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| Labour borrowing millions for leisure centre but this will do the trick! |
We now have proof that Richard Jones, son of Ian and Olwen and brother of Stephen (ie three Labour Councillors), was directly involved in some aspects of the grant application to Sport England which resulted in the employment of his partner/close friend to a lucrative post by Wednesbury Celebrates.. We can now also specifically show that SMBC staff knew that he was involved. Why? On whose authority was he instructed to act.
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| SMBC say Jones will be ordered to take down unlawful fly-posting outside the Town Hall |
A new Freedom of Information Act reply has failed to confirm that Richard Jones has paid ANY rent for the operation of his personal business from Wednesbury Town Hall.
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| Just in case SMBC don't know he is in there |
This letter, in unredacted form, has been delivered to the Chief Constable of West Midlands with copies to SMBC's allegedly independent auditors, KPMG, and to Sport England. The version here contains a small number of redactions to protect witnesses etc.
Some of the content has appeared previously in this blog but new information is to hand and contained in the report.
You will see that a massive cover-up is going on and that various parties are also refusing to speak to the BBC. Why?
Some of the content has appeared previously in this blog but new information is to hand and contained in the report.
You will see that a massive cover-up is going on and that various parties are also refusing to speak to the BBC. Why?
Of course, if Sandwell Council had a real leader instead of a buffoon in charge he or she might order an immediate investigation but no doubt all I will get for this post is abusive tweeting from Cooper and/or his (allegedly) mentally-ill troll pal.
LETTER HAND DELIVERED TO WMP - 10TH OCTOBER, 2015
Cc: Auditor of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, KPMG, One Snowhill - By Hand.
Cc: Matt Ramsay, Sport England via email
Dear Sir,
NEW CRIME REPORT - WEDNESBURY CELEBRATES/SPORT WEDNESBURY
Please take this letter as a formal crime report. As you will be aware from previous correspondence and communications I am very concerned about what appears to be the malign influence of Sandwell Council upon the local officers of WMP. Please let me know to whom this investigation is to be allocated and provide me with a crime reference number. I am happy to try and assist the investigation and can attend any police station within the WMP area.
I am sorry that I am having to put a redacted version of this letter onto my blog - thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com - but I have already been actively mislead by WMP concerning the extent of the ongoing fraud enquiry at Sandwell and, of course, your Professional Standards Department has only last week confirmed that WMP did precisely nothing in respect of certain other crime reports I have submitted.
At least if you choose to do nothing here, for whatever reason, the public will be aware of the history of the matter.
I am copying in KPMG who purport to be the independent auditors of SMBC.
Acronyms
SMBC - Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council
Dramatis Personae
Cllr Ian Jones - Labour Councillor (currently under voluntary suspension from the Labour Party to “clear his name” against unspecified allegations). Husband of Cllr Olwen Jones and father of Richard Jones and Karen Jones. Chair of Wednesbury Water Polo Club. Lied live on BBC Radio concerning the valuation report on sale by SMBC of 3 toilet blocks. Also the father of another Sandwell Labour Councillor, Stephen Jones. It is very important to note that at all material times Cllr Ian Jones was a Cabinet member ie a member of the ruling Politburo.
Cllr Olwen Jones - Labour Councillor. Wife of Cllr Ian Jones and mother of Richard Jones and Karen Jones. Trustee of Wednesbury Celebrates. Mother also of Sandwell Labour Councillor, Stephen Jones.
Richard Jones - son of Cllr Ian Jones and Cllr Olwen Jones and partner/close personal friend of Richard McVittie. Proprietor of a business called Five Star Academy operating from Wednesbury Town Hall. Brother of Sandwell Labour Councillor, Stephen Jones and Karen Jones.
Richard McVittie - partner/close personal friend of Richard Jones. Appointed without competitive process as “Sports Activator” for Sport Wednesbury/Wednesbury Celebrates.
Cllr Elaine Costigan - Labour Councillor and Trustee of Wednesbury Celebrates.
Gemma Ryan - an employee of SMBC.
XXXXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Melanie Dudley - Assistant Chief Executive of SMBC
PART ONE - FRAUD ON SPORT ENGLAND/TAXPAYER, CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD, OBTAINING A PECUNIARY ADVANTAGE BY DECEPTION ETC.
1.01 Richard McVittie was, at the start of this story, working as a sports and activity development officer with Guildford Borough Council. He was also involved with an organisation called Sport Guildford which appears to have been the template for Sport Wednesbury. McVittie is the partner/close personal friend of Richard Jones. I have now established that the two of them were living at the same address at xxxxxxxxx, Guildford, GU2 xxx from around 2009 to around 2014. McVittie having been appointed as “Sport Activator” by Wednesbury Celebrates now shares a property with Richard Jones in Wednesbury.
1.02 Wednesbury Celebrates purports to be a community association acting for the benefit of the people of Wednesbury. They have been careful, however, to keep their affairs secret and not available to the community they purport to serve. There have been a small number of (changing) trustees but the organisation is the personal fiefdom of two Labour Councillor trustees, Cllr Olwen Jones and Cllr Elaine Costigan. At various stages, Cllr Ian Jones appears to have involved himself in the affairs of the association and, as we shall see below, chaired an important meeting in January, 2014.
