City of Culture to be loaned £1m in public cash by council in move that's 'not without risk'

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Well, it was a sh*t show

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Art returned after Coventry City of Culture auction mistake



An artist has reclaimed pieces of his artwork after they were incorrectly listed for auction by administrators.

More than 400 items are being sold to try and cover debts after Coventry City of Culture Trust went into administration.

Ian Cook said he'd been left "shocked and surprised" to discover his work in the sale.

The gift items had been provided to the city of culture team on a "sale or return" basis, he said.

The artist produces car-themed work under company name POPBANGCOLOUR, and was alerted to the auction of his goods last week.

The mugs, t-shirts and posters featuring his art had been for sale in the official shop during the city of culture year "and what didn't sell should have been returned to me," he said.

"I wasn't aware of where those items were until it was pointed out to me they were part of two lots on the auction site," he added.

Other items on the online auction website include laptops, computer monitors and fridges along with merchandise from digital gallery the Reel Store.

Mr Cook contacted the administrators and provided them with proof of his ownership.

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Sounds like the administrators are about as good as the team that ran city of culture!

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Council leader defends City of Culture Trust loan as "right decision at the time"



Coventry council's leader has defended the authority's £1 million loan to the City of Culture Trust in an interview ahead of next week's local elections. Cllr George Duggins, who has led the ruling Labour group for seven years, said he and colleagues believe the decision was right at the time.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "At the moment of the decision, I believe it was the right decision and I still do. We believe we took the right decision at the time. It's taxpayer's money and we do take that very very seriously."

Local Conservatives have criticised the £1 million spend in their manifesto for local elections, claiming it was made "without effective due diligence."

But in an interview with Local Democracy Reporting Service, Cllr Duggins claimed there is "no evidence" to support this criticism of the decision.

Asked about concerns over due diligence on the loan, Cllr Duggins said: "There's no evidence. That has been looked at, that went through the proper channel. The report's very clear.

"I have my views on that, I think what happened was, City of Culture Trust misjudged the amounts of money that was going to be coming in in respect of the legacy.

"And I think that's probably what will happen in the end, that's what will be found to be the case."

He added: "We've asked for a public inquiry, and we would need to wait and see what that public enquiry actually says.

"But that's only my own guess that a lot of this was basically monies which were anticipated which just for whatever reason didn't come through."

Asked if he's happy with how the council handled the loan, he said: "I'm not happy about anything that has an outcome like that.

"But I, like other colleagues, had an input into the decision. We believe that decision was right.

"Let's look at it from another point of view, if the City of Culture Trust had just gone 'bang' and we hadn't tried to do anything about it, fingers would have pointed at us anyway," he added.

"You have to look at what's in front of you. Hindsight's a wonderful and easy thing, and that's for the lazy."

Cllr Duggins said the decision was taken formally by Cabinet Member for Finance Cllr Richard Brown and was supported by the Labour group.

Asked about legacy projects, he said the council will be putting together "a package" to ensure they don't lose the year's impact, but they are still deciding on the mechanism to run it.

"The idea that somehow the City of Culture year is a failure because of this is palpable nonsense," he added.

"I would say in respect to legacy some of the regenerational projects are already legacy in their own rights, and they will be standing for a very long time."

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if the City of Culture Trust had just gone 'bang' and we hadn't tried to do anything about it, fingers would have pointed at us anyway

The man is a fool. The money had already gone (sunk cost in accounting terms) it was pure folly to throw more money at it.

I'd like to know exactly what legal advice Duggins sought and just what due diligence was carried out before he so cavalierly wasted OUR money.

Read what he says, the words 'think' and 'guess' come up rather a lot, when the word 'know' should be there.

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Collapsed Culture Trust unlikely to repay £4.25m debt

Coventry City of Culture Trust is unlikely to be able to repay £4.25m it owes in debts after entering administration, a report says.

The trust collapsed in February and a report from administrators suggests little over £500,000 is expected to be recouped from its assets.

Creditors unlikely to see a penny back include the city council, which agreed to a £1m loan in October.

Administrators have started investigating the trust's collapse and found Covid-19 "adversely impacted" the operation.

The majority of the money released from the trust's assets will be spent on administration costs, paying a £100,000 debt to HMRC and a further £24,000 to former employees.

However the report said creditors owed more than £1m are unlikely to be paid at all.

As well as the £1m to the council, the trust also owed £1.5m to arts organisation Assembly Festival and £505,000 to West Midlands Police.

Other loans of tens of thousands of pounds were also paid by Culture Coventry, The Albany Theatre and Coventry University.

The city council said it would do all it could to ensure it got as much of the money back as possible and West Midlands Police said it should be "top of the list" to receive funds "as a publicly funded body".

William Burdett-Couts, the artistic director of Assembly Festival, said the report was "not a surprise".

He has previously said his organisation's future was at risk due to the unpaid debt and has called for compensation from the council.

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Trust unlikely to repay £4.25m debt

Well, that was rather obvious from the very start. Maybe Duggins would like to share with us the due diligence that the council undertook before wasting more of OUR money. - Oh, I'm also getting a bit peeved about covid getting the blame for everything from poor service to outright incompetence!

[dutchman]

It should have said "lockdown measures" as Covid itself affected hardly anything.

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Electioneering much?

Coventry opposition leader hits out at council's £1 million loan to City of Culture Trust



The leader of the opposition at Coventry council has criticised the authority's decision last year to loan £1 million to the City of Culture Trust. Coventry Conservatives leader Cllr Gary Ridley believes the October loan to the charity was "rushed through" and needed more scrutiny before being signed off.

Asked if the group would have supported the loan, he said if they were in charge they would have looked for more information on what the money would be spent on. "You can't just hand out taxpayers' money like confetti without understanding what it was going to be used on," he said.

"I'm very critical of that decision, it was a huge waste of taxpayers' money. It was a poor decision ultimately."

He said the issue has been "deeply damaging" to the ruling Labour group ahead of this year's local elections to decide a third of the council seats. The loan was signed off at an urgent meeting by councillors to help the Trust, set up to run Coventry's City of Culture year and a three-year legacy programme, with what were characterised as temporary cashflow problems.

Councillors from the opposition group said at the time they hadn't seen enough facts and figures to support the move, and later criticised the loan as money "thrown in a black hole." The party's manifesto this year claims the loan was made without effective due diligence and also refers to the Trust's "extremely concerning" slide into administration.

Asked about the council's defence of the loan, Cllr Ridley said: "It was certainly obvious to us that this was rushed through. We raised questions at the time. I actually think that if the Trust was going to go bust - which it has done - it would have been better to do that in September and not take £1 million of taxpayers' money with it."

I don't recall hearing objections to the whole circus act from Ridley or any other Tory at the time?