Sandwell's Christmas Lights Mystery: No Records, No Searches, No Change... Except There Was

You have to admire Sandwell Council.

Not because they've mastered transparency.

Not because they've set a new gold standard in community engagement.

But because they've somehow managed to pull off what appears to be the local government equivalent of a magic trick.

"There was no change."

"No records exist."

"We didn't search because there was nothing to search for."

And then, a few weeks later...

Abracadabra!

Out come the emails.

Out come the budgets.

Out come the sponsorship records.

Out come the planning documents.

Out come the event funding forms.

Out come the debrief meetings.

Out come the officer job descriptions.

You almost expect Paul Daniels to appear from behind the Christmas tree.

The Great Christmas Lights Non-Change

This all started with a simple question.

Residents had noticed that Christmas Lights Switch-On events across Sandwell seemed different.

Some long-established community involvement appeared to have disappeared.

Some towns seemed to be council-led.

Others weren't.

Some had sponsorship.

Some had Ward Member Budgets.

Some appeared to have different rules entirely.

Naturally, the question was asked:

Who decided this?

A perfectly reasonable question.

The answer?

Apparently nobody.

Because according to Sandwell Council there was:

"No change in the delivery model."

And because there was no change...

"No information is held."

And because no information was held...

"No searches were undertaken."

I wish I'd known this approach existed years ago.

Next time somebody asks whether I've cleaned the caravan:

"Sorry, no searches were undertaken because no clean surfaces would exist."

Then The Wheels Started Falling Off

Unfortunately for this carefully constructed position, another FOI response landed.

And another.

And another.

Suddenly there were records everywhere.

Not just a few records.

Loads of them.

Documents discussing:

• Christmas planning;

• Event funding;

• Sponsorship;

• Officer responsibilities;

• Town-by-town arrangements;

• Debrief meetings;

• Future improvements;

• Event delivery.

Which rather undermines the earlier argument that nothing existed.

It's difficult to maintain that a cupboard is empty when paperwork keeps falling out every time somebody opens the door.

The Curious Case of Tipton

One of the most interesting disclosures concerns Tipton.

Publicly, many people believed that long-standing community involvement had been reduced or removed.

The Council's position was that there was no change in 2025 because the Council had already been delivering the event since 2024.

Which is interesting.

Because the original FOI about changes was met with:

"No change."

What they actually meant appears to be:

"The change happened earlier."

Those are not quite the same thing.

It's a bit like being caught standing in the rain and claiming:

"I didn't get wet today."

No. You got wet yesterday.

Different Towns, Different Rules

The documents reveal something else.

Sandwell didn't have one model.

It had several.

Some events were:

• Council organised.

• Council supported.

• Council funded.

• Community organised.

• A mixture of all the above.

Now there may be perfectly sensible reasons for that.

But if there are, nobody has explained them.

Why does one town get one arrangement and another town get something completely different?

What criteria were used?

Who decided?

Where is the policy?

The public shouldn't have to play Christmas Lights Cluedo every year.

Community Groups: Partners Or Passengers?

This is where the real concern lies.

The issue isn't actually Christmas lights.

The issue is community ownership.

For decades, community organisations, traders, churches, volunteers and local residents helped make these events successful.

They brought:

• volunteers;

• local knowledge;

• fundraising;

• sponsorship;

• community spirit.

Yet many now feel that decisions are increasingly made behind closed doors, with communities informed after the fact rather than involved from the start.

Whether that perception is entirely fair isn't really the point.

The perception exists.

And in local government, perception becomes reality remarkably quickly.

Follow The Money

The FOIs also revealed a fascinating patchwork of funding.

Events budgets.

Ward Member Budgets.

Sponsorship.

Donations.

In-kind support.

Officer time.

Road closures.

Charity fundraising.

Cash collections.

Nothing particularly unusual in any of that.

What is unusual is how difficult it has been to obtain a clear picture of the whole thing.

Public events funded with public resources should be accompanied by public transparency.

That shouldn't be controversial.

It should be standard.

The Incredible Redacting Machine

A special mention must go to whoever was operating the black marker pen.

Entire sections disappeared beneath thick black rectangles.

Performers.

Entertainers.

Suppliers.

Sponsors.

Donors.

Event partners.

At one point I was half expecting Father Christmas himself to be redacted under Section 40 because disclosure might reveal sensitive information about reindeer movements.

Obviously personal information should be protected where appropriate.

Nobody disputes that.

But when commercial organisations are providing sponsorship, services or support to publicly funded events, transparency ought to be the default position.

Otherwise the paperwork starts to resemble a Cold War intelligence file.

The Bigger Issue

This isn't really about Christmas lights.

It's about governance.

It's about transparency.

It's about trust.

It's about whether community organisations feel valued or tolerated.

It's about whether decisions are clearly documented and explained.

And it's about whether residents can obtain straightforward answers to straightforward questions.

Because when a council says:

"No searches were undertaken because no records would exist"

and then subsequently discloses boxes full of records...

people start asking questions.

Quite rightly.

What Happens Next?

As far as I'm concerned, the investigation phase is largely complete.

Over many months a substantial amount of information has been obtained through Freedom of Information requests, internal reviews and publicly disclosed documents.

The evidence now exists.

The questions have been identified.

The contradictions have been exposed.

The concerns have been documented.

At this point I have decided not to continue an endless cycle of correspondence with officers.

Instead, the information has been passed to Sandwell's new political leadership.

Reform now controls Sandwell Council.

They did not create these arrangements.

However, they now have responsibility for deciding whether they are satisfied with them.

The questions are straightforward:

• Were community groups treated fairly?

• Were long-standing volunteers properly respected?

• Were towns treated consistently?

• Were sponsorship arrangements transparent?

• Were decisions properly documented?

• Were residents adequately consulted?

The evidence is now available.

The responsibility to act rests elsewhere.

A Chance To Reset

Residents do not want Christmas Lights Switch-On events to become political battlegrounds.

They want:

• transparency;

• fairness;

• accountability;

• community involvement;

• and common sense.

Many community groups have spent years helping make these events successful.

They should not feel excluded.

They should not feel ignored.

And they certainly should not feel that involvement depends upon who they know, who is in charge, or which delivery model happens to be fashionable this year.

The new administration has an opportunity to draw a line under the confusion and create a clear borough-wide framework that treats every town, every volunteer and every community group fairly.

Final Thought

Christmas lights are supposed to bring people together.

The irony is that Sandwell's Christmas Lights programme has managed to illuminate something entirely different.

Not the town centres.

The governance.

And once the lights are switched on, it's very difficult to pretend nobody can see.

Link to FOI disclosures and public documents:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/christmas_lights_switch_on_event

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