27/02/2017 Look North (East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)

Good evening and welcome to BBC Look North.

Payment problems continue, the company that pays Lincolnshire's

schools and council staff is STILL getting it wrong.

This month we had an example where one employee was nearly paid ?1.5

million. You would expect improvements would be made but the

errors are still there. This butler was crushed

to death by a faulty lift at a stately home, today,

his employer is fined more There's a standing ovation for

the world premier of The Hypocrite For people who don't know, it is all

about the beginning of the civil war which happened here.

First the FA Cup, now the FA Trophy, Lincoln City's remarkable season

continues as they edge closer to another final.

And why the campaign for a Red Arrows Lego

set could be blocked by the toy company's guidelines.

And into March the weather is set to remain unsettled. Join me for the

weekend forecast. A school in Lincolnshire says

a member of staff was almost paid one-point-five million pounds last

month, after a mistake by Serco was hired by Lincolnshire

County Council nearly two years ago, to look after wages for its schools

and support staff. But since then, hundreds

of mistakes have been reported, with employees being paid

incorrectly and in some Serco says it's getting better,

but some schools are now choosing At Monks Abbey Primary School

in Lincoln, they expect pupils to make the odd mistake

as they learn. But a catalogue of errors

by SERCO, the company that handles their payroll,

has exhausted the school's patience. I have seen some improvements but

the payroll error still exists, it is not an improvement that would

allow us to stay with Serco and this month we had an example where one

employee was nearly paid ?1.5 million, which fortunately I spotted

that when I was working over the half term holiday.

In April 2015 Serco began a ?70m contract

with Lincolnshire County Council to provide a number of financial

Just eight months later, the company apologised

following a catalogue of errors with payments.

In May 2016, at the end of the first year, the council

imposed a one million pound penalty on Serco.

Then in November 2016, an independent report found

Lincolnshire County Council had rushed into handing over

the contract to SERCO who weren't ready to do the job

This county council report shows that serco received 221 payroll

received in Aug 2016, some of those queries have yet to be

resolved and it appears that Serco still hasn't managed

to produce its empolyee pay statements for the year 2015/16.

Serco are still failing to hit their targets. Although the overall

situation has improved the council admits that it is because they have

changed the way that success is measured. We do contract bigger than

this elsewhere and do them well to the size is not an issue. We are

committed to delivering this contract and quality services.

Meanwhile the primary school is one of 13 in the county who have decided

to end the contract with Serco and unless the problems can be resolved

some of the other 186 schools may decide to follow their lead.

I have been asking -- I will be asking for new experiences Serco

soon. I spoke earlier to Abby Tierney who was a director that

circle. -- who is a director at Serco.

We have seen significant improvements, the report that has

gone to the council has shown that. I was asked about the 221 payroll

queries but a lot of those are queries are not terrorists or we are

delivering a good service. The council admits this is because of

the way you have changed the way that success is measured. What about

customer service centre? A court of customers say that waiting times are

unacceptable completely unacceptable. We have had the Bacon

fermentation of an IT system, over the past few months, which make sure

that all that. -- we have had a vague implementation. You're going

in the wrong direction, 85% of customers say they were happy with

wait times and now we have these figures. It is because of the IT

system and we will see those figures again. Schools are opting out of the

contract and looking after the one payroll. Are you actually up to the

job. For schools absolutely, 13 have chosen to go with the different

provider and 12 have decided to rescind the notice and stay with us

because they have seen the improvements so we still run the

payroll for the majority of schools in Lincolnshire. Today among savvy

primary school said that a member of staff was almost paid 1.5 million

before the error was spotted by the school. This is basic Janet and John

stuff you're not getting right. We would have spotted the error and we

have exception reports that would spot anything significantly high.

How did it get as far as the school? When you run a complex peal of this

size there will always be a small honour of errors but the internal

controls in place will spot these things. Are you fit for the

contract? Absolutely, we are committed and will be there until at

least 2020. When will the problems be sorted? As much as I love having

your programme, you coming on it saying sorry is getting a bit much

and I'm sure you don't enjoy the experience either. I don't but I am

proud, the staff worked incredibly hard over the last 18 months to

improve the service, you can see that. We will deliver on the whole

of very strong thank you. Are you affected? What do you think

of the answer? This is how to get in touch. Maybe you work at the school

somewhere else. The details are all there.

