'Serious questions' over decision to hand £200,000 to Marketing Edinburgh in private

The future of Marketing Edinburgh is up in the air

A row over the future of the council-owned tourism promotion organisation Marketing Edinburgh has resurfaced after it emerged councillors signed off a £200,000 funding package for the company in private.

It is understood councillors approved a motion, discussed in private during an Edinburgh City Councils finance and resources committee meeting on Friday, to provide £200,000 to council-owned Marketing Edinburgh to cover redundancy and subvention payments.

A council insider said the funding was necessary to meet Marketing Edinburgh’s liabilities while a plan for self-sustainability is put together to ensure its continuation beyond the end of the year on a smaller scale.

Marketing Edinburgh was set up to help promote Edinburgh to the private sector

In November, the refusal to provide ongoing revenue funding to the company after it put forward plans to change focus to a tousim management organisation led to the mass resignation of the board which included the Lord Provost Frank Ross and Conservative councillor Sue Webber and Labour’s Lezley Cameron.

It is understood the board resigned having provided information which showed it could wind up, pay its debts and all redundancy payments without additional cash.

However, the award of more funding, alongside the delay in filing of accounts – which has already seen the company fined more than £300 by Companies House – has been questioned by councillors and former board members.

Questions have also been raised about the appointment of an external financial advise company to assist the current board, which includes SNP housing convener Kate Campbell, Green councillor Claire Miller, and Labour councillor Mandy Watt.

Conservative councillor Sue Webber said she was disappointed by the private nature of the decision. She said: “This closed doors approach means that not even I have had sight of the paper and the recommendations which I do have serious cause for concern with.

“The administration seem to believe that the best place for such a report is a committee that has no understanding of what has happened in the past.

“It does raise some serious questions given when I left Marketing Edinburgh, the business was in a sound financial position that would have allowed the winding up of the company given the decision by the council not to support the new strategy of transforming to a destination management organisation.”

One source close to Marketing Edinburgh said: “If they had just given this £200,000 to Marketing Edinburgh to carry out their plans then there would have been no need to be making these redundancy payments to what are to all intents and purposes council staff.

“It is absolutely scandalous that this is being allowed to happen and the council has a lot of questions to answer.”

A council spokesperson said: “The board will continue to work closely with the company to develop its business plan.”

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