Tividale Pride in Place: £20 Million, Closed Doors, Bouncy Castles and a Lot of “Transparency”

There are times when local government writes something so beautifully contradictory that you really don't need satire. It writes itself.

Welcome to the Tividale Neighbourhood Board, which is overseeing a Pride in Place programme worth up to £20 million of public money.

The September agenda tells us all about openness, transparency, accountability and putting residents at the heart of decision-making.

There is just one small problem.

Residents aren't allowed into the meeting.

Nor are the press.

The front page of the papers for the meeting on Thursday 10 September couldn't really be clearer:

“This meeting of the Tividale Neighbourhood Board is not open to the public and press.”

You can, apparently, send a question in beforehand.

How very generous.

Perhaps somebody needs to explain that “Pride in Place – Led by You” works rather better when “you” are actually allowed through the door.

And before anyone reaches for the usual excuses, I'm not suggesting every discussion involving commercially sensitive information, personal information or genuine confidentiality must be conducted in public.

Of course it shouldn't.

But closing the whole meeting as the default position for a body making decisions connected to a £20 million public programme is something entirely different.

Especially when the Governance document being presented to that very meeting talks about an:

“open, transparent and robust governance process”.

You couldn't make it up.

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First, there are some good things

Regular readers will know I'm quite prepared to give credit where it is due.

And there are some encouraging signs in Tividale.

The Board has decided that community engagement should primarily be undertaken by the Board rather than immediately handing a large cheque to a consultation company.

Good.

The website is being developed through Sandwell Council's existing system instead of spending the estimated £6,000–£10,000 quoted for an externally hosted version.

Good again.

The proposed community survey won't only be available by QR code and online. The September papers specifically say paper copies will be provided for people with limited internet access or capability.

Also good.

And Board members have already said they don't want the eventual funding swallowed up by big organisations while the little community groups doing the actual work get crumbs.

That is exactly the right instinct.

So this isn't an article saying everything is wrong.

It is an article saying:

Get the governance right now, because £20 million is a lot harder to unscramble later.

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£10,000, a gazebo and a bouncy castle

The first big Tividale community event is planned for Sunday 20 September at Tividale Park.

The Board allocated a £10,000 budget.

In August, the estimated cost was around £4,500, including approximately £3,500 for inflatables and activities, with refreshments also mentioned.

The September update tells us that:

• a gazebo is being borrowed from the Council's Markets team;

• tables and chairs are being sought internally;

• stationery and materials will come through the programme office;

• refreshments such as samosas, cupcakes and squash are being sourced;

• and “ABC Bouncy” is expected to be confirmed.

Nothing wrong with any of that.

A community event should be enjoyable. If a bouncy castle gets families there and gives the Board an opportunity to talk to residents, fine by me.

But afterwards I'd like to see a very simple document:

What was budgeted?
What was actually spent?
Who was paid?
What was purchased?
What was donated or loaned?
What was left over?

Because transparency doesn't need to be complicated.

If £4,500 is spent from a £10,000 allocation, tell residents where the other £5,500 went.

That shouldn't require an FOI, a detective agency and three months of emails.

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Consultation first — or consultation after the event has already started?

This is where I become more concerned.

Back on 20 August, one of the actions was:

“To create a Map of Tividale with organisations to engage with within the area.”

The September papers show that work is still being progressed.

Yet the big community launch is scheduled for 20 September.

So we're potentially holding one of the principal engagement events while we're still mapping who we ought to be engaging with.

That's rather like sending the wedding invitations after cutting the cake.

The correct order surely ought to be:

Map the community.
Identify who isn't normally heard.
Contact them.
Work out how to reach them.
Then consult.

Not:

Hold an event.
Put a QR code up.
Count everybody who came for a samosa and a bounce.
Call it community engagement.

To be fair, the Board does intend further workshops and smaller sessions.

They will be essential.

One fun day cannot possibly tell us what nearly 17,000 people think should happen with a ten-year investment programme.

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And please don't measure engagement by guesswork

One section of the papers genuinely surprised me.

The draft Terms of Reference gives the Engagement Subgroup its Key Performance Indicators.