Not the first time we have talked about Serco, will it be the last one

tomorrow The trust which runs Burghley House

than a quarter of a million pounds after a butler was crushed

Arthur Mellar died in July 2014 from head injuries sustained

The Burghley House Preservation Trust had already pleaded guilty

of a breach of health and safety before today's sentencing

Our reporter Caroline Bilton has more.

This is the tragic story of the death of 47 year

old Arthur Mellar who worked as a butler in one of

the most iconic stately homes in the country,

The house had a lift that was used to take guest bags up to the second

floor in the private area of the house - but on July 12th 2014

one of the bags became jammed and the lift stopped.

Arthur who had worked as a butler at the house for 9 years attempted

to free the jammed bag but in doing so the lift fell on to him,

trapping him between the lift cage and the bannister of the stairwell

When paramedics arrived his head had turned blue and there

The court heard there were no safety measures in place and the lift

hadn't been inspected by a competent lift engineer since it was

Today the charity that runs the home was fined ?266,000.

and ordered to pay costs of just under ?17,000.

in the last hour we have spoken to Mr Mellor's civil partner, and he

has told us that he appreciates the fact that the trust have accepted

they were at fault. It is good that they have accepted the fault. I

really appreciated it. I think there is one out of money that will

replace after anyway. It will not bring him back. He was my life. He

was my inspiration. It is really difficult. I don't know if things

will be the same without him. What does the trust say?

The preservation trust have issued a statement saying that health and

safety matters have always been paramount, what happened to Arthur

was a dreadful and tragic accident and they gone to say we miss him and

our thoughts are with his family. The estate has assets of ?62

million. Under the sentencing guidelines they could have been

fired in excess of over half a million by the judge did take into

account the fact that the accepted responsibility and pleaded guilty.

Today the judge said I recognise in particular the impact of this

incident on Mr Costello and the family, and I would not want anyone

to go away from this hearing under the impression that the value of the

finest the value that I have imposed on the life of this man, which it is

not. The actor Colin McFarlane once all

streetlights to be upgraded. Councillors have been turning off

thousands of lights to save money and say it is not cost-effective to

change every dog. Mr McFarlane disagrees. If I was a counsellor I

would say why don't you go to Nottinghamshire where they have the

lights on? And the saving money and helping the environment. Go there

and have a look at what they're doing. Herefordshire are doing the

same thing, your council are doing the same thing so it doesn't have to

be this way. The time is 20 to seven.

Still ahead tonight: There's a standing ovation for the world

premier of The Hypocrite at Hull Truck Theatre.

And we find out why the campaign for a Red Arrows Lego set could be

Keep the photos coming in, and let's show them on the -- we will show

them have with the programme. This is the Humber estuary sent in by

Julia Walters. Thank you very much indeed for that. Talking of

celebrities one mild celebrity, a popular mild celebrity is

celebrating his birthday today. Peter Andre happy birthday. I am

I would be depressed if I had a bus pass.

I don't have bus pass! He has. It looks like it will remain

changeable but we have a warning in place for a fairly widespread ice

which will affect untreated surfaces towards the end of the night.

Tomorrow is bright in the morning with some sunshine by the end of the

afternoon we will see showers heading in from the west. It is

hourly tomorrow evening and overnight, cold the has wrapped up

with the systems so there will be showers with even longer spells of

rain. This features into Wednesday night, maybe Thursday. It could

produce snow over the tops of the Cotswolds. It has been chucking it

down in Serco -- in Hull in Grimsby. This weather front will move into

the North Sea. After an unsettled start we see the share is moving

from the west are the course of the night, basically many of us become

dry with some decent clear spells, whatever ice on untreated surfaces.

Temperatures Rory will be in freezing point. The sun rises at

around five to seven, and there we have high water at 727. One to share

is possible but otherwise generally fine morning, dry and bright with

some sunshine but cloud will increase to the afternoon later run,

bringing the showers in from the west. Late afternoon and into

tomorrow evening. Top temperatures feeling fairly cold with a brisk

west or south west, temperatures are at 7 degrees, that is 45 Fahrenheit.

Winds they does not look too bad, possibly some snow on the walls, and

Wednesday night. That is the forecast.

Don't be depressed! The teachers love you.

The line has gone dead again. I'm sure it has.

The fastest selling show in the history of Hull Truck Theatre

Tickets for The Hypocrite have proved so sought

after that the theatre fitted extra seats for the shows.

The play's being staged with the Royal Shakespeare Company,

which moved its actors, props and technicians lock

Our culture correspondent Anne-Marie Tasker has been behind

the scenes as they took the comedy from the page to the stage.

