Grant Applications - Sandwell Labour-style!

The alleged "socialists"  who do such an absolutely marvellous job of running Sandwell ("lol") despise business and wealth creation but love scrounging money and grants to keep their rotten ship afloat. This mindset pervades the rotten Borough - where Labour's cancerous malignancy touches every area of life, Pyongyang-style.

Meanwhile, in the so-called third sector an entire industry has spawned to extract cash from sundry bodies such as the lottery via ever more detailed and "professional" grant applications. Nationally, the days are gone when someone can pitch a vague proposal and the wallet will magically open. Grant-making organisations now insist on detailed and fully costed business plans together with highly-defined targets. Proper appraisal systems are then supposed to be put in place to check that the actual "outcomes" (yuk) match the original brief. There are now professional "bid-writers" who will extract a fee from groups making such applications.

The Skidder knows of a number of small organisations in Sandwell who have failed with applications because they have not had the experience or expertise to "play the game" *

As we have seen many times in this blog, however, having Labour Party members - or, better still, actual Councillors - meddling in your community organisation and ensuring nothing is done without approval from the central Politburo in Oldbury is usually one way of ensuring success and many organisations in Sandwell have been prepared to prostitute themselves in this way for a few quid.

I set out the trend nationally above but, of course, the crafty comrades do things differently in the benighted Borough. Below is an actual application from an alleged "community organisation" (which refuses to publicly disclose its accounts etc but which, happily, includes two Labour Councillors on what purports to be its "management board" - Costigan and Olwen Jones. Yes folks, its Wednesbury Celebrates [sic] again!

(Regular readers will know that I have recently referred that organisation to West Midlands Police).

And so this is how to do it in Sandwell if you want to get "involed" (sounds painful) and "intigrate" the local community to "eliviate" their social problems eg my playing rounders in the park with Costigan:

As the bid says, "its amazing". It sure is!

You will see that after shafting Sport England, they are now having a go at the Big Lottery fund via "Awards for All".

Of course, the grotesque caricature of a "leader" of Sandwell Labour, Darren Cooper, glories in parading his own illiteracy to the whole world and making Sandwell a laughing stock via Twitter and so we should not be surprised when others hold basic literacy in such contempt.

(Can anyone explain the percentages referred to in the application? They make no sense except, apparently, to the two other Labour Councillors who approved this b*llocks).

But the really unbelievable thing is that this piece of total sh*t was approved by the two Labour Councillors in or around the beginning of July, 2015 (on top of earlier grants) AT A TIME WHEN WEDNESBURY CELEBRATES OWED SMBC OVER £20,000 OF RENT ARREARS!

AND THEN, DESPITE THE HORRENDOUS ARREARS A VERY HIGHLY-PAID SMBC EMPLOYEE AT DIRECTOR [SIC] LEVEL - MAHBOOB HUSSAIN'S OLD MUCKER FROM SANDWELL HOMES DAYS, ADRIAN SCARROTT - AUTHORISED PAYMENT OUT OF THE £5,000!!!! HOW WAS THIS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN IN JAN BRITTON'S CIRCUS?

(Scarrott was also involved in the Sport England debacle - see yesterday's blog).

The SMBC website is out of date but the two Councillors who made this "decision" were the Town Lead Member and Vice Town Lead for Wednesbury.

((Wednesbury Celebrates currently owe rent of around £30,000).

Finally, whilst on the subject of Wednesbury Celebrates, the unforthcoming organisation own a couple of caravans in Wales. Costigan and Olwen Jones put it about that these are for the use of local "hard-up" families who would not otherwise be able to afford holidays (cue violins Sandwell). How marvellous then that news reaches me of one deserving local couple who availed themselves of the facilities for a week - Cllr Simon "Two Homes" Hackett and his wife. Hackett, who purports to be the occasional landlord of "Bermondsey Tom" Watson owns at least two properties in Sandwell but has kindly confirmed that he "paid the going (cheap) rate" for his Cambrian sojourn. So that's cleared that up then!

* Many organisations like the Heritage Lottery Fund offer very good free courses for would-be applicants. There are bodies in Sandwell who purport to assist with this type of thing but who, themselves, are in the Kremlin's iron grip. Best going outside Sandwell if you can and if The Skidder can help in any way, please get in touch.