‘Board’s hand was forced to sign Company’s early retirement’

The view from within says the company board resolved that “due to Derry City Council being unable to fund Culture Company beyond March 2014, Culture Company will cease trading beyond that date.”

It also claims former Mayor and Culture Company chair Martin Bradley wasn’t told when the funding taps for Culture Company would run dry.

Derry City Council apparently re-confirmed funding for the running costs in June 2013 but the insider queries how this could have changed by the time the Chairman was told of the intent to cut the legs off the company by March 2014, this July.

The Board - the leaked briefing states - was left with no choice but to sign the Culture Company’s earlier-than-hoped-for death warrant.

For the record the board consisted of Anna Cutler (Director of Learning at the Tate), (Barney O’Hagan (Sinn Féin), Roisín McDonough (Arts Council), Claire McColgan (manager of Liverpool’s legacy post-2008), Gary Middleton (DUP), Ana Leddy (formerly of state-broadcasters BBC and RTÉ) Charles Lamberton (Triax), Brett Hannam (Strategic Investment Board), Mary Hamilton (UUP), Brian Dougherty (St Columb’s Park House) and Gerard Diver (SDLP).

Three of these Anna Cutler, Claire McColgan and Ana Leddy recently resigned - some vocally.The briefing claims that “in the original bid document, Derry City Council pledged over £14million. By the end of the year in total they will have allocated £3.7m plus £500k for marketing.”

The Sentinel looked at the funding proposals in the original bid document, which leant heavily on the work of Ilex after the regeneration company’s former boss Aideen McGinley - now a BBC Trustee - said it would be a no-brainer for the city to enter the competition given the groundwork already undertaken via the One plan and the Citiscope survey.

In the costs and funding section of the original bid document it’s claimed Derry City Council would commit £14.944m between 2010 and 2014 with £5,450,000 of that being invested in 2013.

The sum - in the bid document - includes money that would have been spent anyway and a further £3,805,000 (£2,950,000 coming this year) in special funding for UK City of Culture 2013 itself.

Derry City Council on Thursday (October 24) confirmed as much to the Sentinel. A spokesperson explained that Derry City Council has “honoured and exceeded its financial commitment for 2013.”

She stated: “The original bid references a commitment of £11m across four financial years (2010-2014) which refers to existing expenditure in cultural, festivals, events, museum and sport budgets.

“As detailed in the bid, Derry City Council pledged an additional commitment of £3.8million for 2011-2013. This investment has been honoured and exceeded. There is an anticipated overall financial deficit at the end of 2013. Other government resources and partners have also made a significant contribution to the success of 2013.”

On Monday (October 21), Town Clerk Sharon O’Connor, claimed £1.5m in ratepayers’ money had to be set aside to make sure the full cultural programme could be delivered and that a “substantial deficit” was likely.

Presumably, that figure was minuted at a Derry City Council meeting.

Culture board members Barney O’Hagan, Gary Middleton, Mary Hamilton and Gerard Diver have regularly scrutinised and debated City of Culture business in their joint capacity as elected representatives of local voters and ratepayers.

For example, at the end of June 2013, they signed off £2m for Derry City council’s ‘Legacy Plan’ - revealed by this paper last week - over 2014/15 and 2015/16 at a special sitting of the local authority’s Policy and Resources Committee.

The record states that a member of the unionist grouping welcomed the recommendations and the plans outlined within the report and indicated his support in principle but aired caution in progressing with regards to the financial aspect of the plans.

Sinn Féin welcomed the report but indicated that there were a number of issues within the report which gave his party some concern.

The republican also said Derry City Council should act as a civic leader in realising the UK City of Culture 2013 legacy.

A member of the SDLP also welcomed the report and said the initiative should tie in with the One Plan.

The Committee happily voted through the creation of a dedicated fund of £2m for the implementation of legacy projects post-2013 in addition to £1.2 million approved for Clipper 2014 in early June.

But addressing Mrs O’Connor’s £1.5m figure on Monday, the leaked culture briefing states: “Culture Company saved £90k in running costs last year and are set to save in the region of £130k this year.

“The running costs to see out staff contracts to June would be C.120k, so the company has already realised substantively more than that in savings.”

“The £1.5m the Town Clerk refers to that Council has had to find over and above - the independent assessment panel (made up of experts including Phil Redmond and Bob Palmer, told them to have a further £2m ready. £1.2m of the cultural programming budget was extracted by Derry City Council at the outset of the Clipper 2012 project.”

The document claims: “£500k of DCC money went to marketing which supposedly has been a DCC function since October 2012, it would be bizarre not to expect the Council to put some money into marketing the biggest year that the city has ever seen. The real shame is that they didn’t commit that money until May of 2013.”

The leaked document claims the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) said the Culture Company couldn’t scale the programme but told Derry City Council the money would have to be found from somewhere.

It adds: “The Board of Culture Company, which has five councillors [sic] representing DCC mandated the staff to seek additional funding from Council to address the programme funding shortfall. Their funding of the programme shortfall was not contingent on the company being closed.”

The leaked document claims that erstwhile Interim Strategic Director at Derry City Council, Peter Appleton, who is now Project Director of City of Culture, confirmed to the Culture Company boss Shona McCarthy: “that it had nothing to do with finances ‘Council has millions.’ In fact Council have already pledged £2million for legacy. So it isn’t about money, what is it about?”

The document says that the Town Clerk has pointed out that Londonderry UK City of Culture 2013 ends in December.

But it says: “The programme was not just events. Major initiatives like the Music Promise, Portrait of a City and the other communities and schools programmes do not end in December.”

The document is also sceptical about a claim made on Derry City Council’s ‘legacy plan’ that “more than 60 workshops and meetings have been held to discuss Legacy.”

It blasts: “60 Legacy consultations, and the CC staff were all of them??????? Where and when?????”

It concludes: “Sharon O’Connor talks about the likelihood of a serious deficit will be left from the programme. This is not the understanding of anyone else involved.

“In fact, the lead officer on City of Culture for Derry City council, Peter Appleton reported at the Government Oversight meeting on September 26 that Council were now confident that the programme would be delivered within budget and this area was de-risked to a green coding.

“Taking project out-turns to date along with the mix of funding the project can be delivered within available financial a deficit is not expected.”

The document adds that the Culture Company staff haven’t been advised is any ‘legacy’ jobs will be available to them.