Sandwell Futures - A Tangled Web Indeed!

In an earlier blog I pointed out the very large payments by Sandwell Council (SMBC) to their good friends Interserve and related companies. The scale of payments is truly colossal and as I am neither a corporate lawyer nor an accountant I am struggling to try and make sense of the weird tangle of companies set up by the 67 alleged "socialists" (plus Unite the Union) who control Sandwell. As ever, any info/help gratefully received.

I have now been through the SMBC payments over £500 list for the last reported financial year - April 2012 to May 2013. It may be that some monies find their way back to SMBC from these huge payments and, once again, I invite them to clarify the position. Equally, there may be some payments under £500 which are not available for public view.

In the 12 months considered here no less than 227 individual payments were made to Sandwell Futures Limited but there were 16 credits against these. Thus the net amount is a frightening £42,010,943.23p!

To this must be added 25 payments to Environments for Learning Sandwell PFI One Limited less four credits giving a net total of £6,789,498.76p.

The high-capitalists shafting the people of Sandwell (and, possibly, the taxman) have set up a beautifully opaque web to companies to carry out this business. This is as far as I have got so far:

1. Sandwell Futures Limited have a subsidiary undertaking called Environments for Learning Sandwell PFI Holdco Limited which is the holding company for the aforementioned Environments for Learning Sandwell PFI One Limited;

2. The controlling parties of Sandwell Futures Limited are Environments for Learning Sandwell PSP Limited but that company is immediately controlled by Environments for Learning Limited;

3. Sandwell Futures Limited has no employees - only directors. Two are employees of SMBC. Another director is yet another mystery company called BEIF II Corporate Services Limited;

4. Yet another company pops up in the list of shareholders of Sandwell Futures Limited - Building Schools For The Future Investments LLP (Limited Liability Partnership);

5. Although not shown in the list of shareholders in the Annual Return of 17th June, 2013(?) the last published accounts of Sandwell Futures Limited refer to two other minority shareholders ie Cambridge Education and Agilisys Limited;

6. One of the controlling shareholders is said to be Dalmore Capital Limited;

7. The two ultimate parent companies are Interserve plc and Barclays Bank plc (the latter usually shunned in left-wing circles due to its pro-apartheid history).

I will be looking into more recent payments and posting again on this but let us not forget that only in October last the "cabinet" of SMBC specifically awarded a new multi-million pound contract to Sandwell Futures Limited. Cooper and chums specifically resolved "that any necessary exemptions be made to the Council's Procurement and Procedure Rules" so that the contract did not have to go out to tender or any other type of open competition.Why?

Perhaps Cooper can take to his blog and explain all this. We wait with bated breath....

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