Sandwell College or Council - which One is Lying?

Corruption does not have to consist solely of officials or politicians receiving cash in brown envelopes (although questions must at least be ASKED when a Council such as Sandwell doles out multi-million contracts without open tender). An organisation can be corrupt if it has contempt for the rule of law and subverts due process for self-serving motives and/or naked political advantage.

What follows may seem a small point at first but consider what is going on here, why and the likely end results if such behaviour is not stopped forthwith.

Sandwell Council has a so-called "cabinet" structure. As Labour has almost total control of Sandwell Council the party high-command has surrounded itself with highly-paid Council officers who are, so it would seem, prepared to serve their political masters without question or challenge. Many are paid in excess of £100,000 per annum and, in the current climate, would be highly-unlikely to find such remunerative employment elsewhere. Thus when they are told to jump, they jump (or, as in the case of the recent CTR disaster,  they simply turn a blind eye).

The thick moron who inexplicably fought his way up the greasy-pole to become political "leader" of Sandwell Labour and Council, the ludicrous Cooper, equates almost total control of the number of seats on low turn-outs (ie most of the electorate of Sandwell did NOT vote for Labour*) with a "mandate" for him and his colleagues to do as THEY please (without proper consultation) irrespective of the consequences and again, as the CTR fiasco shows, without regard even for the law of the land.

It is vital that any Council makes reports that are accurate and keeps a true record of its doings. Indeed the minuted decisions of the  Cabinet, Committees and full Council are the legal bedrock of local governance. If the Council is taken to Court - CTR again - then, unless there is evidence submitted to the contrary, the barristers in the case and the trial judge will AUTOMATICALLY assume that the minutes are a true and fair reflection of events and the decisions made. If, therefore, a Chief Executive and Cabinet members are subverting this process then - sorry, but CTR case again - the Council will, as the trial judge in that case put it, "plunge into unlawfulness" with disastrous results.

Turning to the College, the same general principles apply though in a slightly looser form. The College is run by a Board of Governors. It receives almost the whole of its income from the taxpayer - mostly through Central Government (although in Sandwell, the Council has decided it too wants to fund them from its extensive resources). Once again, the minutes of those meetings are the foundations of the whole legal edifice of the College structure and that is, at least, understood by them although they have tried themselves to subvert public accountability by redacting large chunks of their minutes from public view.

Both Sandwell Council and Sandwell College still refuse to disclose certain redacted information concerning The Public deal and both of these taxpayer-funded bodies are fighting tooth and nail to oppose having to release the truth about their sordid rip-off Public "deal". Neither would fully answer the Freedom of Information requests of Mr Darryl Magher and we are indebted to him for appealing the whole matter to the Information Commissioner.

Following a reply to my recent FoI request for release of the redacted College minutes they have finally disclosed same and the information therein will feature in forthcoming blogs. This post deals with an incredible minute which means that either the Council or the College have lied in their official minutes. Both cannot be telling the truth, it is as simple as that!

The Public campaigners have stated that, for their own reasons, "councillors" Cooper and Mahboob Hussain pursued a vendetta against The Public and were determined to close it at whatever cost to the Borough. This led to a constant stream of "reviews" and to Hussain instructing Jones Lang LaSalle, expensive property consultants, at a cost to the taxpayer of £39,000 to shaft the project. But the definite advice of JLL was that the building was totally unsuitable for use as a school or college! Nevertheless, Cooper and Hussain pressed on and at a press conference in May, 2013 Hussain announced the closure of The Public and its conversion into some sort of hybrid sixth-form school/college. We have maintained all along that all the running was made by Cooper, Hussain and the sheep in the Labour group. In any event, in May, 2013, this was not a done deal (despite some of the pronouncements from the College) but Labour SMBC had burnt its boats. It had to find a way of forcing the deal through. This again will be the subject of further posts but this blog pointed out that, by saying the College stitch-up was the only game in town, SMBC had buggered-up any negotiating "position" so that the College could take these fools to the cleaners. And so it came to pass - to the cost and detriment of Sandwell folk.