1.03 At some point, person or persons unknown decided that Wednesbury Celebrates would involve itself in sports and would appoint a “Sports Activator” to encourage Wednesbury folk to participate in sporting activities. Wednesbury Celebrates wrote a job description for the post of “Sports Activator” which matched the abilities of Richard McVittie.Simultaneously a decision was made by person or persons unknown to permit Richard Jones to operate his business, Five Star Academy, from Wednesbury Town Hall (theoretically owned by the public via SMBC).
1.04 At some point in time, person or persons unknown, decided that the post of “Sport Activator” would cost £35,000 per annum for three years ie £105,000. Even though SMBC spend obscene amounts on sport already this was likely to be a hard-sell to the Council especially as they themselves were seemingly trying to “activate” sports participation in Wednesbury by borrowing a multi-million pound sum to build a new leisure centre in the town (which is due to open shortly). Accordingly, a person or persons unknown conspired to deceive/defraud Sport England and to obtain grant aid therefrom.
1.05 There is anecdotal evidence that xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
1.06 There is now definitive evidence (see below) that McVittie’s partner/close personal friend Richard Jones was directly involved in the preparation of the Sport England grant application that would eventually provide a salary costing £35,000 per annum to his partner/close personal friend. Further, this fact (ie that Jones was involved in the application) was specifically known to at least one SMBC, employee, Gemma Ryan, and probably to a number of others.
1.07 A person or persons unknown - either Councillors or employees of SMBC or both - then conspired to use SMBC’s resources (ie taxpayers’ funds) to “create” a bid to Sport England on behalf of the allegedly independent organisation, Wednesbury Celebrates. If you think this is straying into the wilds of conspiracy theory, you should note that SMBC have form for this sort of activity. For example, SMBC lied (and continue to lie as they have made no attempt to amend their records) concerning the approach by the political leadership [sic] to Sandwell College to take over The Public building in West Bromwich. The political leadership [sic] then announced closure but then set up an elaborate structure of “option appraisal meetings”, “fundamental reviews” etc to ensure that the end result would be achieved.
1.08 A person or persons unknown decided that the grant application to Sport England would be for £220,220 but that false and/or deliberately misleading information would be submitted to them so that it would appear that Wednesbury Celebrates and others would supply a level of mostly fictitious “matched” funding. The bid would then be supported by various allies of Sandwell Labour and Sport England shafted for real, actual, cash in the sum of £152,800. Of this, a huge percentage would represent payment to the “Sports Activator” and ancillary costs to set him up with a job in Wednesbury.
1.09 The bid as submitted was impressive (see below) thanks to taxpayer-funded assistance and, of course, Sport England took it at face value. They do not have the benefit of local knowledge. They might have been more diligent in checking why the name “Jones” appeared in so many guises but that is, of course, a common name.
1.10 At the time of the bid to Sport England it appears that Wednesbury Celebrates had very little income and were not an organisation that would normally merit receipt of a large grant. They
have kept their accounts secret from the community they purport to serve but a person or persons unknown knew that the sting on Sport England could only be achieved it a number of bodies/organisations could be persuaded to support the bid and this is what actually happened. In the application to Sport England, Wednesbury Celebrates declared an income of just £8,000 ie just a miniscule £153.85p per week at that time.
1.11 At the time of the main application (which is undated in my copy but appears to date from late 2013/early 2014) Wednesbury Celebrates claimed to have six trustees and no employees. Sport England have redacted the name and details of the “project contact” but he/she claims to be the “Development Officer” of the community association. No doubt Sport England will be able to provide the details to your officers. In the application Wednesbury Celebrates sought to bolster their application by alleging that they were “in the process of applying for charitable status” but it is now October, 2015 and this does not appear from any publicly-available records to have been completed. The actual copy of the Wednesbury Celebrates constitution as submitted to Sport England names just 4 trustees - Cllr Olwen Jones as Chair; Cllr Elaine Costigan as Treasurer; Bavranjit Singh Gill as Vice-Chair and one Derek Sambrooks (I am assuming he is one and the same as Derek C. Sambrooks who is a Sandwell Labour person and who was one of the formal supporters for Cllr Costigan when she stood for election this year).
1.12 The main application is full of management-speak and jargon written as “the bid was formed with the guidance and partnership of Sandwell Council and their PE and Sport Strategy Manager….” ie it was prepared by SMBC employees at taxpayers’ expense. Much more importantly, the application to Sports England claims that the bid has been put together with “partners” - Labour Sandwell Council; Friar Park Millennium Centre (see below); Sandwell Sports Council (see below) and Health for Living (see below). The mysterious “development officer” and the “chair” (presumably Cllr Olwen Jones) who signed off the application state: “a project working group have been working together on this project for more than 6 months and consists of a person from each partnership organisation with a great history of previously [sic?] working together”. An early question for your officers is whether they were dealing with Richard Jones on behalf of the bid or some other person? Did they know in advance that Richard McVittie had already been lined up for the “Sports Activator” role from day one? Whatever the position it is clear that the “partners” all had full knowledge of the involvement of Labour Councillors in this project.
