no tendering involved, to maintain footpaths. Needless to say, it’s come in for criticism from people, newspapers comments and another shit storm on IOMNP Facebook. I think people are fed up of Government using Charities as free labour, and a perception that they are gaining out of it. One minute a hero the next a ………..

a..... what?

[2112]

13 minutes ago, Andy Onchan said:

a..... what?

Whatever you want. As it is an offshoot of Beach Buddies, its founder who one minute was showered with praise, now he is being castigated, over the use of public funds. People are also unhappy that the DOI aren’t doing the job they are supposed to do, and maintaining footpaths are one of those tasks. Someone apparently put in a FOI request, hence it’s headline.

[2112]

1 minute ago, offshoremanxman said:

I think whatever Bill Dale does will be wrong as lots of people seem to have a big issue with Bill Dale. But in this case the funding looks very suspect - £15K on equipment and £50K on travel costs. To provide free labour from volunteers or as part of people probation plan. Remember too the reason for the FOI was Buttery’s petition that the paths are in such a state. So the DOI has spent this money without any tender process to Footpath Friends (what a soppy title) but this “cheap” solution to managing the paths  hasn’t quite been an effective solution to the problem that exists. It’s all part of the DOIs negative Midas touch where literally everything Black, Robinson or Longworth touches turns into a huge pile of s***.

Like I said one minute a hero the next ………… saying that, we build them up and knock ‘em down. HNWIs bashing are often a popular pastime - mind you some deserve calling, but it’s a jealousy thing. 
 

It’s a shame that this charity has spawned a cottage industry and developed into an enterprise. Sadly some charitable organisations nowadays, pay out management fees. What happened to old fashioned fundraising? Shake the tin, being replaced with shake the taxpayer. 

[Meoir Shee]

My understanding is that the main BB vehicle was provided FOC by AFD Sortware in Ramsey and that the various bins around the island are sponsored by local firms at quite a strong rate.  It isn’t too long ago that BB were requesting some free storage space and were running a crowdfunding appeal for something else.  I don’t think anyone would deny that the work done around the coast is noble, maybe a release of the last 3 years audited accounts would appease minds, if the main funding is via the public purse, does the public have a right to see where the money has been spent?  

[Gladys]

6 minutes ago, Meoir Shee said:

My understanding is that the main BB vehicle was provided FOC by AFD Sortware in Ramsey and that the various bins around the island are sponsored by local firms at quite a strong rate.  It isn’t too long ago that BB were requesting some free storage space and were running a crowdfunding appeal for something else.  I don’t think anyone would deny that the work done around the coast is noble, maybe a release of the last 3 years audited accounts would appease minds, if the main funding is via the public purse, does the public have a right to see where the money has been spent?  

As a registered charity accounts are filed with the AG. You can access the file by going to the General Registry.  The files are not online. 

[The Voice of Reason]

1 hour ago, offshoremanxman said:

I think whatever Bill Dale does will be wrong as lots of people seem to have a big issue with Bill Dale. But in this case the funding looks very suspect - £15K on equipment and £50K on travel costs. To provide free labour from volunteers or as part of people probation plan. 

And they are spending some of it on sponsoring a football match ! (JOKING!!!)

[Non-Believer]

Well....a decent lawn tractor (if that's what they bought) would be £6k - 7k+...decent hedgecutters £400+ each, decent brushcutters the same, plus whatever else so that would eat up £15k in equipment expenses fairly quickly. £50k on travel? Were they getting around by Emirates?

[Roger Mexico]

I was a bit puzzled that I couldn't see the FoI response, but it turns out that it was replied to back on 20 August[1], so the Newswpapers are as bang up to date as ever.  Here is the main response in full:

We write further to your request which was received on 17 August 2021 and which states (sic)[2]:

"Would you be kind enough to provide information on the Department's arrangements with and funding of the Isle of Man group Footpath Friends?
1. What is the group Footpath Friends paid by the Department do?
2. What are the terms of the contract, or KPIs, or agreement, etc (whatever exists), between the Department and Footpath Friends?
3. Has the group Footpath Friends met the terms of its contract, KPIs, agreement, etc
(whatever exists)?
4. How much annual funding is paid by the Department to Footpath Friends (broken down by year if the sum is not the same each year)?
5. Is the Department's funding of Footpath Friends the result of a competitive tendering exercise, publicly advertised opportunity, etc?"