War is inevitable now. It's a comedy about Hull,

by a writer from Hull - so where else to stage

Hull Truck and the Royal Shakespeare Company's new play.

Since January, the cast of The Hypocrite have been

rehearsing in a disused church on the Thornton Estate -

including the stars Caroline Quentin and Mark Addy.

The play is frantic, funny and there's a lot of us in it.

For those of us who come from a time when it's too expensive

to have a lot of people on stage and are normally involved

in five-handers, it's really exciting to be on stage

The play's by Hull-born writer Richard Bean -

who's spent more than two years researching Sir John Hotham,

who shut Hull's city gates on the King in 1642,

and sparked the start of the Civil War.

I thought I'd be doing all the politics.

When I started reading all of these original papers,

it was like reading a Faedo farce, a French farce.

That final thing where the governor of the town is running on his own,

chased, I'm not going to say Benny Hill.

Well I could see that in your eyes, you were thinking that!

It took the technical team a whole week to build

It's now two days until opening night and the cast are heading

through to the stage for technical rehearsals.

It's the last chance for them to practice and practice

the trickiest parts of the play until they're perfect.

As the lead, Mark Addy is in most of this 3 hour show -

With Hull being the City of Culture 2017, to be involved

as one of the opening shows of that year is terrific.

I do sometimes think 'Am I too old for this?' but we're getting

there and I think it's a gift of a show.

Opening weekend, and the theatre's installed benches,

so it can offer more tickets to this sold-out show.

Featuring fights and incredible illusions,

I'm getting a sense off the audience they own the story.

I'm more interested in if they're following

Whether they stand at the end is irrelevant to me.

Big stars in a big cast, for the biggest theatrical

That is fantastic. I real achievement for Hull. You can see

more on the journey of the RSC to Hull, it is on tonight's inside out

at 7:30pm in three quarters of an time. Don't miss that.

Hull shoppers are getting a glimpse tonight of a rather unusual film

that's part of City of Culture - and it's being previewed

Flood is a described as an epic adventure

There'll be much more information about Flood tomorrow when details

of the next six months of the city of culture programme is announced.

But tonight Katy Austin has gone along to see

what the film is all about - Katy what's going on?

I hand in fact in the car park of a star on Hassall Road in Hull and

something unusual is parked in the car park year, a silver caravan that

has been transformed into a cinema and if we go up the steps we can see

what it's like inside. There are some red chairs and people have been

coming in and putting on those headphones and listening to a

five-minute film which is the first part of Flood, multimedia month-long

adventure tale and this is what they thought of it.

It was interesting, beautifully filmed. And I am now very curious to

follow on the story. Now I understand it is in four parts in

the next part is in April, we shall go and watch the second part and

follow it through the year. The film has been put together about -- by a

Yorkshire -based theatre company and I am pleased to say the director

joins me now. Tell us about this film you have put together. What can

people expect? It is the prologue to the unit of adventure, so it is the

story of two fishermen who go out to sea in vain something unexpected at

the bottom of the ocean. What is the atmosphere like? It is beguiling,

the first part, definitely a mystery at leaves us on a cliffhanger. We

did go out an to film the year? We did, the board was called the

chieftain and we were sick as dogs. Was worth it? Yes, we were very

pleased. Where next? A different supermarket every day this week in

Hull. You can see the film online, if you have children I would say it

has recommended 12 a guidance see mate want to bear that mind.