There are effectively two.

One is:

“Community Leaders to provide an estimation of number of representatives engaged with”.

An estimation.

We're talking about a £20 million public programme and one of the measurements of whether engagement succeeded is apparently somebody estimating how many people were engaged.

The other KPI is engagement across the Tividale neighbourhood wards.

Surely we can do rather better than this.

How many unique residents participated?

Which parts of Tividale did they come from?

How many community organisations were contacted?

How many responded?

How many young people?

How many older residents?

How did we reach disabled residents?

How did we reach people who don't use Facebook?

How many paper surveys were returned?

How many residents attended workshops?

Most importantly:

What changed because residents said it?

Otherwise “engagement” can become another box-ticking exercise where we proudly announce that 600 people were consulted without ever explaining whether their opinions influenced a single decision.

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A subgroup that can manage money — but who can vote?

Here's another little governance puzzle.

In August, the full Board delegated responsibility to its Engagement Subgroup to organise engagement activities and manage the budget.

The proposed Terms of Reference now say the subgroup can contain:

• up to six Board members;

• Sandwell Council officers with a community background;

• Sandwell Council project officers.

It also says that when there is disagreement, the subgroup can hold a vote.

Fine.

Except it doesn't appear to clearly tell us who gets a vote.

Do the Council officers vote?

Do only Board members vote?

Who constitutes a quorum?

What amount of money can this subgroup authorise without returning to the full Board?

Who can actually commit the expenditure?

At what point does an officer have to say, “Sorry, that needs Board approval”?

The Terms of Reference say decisions will be sent to the main Board for review or approval “where applicable.”

Those two words are doing a remarkable amount of work.

Where applicable according to whom?

For £20 million worth of programme governance, I'd rather have that written down.

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The conflict-of-interest rules are getting better

Credit where it is due again.

The subgroup proposals contain much stronger conflict-of-interest wording than we saw initially.

Members must declare actual, potential or perceived interests.

And if a member — or the organisation they represent — makes an application for funding, they won't be able to participate in reviewing, assessing, scoring or deciding applications in that round.

That's sensible.

It should probably go further and explicitly deal with:

• family relationships;

• trusteeships;

• directorships;

• employers;

• suppliers;

• subcontractors;

• close financial associations.

Remember, the July meeting already recorded a family relationship between two members of the Board, although no specific conflict was identified at that meeting.

That doesn't mean anyone has done anything wrong.

It means good rules protect everybody — including Board members.

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The governance document says the appointments were open and fair

The draft Regeneration Plan says a public Expression of Interest exercise was held for the Chair and Board membership.

It then tells us the resulting recruitment process was:

“independent, fair and representative”.

Fine.

Show us.

How many people applied to become Chair?

How many applied for Board membership?

Where was it advertised?

For how long?

What criteria were used?

How were applicants scored?

What evidence establishes that the resulting Board is representative of Tividale?

Again, I'm not alleging anybody was improperly appointed.

I'm saying that if your governance document makes claims about openness and representativeness, the evidence supporting those claims should be public too.

One other thing caught my eye.

The governance section says the Board brings together representatives from the local community, public sector and business sector.

Looking at the published membership descriptions, it isn't immediately obvious which member is there representing the private business sector.

Perhaps somebody is and the published description simply doesn't make it clear.

Easy solution:

Tell us who.

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The mysterious “four lines of defence”

This is one of my favourites.

The draft Assurance Framework proudly says:

“The framework operates through a ‘four lines of defence’ model…”

Sounds impressive.

Very corporate.

Very reassuring.

Unfortunately the document then appears to forget to explain what the four lines actually are.

It's the governance equivalent of telling residents the building has a state-of-the-art security system but declining to mention whether any doors have locks.

If there are four lines of defence, list them.

Residents should be able to understand who checks whom.

Because Sandwell Council has a very substantial role here.

The Council is:

• the Accountable Body;

• providing programme management;

• providing secretariat support;

• helping develop projects;

• maintaining financial records;

• maintaining risk records;

• maintaining performance information;

• dealing with procurement;

• and providing internal audit and scrutiny.

