Ashfords Solicitors - Part 1 - The Public, West Bromwich

Sandwell Council ("SMBC") has 26 solicitors according to The Law Society website. This number has gone done from at least 28. The Head of Legal receives a package in excess of £124,000 per annum according to the SMBC accounts. One would imagine that this veritable army of lawyers could handle the legal affairs of SMBC on their own but, no, they have a history of outsourcing large contracts to outside firms at huge cost to the taxpayer.

In 2012, SMBC decided to formally outsource some (not all - just some) of its legal work and despite the lip-service the Labour High Command pay to outsourcing locally they contracted yet again outside the Borough - this time to a firm based in the South-West of England (!), Messrs Ashfords.

Ashfords announced the deal in September, 2012 but the first payment to them listed in the SMBC payments over £500 list was a minuscule, er, £72,500 on 16th January, 2013.

I will be posting again soon about The Public and the events at Haden Hill House in May, 2013 but suffice to say here that I will seek to persuade you that by then The Turdmeister & his cronies had already decided to axe The Public and were "going through the motions". If the plan was for Sandwell College to start teaching at The Public in September, 2014 the clock was already ticking. Indeed, as I will show in another post, it had ALREADY been decided that Sandwell Futures Limited (yes, them again) had been lined-up (without tender or other competition) for the multi-million conversion contract.

Anyway, a meeting was convened at Haden Hill House on 22nd May, 2013 with various members of SMBC staff to conduct what was laughably described as a "Risk-based Options Appraisal" on whether to keep The Public or go with the College "deal". As one would expect, there was Solicitor from SMBC present, Mel Brooks (great name!) but, strangely, there was also present, Elizabeth Gibson of Ashfords. And Ms Gibson is no mere junior note-taker. She is described on The Ashfords website as a "Partner" and "Head of our Projects Team" based in, er, Exeter.

As I will show in a later blog the decision-making process was a farce but for present purposes there were 4 choices:

1. The College deal:
2, 3 & 4 - Keep The Public open with differing levels of subsidy.

Sharp readers will notice immediately that only Option 1 was likely to generate fee income for Ashfords and so might reasonably question whether Ms Gibson's mere presence at the meeting might constitute a "conflict of interest situation". But according to the meeting notes, not only was Ms Gibson there but she actually PARTICIPATED in the "risk-scoring" process.

I am sure to have got where she is Ms Gibson may be a very competent lawyer but why she should be able to "score" matters related to arts provision in West Bromwich and the perceived reputational issues of SMBC from her Exeter office I am sure she will be happy to advise (and I will be happy to publish). Nevertheless, the record shows that her "conclusion" of the appraisal was in favour of Option 1 - surprisingly a unanimous decision (!) (This is all a matter of public record and if, Ms Gibson, the record is inaccurate please contact me so that I can correct).

And so there was, seemingly, no conflict of interest in Ashfords participating in the actual decision-making process to close The Public even though there was an expectation of considerable fee income in that scenario. And so it came to pass that Ashfords were paid by you and I, the taxpayer, just £43,230.40p plus Vat for The Public legal work. You would have thought they could have not the 40p off wouldn't you!

(More on Sandwell Council & Ashfords to come.....)

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