Having publicly announced the deal, there was no way back for Cooper and Hussain and so the officials of SMBC had to go through the absurd process of "objectively" assessing that the deal was a "good one". The farcical outcome of this was shown in the so-called "Options Appraisal" (attended by the very lawyers who MAY have suggested the cock-eyed "concordat" in the first place but who, in any event, were paid very handsomely for pushing the deal through). See my post of 11/06/2014 "The Public - The Plot Thickens" about this aspect of the sad fiasco.

SMBC then brought out the big guns to provide the "cabinet" with a report or "Fundamental Review" so that Cooper and Co could go through the charade of studying same on 14th August, 2013 and 16th October, 2013 and make the "democratic" decision that the College deal should proceed (even though it had been announced months earlier!) Incidentally, SMBC are still trying to keep parts of that Report secret!

As above, Hussain was driving all this and so it came as a surprise to the campaigners when it was stated at paragraph 6.9:

"In September, 2012 Sandwell College approached the Council and initiated discussions concerning the conversion of The Public to a 6th form centre. These discussions have continued."

The campaigners questioned this but SMBC stated that the College's approach was "verbal" and that there was no written record of this.

But pursuant to my FoI Request, Sandwell College say the precise opposite ie:

"The initial approach regarding the Public was made by Sandwell MBC. The Deputy Leader
telephoned the College’s Deputy Principal and this resulted in a meeting being held on
15th August 2012 attended by the College’s Deputy Principal and Director of Finance, who
met with the Deputy Leader, a Service Director from SMBC and the SMBC Service
Director – Learning and Culture. This meeting took place in the Council’s offices. The
College does not have any notes relating to this meeting". (Query who the two Council officers were at this meeting. Anyone tell me?)

And later in April, 2013 they minuted:

"Extract from the minutes of the meeting of the Board of Governors
held on Monday 22nd April 2013
B13.56
Sandwell MBC had undertaken a review of its estate with a view to rationalisation and
had been exploring the option of converting The Public into an educational building.
The Council had suggested that the College might want to consider The Public as a
discreet sixth form centre, which would accommodate a maximum of 1,000 students.
The meetings and discussions that had taken place with the Council, senior
politicians and managers from the Council were outlined." (Noting this is an educational establishment the spelling of "discreet" is, er, unfortunate.....)

Now the College has told lies about this whole "deal" and taken extensive steps to keep the "deal" secret but they seem quite certain don't they? It is also noteworthy that SMBC allege that the College approached them in "September, 2012" whereas the grasping College state that there had already been a meeting in August, 2012. How can I say which party is lying?

Let us just assume, as a purely theoretical exercise, that SMBC have lied (and it should be noted that there is an almost identical "discrepancy" about an initial approach in the emerging ice rink scandal - see my blog of 18th January, 2014 "Cooper - Skating on Thin Ice? (Ice Rink Scandal Part 2)".

The first thing to note is that the "Fundamental Review" was written by four senior officers of Sandwell Council - Adrian Scarrott, Director of Neighbourhoods; Neeraj Sharma, Director of Legal & Governance Services; Stuart Kellas, Director of Strategic Resources and our old friend Melanie Dudley, Director of Improvement & Efficiency [sic]. (No conflict of interest there then - involving La Dudley when she is a Director of one of the parties subject to the proposed contract, Sandwell Futures Limited!)

If the approach story is a lie, then did these four know it or were they just repeating what someone told them. If so, who was that "someone"?

There are two Deputy Leaders of SMBC - Eling (who has recently blotted his copybook so spectacularly) and Hussain. I am assuming that the "Deputy Leader" the College says approached them is Hussain but stand to be corrected. But that would be interesting.

IF the "approach" story is a lie and the Deputy Leader WAS Hussain then he was present at both the Cabinet Meetings of 14th August, 2013 and 16th October, 2013 and he would have known that. There is no record of him attempting to rectify the "Fundamental Review" in any way.

SO WHO IS LYING? THAT REMAINS TO BE SEEN!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG

e   thesandwellskidder@gmail.com                         t   @bcrover (Vernon Grant)

Confidential phone number: 07599 983737

* Despite the fact that there was a concurrent European election on the same day the range of turnout in May for Sandwell was from as low as 24.31% up to 37.42% with a substantial number of wards recording a turnout of less than 30%. Of course, a substantial number of the votes cast went to parties other than Labour - notably to UKIP).