Tomorrow we find out what is in store for the next six months of the

city of culture. BBC Radio 2 was the latest national

broadcaster to make Hull their home today reflecting the City of Culture

status The Jeremy Vine show

was presented by Paddy O Connell from the Punch Hotel

in the city centre. Plenty of Hull's big names

were guests on the show, It was great to see Jean Bishop Bell

as well. The whole two hours was all about Hull and you can find on the

iPlayer. Lincoln City moved closer

to a day out at Wembley - The National League leaders have

reached the semi-final Our sports reporter

Simon Clark is here. Simon, should Imps fans be

booking their hotels already Peter, every week I seem to be

standing here talking about Lincoln City making history

and they're at it again. They've become the first team

to reach the semi-finals of the FA Trophy and the quarter-finals

of the FA Cup in the same year. The Imps have been drawn

against York City in the Trophy. Meanwhile, the winner of the replay

between Dulwich Hamlet and Macclesfield Town take

on Tranmere Rovers in The ties will be played

over two legs in March, with the winners heading to Wembley

for the final in May. If you had said this time last year

we would rearrange that might be rearranging a trophy semifinal

because FA Cup quarterfinal has gone under way will be astonished. It is

fantastic news. Lincoln are still on course for

promotion as are Scunthorpe United who had to come from behind to gain

a draw at Bristol Rovers This equaliser - an own goal

from Tom Lockyear - was enough to keep the Irn second

on goal difference. Today the groundstaff worked

tirelessly to make sure the Galnford Park pitch was playable

for tomorrow's game. United meet Wimbledon looking

for a first win in five matches We are not worried, as I said we

will just focus on ourselves. If we keep winning games and will not

matter about what is behind us, so we will hopefully get back to our

winning ways tomorrow and have a big game on Saturday. We are frustrated

at the moment. We have not picked up the wins we would hope to do. But we

have stayed competitive and we have picked up points along the way.

Hull City looked to have climbled out the Premierl league

relegation zone after taking the lead against Burnley.

But they couldn't match the Imps a wekk earler,

Our fans believe in the belief and faith in our work. The team have

promise and it is important to us to believe always.

And Grimsby Town sucumbed one nil at Morecambe in League Town whilst

Ferriby lifted themselves off the foot of the National league

Olympic Gold Medallist Luke Campbell moved a step nearer his goal

He was in devastating form at the Hull Arena to beat

Campbell was thrilled by the reception of his home crowd

as his manager Eddie Hearn seeks a world title later in the year.

For me, I had out of the country a lot so I don't get to see a lot of

people because I am in training camp all the time. Trying to be the best

I can be. It is nice for me then to come back to Hull and see everybody

could issue one for everyone. And news from rugby league this

afternoon has seen Hull FC duo Scott Taylor and Liam Watts charged

with misconduct after Thursday's So as you can see Peter,

quite a lot going on. And you can see the highlights

from that Hull FC game on the Superleague Show tonight

which is on BBC1 at 1130, that s The famous Red Arrows could be

immortalised in Lego. A campaign to get a model

of the Lincolnshire based They are well-known across the world

and loved across the nation but the Lincolnshire -based red arrows could

be about to take a step into superstardom.

Local is no longer at high confined to the bedroom carpet. It boasts 200

Hollywood blockbusters, countless video and every hour with a 2

million plastic blocks are made to satisfy worldwide demand. Soon, this

iconic red aircraft could be amongst it all. We watched the model just

over five and half weeks ago and it attracted over 10,000 votes which is

what is required. It is really good and promising. We're really excited.

Now it is up to Lego bosses to make a decision on the idea. The next

review board is in May and then we will look at all the different

aspects of the model so that we ability, whether children like it,

how easy or hard it is to make, the cost of the model, the number of

bricks. For people who live in the villages surrounding the home of the

red arrows, they are lucky enough to see the real thing most days

practising in the skies but how would they feel about having their

very own little red at home to build and play with? This is a good idea,

I think Lego is such a good thing for adults and children. As long as

it is easy and I can do it! My history with Lego is not a good one.

It would give the red arrows more publicity and it would be fun. Would

you buy one? I see them every day so I don't think I would. It would make

a good thing for visitors to buy perhaps. Lego have a policy of not

making military ties, at it is hoped the red arrows will be seen as the

UK ambassador that inspires young people.

Let's get a recap of the national and regional headlines.

More complaints that Serco, the company who look after payments

-- chaos at the Oscars as Lala land is mistakenly named best picture.

And the firm in China payroll and Lincolnshire almost paid in firm

employee 1.5 million in error. Tomorrow's weather, a cold and windy

day with sunny spells at first but showers coming in from the West

withdrawn. Doctor Bridges 7 degrees. On the subject of the payment

problems in Lincolnshire, thank you for all the e-mails. And they said

another example of privatisation being unsuccessful, cutting cost

results and performance. Trevor said had to make get unfairly slammed at

every opportunity, look on the Internet and see the excellent work

they do incredibly well. I have worked for Serco 22 years and have

never had to complain. Vincent said I was listening with amazement, how

could Serco see a small mob of errors is expected? And Martin said

you can be sure that Serco bosses and managers don't get their own

payroll. And finally from Mark, he said this is what happens when you

outsource to the lowest bidder. What a shambles. The study we have done

in the past, who knows whether we will be doing it again?

More tonight at 10:30pm so join me then. Goodbye.

To be in the Lords, you have to be punctual...

literally have to slam the door in somebody's face.

What right do they have to tell ME about my fashion sense.

Can you now control your bad language? Yes, I will.

Otherwise you'll be, you know, drummed out.

To win on something as important as this

A unique opportunity to meet the Lords.