ALTON Town Council was expected to face yet more criticism over the perceived lack of transparency in the decision to hand over the running of the town’s Assembly Rooms to Alton Community Association.

An extraordinary electors’ meeting, called for yesterday (Thursday) to discuss the future of the building, could realistically be expected to call for the town council to rethink the decision, although by law it could not do so for at least six months.

The last-minute decision to open up the first part of last Wednesday’s full council meeting to the public, prior to going into closed session to discuss the finer points of the agreement, demonstrated the level of concern over the issue.

It was an uncomfortable meeting at best with town council leader Peter Hicks reiterating the fact that the authority had already agreed, at a full council meeting on February 10, to enter into an operating contract with Alton Community Association to provide caretaking, booking and marketing services for the Assembly Rooms.

What the town council was about to do in closed session was review the legal agreement and receive an update on the implementation plan. It was a clear case of locking the stable door after the horse had bolted and, it seemed, the majority of councillors were not interested in doing anything to reverse that situation.

The object of the exercise was to offload staffing costs associated with the facility – a decision that drew questions over the future of the Assembly Rooms manager, viewed by those present as a professional asset to the town alongside the building he cared for. And there were questions over why a community asset, already paid for by the tax payer, needed to make a profit – and at what cost in human resources and service quality.

A summary of the collaboration agreement between the town council and Alton Community Association had been distributed to the public which outlined the operational services to be provided by the community association from April 1, and for an initial period of four years, for an annual fee of £23,000, to be reviewed on an annual basis.

The parties also agreed the annual budgeted income from the Assembly Rooms for year one at £33,000, representing hire fees for the facility, all of which will go to the town council, with anything over and above producing a 50 per cent incentive payment for the community association.

Based on these projected figures, the cost to the public purse for the Assembly Rooms is expected to reduce from an annual average loss of between £20,000 and £30,000 to just £5,000.

In preparation for the transfer on April 1, a project implementation plan had been created detailing the tasks identified for each party to undertake which included areas such as contacting regular hirers, reviewing the events programme, and ensuring the correct handling of all records passed to Alton Community Association.

In addition, the agreement was said to detail the legal responsibilities in respect of transferring employees, and the public heard that a consultation was currently under way with affected staff to see if they met the conditions for a Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment (TUPE) agreement.

Councillors were questioned over the financial detail of the deal with Alton Community Association, although the town council was unable to offer further clarification. The authority was also taken to task over the “smoke and mirrors” being deployed by councillors, which was felt to cloud the issue, not least over the future of the Assembly Rooms staff who had received official notice of the situation after facility users.

Wading in, county and district councillor Andrew Joy, speaking personally from the public gallery, asked for clarification over the future of manager Jason Passingham when Alton Community Association had publicly announced that it could not afford to employ a manager, leaving the post redundant.

Mr Passingham could hardly be handed over to Alton Community Association as part of a TUPE agreement if there was no job to go to, said Mr Joy.

But councillors were not to be drawn on the issue of a redundancy package for Mr Passingham.

In flagging up yesterday’s electors’ meeting, Alton mayor Pam Jones failed in a last-ditch attempt to put a hold on proceedings by tabling a motion to defer further decisions over the issue until after that meeting.