Daily Post coment: The only explanation is unmitigated incompetence

Aug 3 2007 Liverpool Daily Post

THE city of Liverpool has been left in a deeply embarrassing position this morning, by the shameful eleventh-hour abandonment of the Mathew Street Festival.

It is clear that the advice of the expert consultants that it would compromise public safety to go ahead with the festival in its current form cannot be ignored.

But it is equally clear that the circumstances that led to this threat to public safety were entirely predictable for many months, and to allow the problem to fester for so long was simply inexcusable.

The fact that building work was taking place at the Pier Head, and in other locations around the city centre was not exactly Liverpool's best-kept secret. How can it be that it was not possible to determine until three weeks before the event that it was unsafe to go ahead with it? There is only one explanation, and that is sheer, unmitigated, bungling incompetence. Last night, Liverpool council leader Cllr Warren Bradley said he was completely unaware of the crisis until just hours before it was shared with the rest of us yesterday morning.

If that is the case, then the question we need to be asking is: Just who is running Liverpool?

Have we now reached the stage where officers of the council and the Culture Company do not see fit to inform the elected leadership of a public relations disaster on this scale until it is upon them? If so, those elected leaders need to seize back control quickly, and make sure that the officers are properly accountable for their actions.

Jason Harborow, the chief executive of the Culture Company, says he is comfortable with the actions he has taken, and has no intention of resigning. It may well be that he is temporarily fireproof, given that if he was sacked now, it would be very difficult to get a competent replacement into the job quickly enough to ensure a smooth transition into 2008. If so, he is a lucky man. Many in public life have lost their jobs for much less, and he has no reason to feel in any way complacent about his position this morning.

The same consultants' report which cited the building works as a key factor in the threat to safety posed by the festival, also reveals that no safety officer appeared to have been appointed for the event by the Culture Company.

The report highlights concerns that the Culture Company has lost expert staff, with those remaining apparently having insufficient time or competence to undertake the work of running the festival.

This Culture Company has asked us for years to put our faith and trust in it, and we have had little alternative but to do so. It is a lavishly-staffed, largely secretive organisation, which has been given a great deal of autonomy.

If the Culture Company cannot successfully organise an event so well established, high profile and hugely popular as the Mathew Street Festival, what confidence can we have in its ability to run a full year of high-profile events when our city will be under the international spotlight, in, heaven help us, just five months’ time?

There is much that is positive and strong in the plans so far revealed for Capital of Culture year, but most of it is thanks to the excellent work of the city's well-established and highly regarded cultural organisations like the Tate, the Philharmonic, and our theatres and galleries.

Perhaps it is time that the management of 2008 is entrusted to experts from these distinguished organisations, and taken out of the hands of Millennium House.