Hertsmere council refuses to publish report on £1.65m spend

Hertsmere Borough Council (HBC), which has a Labour leader, commissioned Social Impact Consulting to write a community benefit review ahead of a decision to spend the money on helping Boreham Wood FC build a new stand.

The consultancy is a sole trading enterprise run by Nick Small, a Labour cabinet member for growth and economy on Liverpool City Council.

Cllr Small was also involved in discussions around a film corridor partnership between Hertsmere and Liverpool, which began before his review was commissioned and concluded several months after it was completed.

HBC has refused to publish the review, described in an officer report as having been conducted by “independent social impact experts”.

Asked whether the council believed there was any potential for a conflict of interest to arise through Social Impact Consulting being commissioned to conduct the review, a spokesperson said they had “sought proposals” from four consultancies, who all submitted bids, and that they had been “subject to a detailed evaluation”.

Councillors agreed at a meeting in April to spend £1.65m from the authority’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) pot, paid into by developers in the area, on helping Boreham Wood FC meet the £3.75m costs of a new South Stand at the club’s Meadow Park home.

An officer report at the time said the community benefit review would “assist in assessing the true benefits” of the funding proposal.

The review concluded that the benefits of building the new stand were sufficiently strong to justify the council spending £1.65m of CIL funding on it, though officers noted that “many community benefits” identified by the review “relate to existing activities rather than new activities as a result of this project”.

A council spokesperson said the community benefit review had been commissioned to “seek high-level independent external validation of the community benefit” provided by the club, and added that the review had suggested Boreham Wood FC may has underestimated the social benefit it provides.

The council commissioned Social Impact Consulting to write the review on March 3. It was supplied to the council on March 16.

After the high-level ‘phase one’ review, a more detailed ‘phase two’ review was carried out between March and late May, ahead of negotiations between the council and Boreham Wood FC over a new lease for the football ground. The council paid Social Impact Consulting a total of £7,950 for its work on both reviews.

Last November, Cllr Small sat with Jeremy Newmark, the Labour leader of HBC, on a panel at the UK Screen Investment Summit called “Shared Vision, Local Delivery: How UK Clusters Can Scale Screen Production”. 

By January, Hertsmere and Liverpool had begun discussions about a “screen corridor” partnership, and a final agreement was signed in late September.

A spokesperson for HBC said discussions around the partnership had initially been dealt with by the respective Film Offices for both areas, and added: “Elected members were involved in instigating the idea, policy matters and the final signing ceremony. Cllr Small was involved insofar as this policy falls within his cabinet role.”

They added that the agreement itself and the process behind it had “involved the legal teams at both councils”.

Boreham Wood FC’s funding bid was supported by Labour and by the Conservative opposition group, but was opposed by several members of Labour’s coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, including the authority’s deputy leader, Chris Shenton.

It was also opposed by Hertsmere First’s Borehamwood Brookmeadow councillor Graeme Alexander, who has called on the council to “immediately” publish Social Impact Consulting’s review.

Cllr Alexander said residents are “rightly proud” of Boreham Wood FC and “what it contributes to the town” but continued: “I believe residents are entitled to see the evidence used to justify significant allocations of public money, particularly where the bid is contentious.

“The officers’ report repeatedly refers to ‘wider benefits’ arising from the project. If those wider benefits are sufficiently significant to justify a £1.65m public contribution, then residents deserve to see the evidence, assumptions and calculations that support that conclusion.”

Explaining his reasons for voting against the funding, Cllr Alexander said: “What concerned me was that the council officers’ own assessment concluded the project would make ‘very little’ contribution to Hertsmere’s strategic growth and sustainable development, and identified only ‘some link’ to council priorities.

“At a time when residents continue to experience infrastructure pressures, including deteriorating roads, reduced public transport provision and lack of affordable housing, I was not persuaded that this should be a priority for £1.65m of strategic CIL funding.”

Cllr Alexander added that he believes the decision to award the funding, made at an extraordinary council convened primarily to consider Hertsmere’s new Local Plan, did not “receive the level of scrutiny it deserved”.

Social Impact Consulting’s review was not published as a background paper at the time of the April meeting, and the council has refused to disclose it in response to a freedom of information (FOI) request from the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS). The LDRS has lodged an appeal with the Information Commissioners’ Office.

The council said publishing the review would likely prejudice its “ability to negotiate effectively” with Boreham Wood FC around the club’s new lease, while a council spokesperson said the review remains confidential because it “contains commercially sensitive information relating to the financial and business affairs of the club”.

The spokesperson added that the community benefit review had not been published as a background paper as it contained exempt information that was commercially sensitive.

The council has also refused to provide any correspondence relating to its decision to commission the review, citing commercial grounds.