There is something just a little bit worrying about the way the deal for outsourcing the management of the Hawth theatre has been rushed through.

I know that not everybody shares the objections in principle (the principle being that any savings will end up coming at the expense of staff and by ramping up prices) so here is a practical objection. The story from the Crawley News which reads like it has been largely cut and pasted from a council press release, says that the new management company

…has experience in running theatres, being part way through a ten-year contract to manage the Playhouse Theatre and Winter Gardens complex in Weston-Super-Mare.

Slightly weaselly words there. When it says ‘part way through a ten-year contract’ it implies a lot of experience. Reading it you focus on ten years rather than part way. How big a part is it exactly? The contract in Weston-Super-Mare started in April 2011 so it has now been running for 9 months. Presumably the negotiations and tendering process will have taken a while, so conceivably at the time they put in their bid the only experience they had of running a large theatre was in winning a contract and not in successfully managing it for any length of time.

The real concern, therefore, is that not only has the deal been made with what is effectively an unproven company but that it is locked in for ten years. That is a long time to live with it if they turn out to not be so good after all.

It is almost as if the Tories running the council want to get us locked into the deal quickly and for a long time while they still can. Are they starting to get a bit worried about keeping control of the town hall in May?