In response to your request
1. £25,000 per year.
2. The works undertaken by the Footpath Friends are agreed with the Department and targets and timescales agreed and monitored on a job by job basis.
3. Yes.
4. The contract was for 3 years with a total of £75,000 paid, annually at £25,000.  The contract has now expired so no funding has been made  available this year.
5. No, it was undertaken via an FD8 Waiver (copy attached).

I'm a bit surprised by Dale's response about the amount only being £20,000 for the first two years as the FD8 for says:  "Subject to annual review, the contract would be placed for 3 years in the sum of £25,000 per year, enough to fund a full time co-ordinator"[3].  So not only has £10,000 gone missing from the original proposal, but the money was apparently intended for staff costs all along, not transport and equipment.

 

[1]  Case ID: 1951873; Title:  Role and funding of Footpath Friends; Date Submitted: 17/08/2021.  A suspiciously fast response from the DoI, there may be a story there.

[2]  Someone who does the FoI responses at DoI keeps on using "(sic)" in a way that suggests they are trying to mock the questioners, while revealing that they actually have no idea how to use the phrase.  Which is completely 'on brand' for the DoI.

[3] [sic]

[Dave Hedgehog]

Any idea where I pick up the cheque for my new Pavement Pals charity?

[Last Ten]

This amount of money would fund a small dedicated Gov department team to concentrate on footpath clearance on a weekly all year round basis, why have they farmed it out to some volunteers with a contract price as stated in the newspaper article??

Time for Tim Crookall to get a grip and either justify it or bin it!

[Gladys]

22 minutes ago, Last Ten said:

This amount of money would fund a small dedicated Gov department team to concentrate on footpath clearance on a weekly all year round basis, why have they farmed it out to some volunteers with a contract price as stated in the newspaper article??

Time for Tim Crookall to get a grip and either justify it or bin it!

Looks like it is at an end anyway.

[Max Power]

36 minutes ago, Last Ten said:

This amount of money would fund a small dedicated Gov department team to concentrate on footpath clearance on a weekly all year round basis, why have they farmed it out to some volunteers with a contract price as stated in the newspaper article??

Time for Tim Crookall to get a grip and either justify it or bin it!

Over three years it would probably be the wages of one labourer and nothing would get done! 

This is an example of a third sector partnership, how does £75k fund yet another department for three years? If the footpaths have been made good and maintained at that price, by people who are willing to do it. then what's the bloody problem? 

[Max Power]

3 minutes ago, Manx17 said:

Let’s face it the real volunteers would of got nothing. It is totally shady and put all the volunteers in bad light. It’s absolutely disgusting. 

The materials, fuel and equipment would have cost that, how are they expected to carry out the work without those things?

[Roger Mexico]

13 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

Did you think it might be that they know a substantial number of the GMP are dicks and a similar amount are Manx Crabs and that a job needs doing on the footpaths and that they’d rather give the contract to a well established, well run charity with a proven track record of effecting constant progress with a huge, loyal band of volunteers. All that with a record of achieving great PR for the Island.

I think it's more that there are so many unresolved queries around the situation and what actually happened.  There's the discrepancy on the amounts and what they were actually for.  As you will have noticed the DoI didn't actually reveal what the terms of contract or KPIs were (apart from claiming they were met).  It also seems to be uncertain who was supposed to be doing the work (volunteers, prisoners under supervision, offenders doing community service?)  Or indeed what the work was to consist of - there are references to cutting back vegetation, but footpath maintenance needs to be a lot more than that.  There's also uncertainty over the exact status of this Footpath Friends group - it doesn't seem to a separate charity for instance.

It's not unknown for voluntary groups to provide specialist help in this way on the Isle of Man - the Mines Research Group have been doing so for decades, though the government mainly pays for materials and occasional equipment hire and volunteers give free labour.  It's just that Beach Buddies wasn't really the obvious organisation to have the requisite skills.