The paper below from the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of the Barbican Association and the Residents’ Consultation Committee following the City’s proposal to remove all four estate concierges from one car park and two from another.
This has been circulated to RCC representatives who are asked to discuss it with their residents.
They will have an opportunity to ask further questions at the RCC premeet on the 20th and to vote on it at the RCC meeting on the 27th.
This is for your information and we ask you to join in the consultation process with your House Group.
The City’s proposals to remove 6 Estate Concierge positions and the recommendations of the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of the RCC and the BA
This summary is for residents of terrace blocks and their block representatives on the Residents Consultative Committee (RCC) – the tower blocks already pay the full cost of their Lobby Porters. The details behind this summary were given at a BA / RCC meeting.[1]
This is an urgent and important matter and the RCC asks all representatives to consult quickly and widely with their resident and leaseholder members preferably through open Zoom meetings to allow residents and leaseholders not currently in the Barbican to attend and contribute.
- The Barbican’s residential flats, mainly privately owned, sit above car parks owned and managed by the City of London Corporation (the City).
- Barbican leaseholders pay a quarterly charge to the City to cover the services we receive from our managing agent, the Barbican Estate Office (BEO).
- Part of this service charge pays for 36% of the costs of the Estate Concierges (Concierges) previously called Car Park Attendants. The remaining 64% is paid by the City as their contribution for the work Concierges do managing the car parks.
- This percentage split has slowly become more unrealistic as resident usage has increased substantially over the years. Best recent estimates suggest that residents should now be contributing more like two thirds of Concierges costs if we were to fully pay our share of the 24/7 services we receive.[2]
- This year City Budgets have been reduced by 12% in an attempt to rebalance income and expenditure post Covid and the City’s contribution to Barbican car park costs has been reduced by the same amount leaving the car parks unable to pay all Concierges this year.[3]
- When budgets were cut a detailed review of individual car park costs and potential new income streams was carried out by the City. This resulting in four car parks being shortlisted for full or partial Concierge removal – Breton, Bunyan, Defoe and Speed. The two finally selected (Speed to fully lose Concierges and Defoe at night) were selected on their income/expenditure shortfall and the availability of ‘next-door’ concierge support.
- This proposed reduction of Concierge numbers has caused considerable outrage across the estate. However, the Task and Finish Group investigation showed that this reduction is less to do with City cuts and more to do with the fact that we as leaseholders have not been paying our fair share of Concierge costs.
- Further City budget cuts are almost inevitable in the next few years, the aftermath of Covid and Brexit will change British cities substantially in the next decade and the City of London will potentially be affected more than most.
- The consequences are clear – we will either slowly lose more Concierge posts or, if we wish to keep them, leaseholders need to gradually increase our contribution to the car park budget until we pay for our true share of Concierge time.
- We have estimated that the current average shortfall per terrace flat is circa £127 per year given the current level of City cuts. This shortfall will obviously grow in years to come.[4] Clearly if we agree to pay a surcharge to maintain Concierge levels large flats and houses would pay more and others, e.g. studio flats, would pay less.
A separate but strongly related issue:
- Representatives of the RCC and BA had for three months, prior to the Concierge problem surfacing, already been holding discussions with senior officers to work through the potential repercussions of both the Lisvane Report and recently rediscovered commitments made by the City in 2003 to give the RCC a greater say in decisions affecting the management and operations of the residential estate.
- City officers have recently acknowledged that although much of the 2003 document is now out of date the spirit of the 2003 report is still valid and residents should have a more substantial say in how their service money is used.
Taking these related issues together the Chairs and Deputy Chairs of the RCC and BA believe that we do not have enough time before Concierge redundancies are due to take place to consider a number of detailed and, in some cases, complex financial issues. Not least a detailed examination of the car park accounts and the way changes to resident contributions to the Cities car park account would be handled legally by the City in the longer term.
The interim solution we propose is essentially to buy time (6 to 8 months) by paying a greater share of the Concierge cost for this financial year. An average of £127 per terrace block flat. This is a payment for a service we are already receiving. We propose that we should also, in parallel, use this time to undertake a thorough review of all the services being provided by the BEO to find compensating reductions in these budgets but not in the front line services we receive.
The alternative is the immediate removal of the Speed Car park Concierges and loss of night time provision in Defoe: other Concierge box closures would surely follow.
[1] A much fuller description of all these matters was given at a meeting on the evening of Thursday the 9th of September for the benefit of both RCC and BA representatives. If you could not attend please debrief a colleague who attended.
[2] The change of the role name from Car Park Attendant flagged to Estate Concierge flagged above shows how we have all long regarded these roles.
[3] This point is vital – this is not like previously suspect car park accounts with contentious figures for return on assets etc. This is a real reduction in available cash to pay wages.
[4] We would have to pay something in the region of £600 per flat to completely pay for all the Concierge time we use rather than just cover the budget shortfall. Should we want to keep a full 24/7 service the time taken to reach this full payment is a matter of negotiation with the City and probably dependant on how fast other service charges can be reduced – see below.