Some of that is perfectly normal for an accountable body.

But when one organisation is involved at almost every level, outside scrutiny and public visibility become more important, not less.

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Which brings me back to the locked door

This really is the point that bothers me most.

The Board's own governance draft says:

“Community engagement and representation are embedded within the Board's governance arrangements…”

Lovely.

Then residents arrive at the governance arrangements and aren't allowed in the room.

Why?

Why couldn't meetings be public by default, with the Board moving into a private session only where a genuinely confidential item requires it?

Why couldn't meetings be livestreamed?

Why couldn't submitted public questions and answers be published?

Why couldn't named votes be available?

We're not talking about MI5.

We're talking about improving Tividale.

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Even the dates can't agree with each other

There are also some basic drafting problems that really ought to be cleaned up before these papers become part of a formal ten-year Regeneration Plan.

The deadline for submitting that Plan appears in various documents as:

26 February 2027.

27 February 2027.

And 28 February 2027.

Pick a date.

The September Engagement report also refers to the Engagement Plan being agreed on 10 August.

The actual meeting included in the same pack took place on 20 August.

And elsewhere members are asked to attend the Community Event on 20 October, despite virtually every other reference saying 20 September.

The Engagement Subgroup is also variously called part of the:

Tividale Partnership Board,
Tividale Neighbourhood Board,
and Tividale PFN Board.

None of these are earth-shattering individually.

But this is supposed to become part of the formal governance architecture for a £20 million ten-year public programme.

Proofreading shouldn't be an optional intervention.

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Who really has the final say?

And there's one question I think residents really need answered.

The August minutes state that the final Plan needs approval from:

the Board,
the Council,
and the MP.

Earlier papers also referred to the Council's Section 151 Officer being involved in approving financial matters.

So who ultimately controls what?

If residents overwhelmingly want something, the Board supports it and the MP doesn't — what happens?

If the Board approves something but the Council refuses?

Can the Section 151 Officer veto it?

Can the MP?

Can the Council?

What can the Board approve by itself?

What decisions must come back through Council governance?

These aren't technical details.

That is where the power sits.

And if this really is to be “led by you”, residents deserve to know exactly where that power ends.

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Questions I'd like answered

Before the Board gets much further, I'd like straightforward answers to these:

Why aren't residents and the press permitted to observe meetings involving a £20 million public programme?

Will public questions and the answers given to them be published?

What is the actual breakdown of the £10,000 Community Day budget?

Who can vote on the Engagement Subgroup?

How much money can that subgroup authorise without full Board approval?

Why is the mapping of community organisations still incomplete so close to the main September engagement event?

Will proper measurable engagement KPIs replace “estimates”?

Who represents the business community on the Board?

How many people applied for Board positions and what was the selection/scoring system?

What exactly are the famous “four lines of defence”?

What is the actual February 2027 submission deadline?

And perhaps most importantly:

Who has the power to say yes or no — the residents, the Board, the MP, Sandwell Council or the Section 151 Officer?

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£20 million could genuinely transform parts of Tividale

That's why I'm asking these questions now.

Not because I want Pride in Place to fail.

Quite the opposite.

Twenty million pounds over ten years is a tremendous opportunity.

Done properly, it could leave Tividale with improvements people can actually see, use and value long after today's politicians, officers and Board members have moved on.

But we've seen enough schemes over the years where the glossy brochures arrive first, the consultants and administrators aren't far behind, everyone talks about “engagement”, and somehow ordinary residents spend the next decade wondering where all the money went.

Tividale has the chance to do it differently.

There are people on this Board clearly trying to make community engagement work. There are some sensible decisions already being made. And there is still plenty of time to put strong transparency arrangements in place before the serious money starts moving.

So open the meetings.

Publish the decisions.

Publish the spending.

Strengthen the KPIs.

Spell out who holds the power.

And for goodness' sake, decide whether the deadline is the 26th, 27th or 28th February.

Because if Pride in Place really is “Led by You”, the people of Tividale shouldn't need an invitation to watch their own £20 million being decided.

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