City centre ambassador team roles are scrapped

The high-profile team of around seven people, called Ambassadorial Essential, was launched last year by Essential Edinburgh as part of its drive to improve business in the city centre.

It is understood all of the ambassadors have been told their contracts will not be renewed, with the service expected to be wrapped up in around three months' time in a shake-up of the city's Business Improvement District (BID).

The ambassadors, recognisable by their purple uniforms embroidered with the Essential Edinburgh logo, had been set up to provide assistance to visitors, with information and directions.

Their duties also included reporting any antisocial, criminal or suspicious behaviour and helping make the city centre a safe and welcoming place. They were also trained in first aid.

Bosses at Essential Edinburgh today confirmed it was to scrap the posts in a bid to reallocate up to 200,000 of its budget.

The team, first introduced in March 2009, is employed by sub-contractor MITIE, which will continue to provide the Clean Team service, launched at the same time as the ambassadors and credited with making a "significant impact" on the city centre, removing fly-posting, chewing gum, graffiti, cigarette butts, dog fouling and general waste.

It is not clear whether the people employed as ambassadors will lose their jobs, but in a statement the company said: "MITIE's policy would be to always try and redeploy any staff at risk of redundancy where at all possible."

The move follows criticism of Essential Edinburgh by members of the BID, who fund the company through an annual levy payment, that the projects were not delivering value for money at a time when all businesses are struggling to cope with the economic downturn.

The first Essential Edinburgh annual report showed that more - 404,000 - had been spent on organisational costs like salaries and consultants' fees than on promoting the centre, which was allocated 394,000.

Conservative city centre councillor Joanna Mowat said that there had been some concerns from businesses about the ambassadors.

She said: "It is always worthwhile to have people on the ground to provide assistance to visitors and residents, but I have heard some concerns from local businesses about what Essential Edinburgh were doing with the ambassadors and wanted to see more of a marketing push. If they (Essential Edinburgh] are acting on those concerns then this should be supported."

Tom Campbell, chief executive of Essential Edinburgh, said: "This is an important and challenging time for the city centre and its businesses, and the board wanted a focus on projects for 2010-11 which will bring value directly to businesses in the BID as well as investing in the overall environment of the city centre, and critically to look at projects which would make a statement for the city.

"While we will not be replacing the ambassadors, we are looking at key areas which they dealt with, such as information and how visitors and workers get it, and we would look to extend the excellent signage we funded in Rose Street.

"We are also committed to Check-out which has been hugely successful at reducing retail crime in the BID and have now invested in Check-in, the retail system for the hotels."