1.13 In support of the application to Sport England Wednesbury Celebrates produced a bank statement dated to 14th November, 2013 showing an apparently healthy bank balance (but see below) of £10,577.10p. However, this balance appears to have been bolstered by two large cash payments in totalling £3,755 just before the statement date (and at a time when the declared income for the whole year was just £8,000). Furthermore, just a fortnight beforehand a cheque for £5,000 was paid in. It transpires that sum came from Labour Sandwell Council. I put in a Freedom of Information Act request to SMBC about grants to Wednesbury Celebrates but at the time of writing they have only come back to say they have paid them a further £5,000 in the current financial year. They have not dealt with historic payments as I requested. Your officers will need to see whether the timing of the payment of £5,000 in late October, 2013 was entirely coincidental or was deliberately timed to bolster the organisation’s bank balance prior to making the application. With a self-declared income of £8,000 for the previous year Wednesday Celebrates banked £8,755 in the space of a fortnight and used the resulting bank statement showing that in their grant application.
1.14 Turning to the so-called “partners”, £15,000 was pledged in cash as matched funding from “Health for Living” (as above, after 6 months “consultation” with someone from Wednesbury Celebrates). This is a consortium of four bodies/charities ie Murray Hall Community Trust,(see further below) Black Country Housing, Accord Housing and The Kaleidoscope Plus Group (formerly known as MIND Sandwell). The Chair of Murray Hall is Labour Councillor Bob Lloyd. It is not known whether any of these organisations had fore-knowledge that the “Sports Activator” role had been set up without competition for the benefit of Richard McVittie and your officers will no doubt wish to establish this.
A “partnership” document was submitted to Sport England signed by Cllr Olwen Jones for Wednesbury Celebrates; Cllr Ian Jones for Sandwell Sport Council (as then “Chair”); Malcolm Bailey for Murray Hall/Health for Living; Gemma Ryan for SMBC and John Rennie for Friar Park.
Incidentally, the March, 2014 accounts for Murray Hall specifically state:
“The Charity at the current time has no provision for making grants to individual sub-groups or other organisations. However we do make donations of up to £500 to small community groups eg fun days, play days, canal events etc.”
Accordingly Murray Hall’s offer to share matched funding (even though shared with others) appears to be ultra vires.
1.15 I contacted Kaleidoscope Plus about this affair and received a response from someone called Monica Shafaq from that organisation who denied Health for Living were involved:
“You are correct in the fact that Kaleidoscope Plus Group is part of Health for Living but Health for Living does NOT deliver the service(s) or receive the funding that you are referring to. I would be grateful if you could cease your investigation into Kaleidoscope Plus Group and Health for Living in relation to this matter as result.”
As Murray Hall’s Chief Executive, Malcolm Bailey, had written a letter in support of the application to Sport England confirming that Health for Living would put in £15,000 over three years I duly wrote back:
“I enclose a copy undated letter herewith.
Health for Living specifically told Sport England they would supply £15,000 of funding to Sport Wednesbury and here is a letter from Murray Hall CEO Malcolm Bailey confirming this specifically as "representative of the Health for Living Partnership" which includes Kaleidoscope. Your organisation must have been aware of this and what I want to know is how much information Kaleidoscope had about this stinking deal and why it agreed to it?”
Unfortunately, Ms Shafaq has not seen fit to respond.
1.16 BBC reporter Adrian Goldberg did a couple of very good pieces on this scandal on BBC WM. I have been informed that Adrian/his researcher contacted Wednesbury Celebrates to ascertain where the “Sports Activator” post was advertised and what the purported interview process was. The reply was that this had all been handled at arms-length by “Health for Living” via Murray Hall Community Trust. I am informed that Murray Hall refused to talk to the BBC about this. I duly wrote to Cllr Bob Lloyd’s Murray Hall:
“A spokesperson for Sport Wednesbury recently told BBC Radio WM that Mr Richard McVittie. the so-called "activator" for Sport Wednesbury, was recruited by "Health for Living" but when the BBC contacted them they said that, in fact, you were the recruiters. Accordingly, can you please tell me:
1 Where was the post advertised?;
2 Whether Mr McVittie was resident in Guildford when he allegedly applied for the post?;
3 How many candidates applied for the position?
4 How many candidates were interviewed for the position?;
5 When and where did the interviews take place?;
6 Who were the members of the interview panel?;
7 Whether it was declared and/or the interview panel were otherwise aware that Mr McVittie was a "close personal friend" with Richard Jones, son of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and brother of Councillor Steven Jones, and that the pair shared a home together in Guildford and then Wednesbury?
I am sending a copy of this to BBC Radio WM and reserve the right to send a copy to the Charity Commission along with your replies.
I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.”
Here is the reply:
“We will not be communicating with yourselves on this matter now or in the future.
Any questions you have, we suggest you forward them to Sports England or Wednesbury Celebrates.”
This is all highly unusual given that the application to Sport England read:
“Murray Hall Community Trust has agreed to manage the Activator role as they have the resources in place to supervise and manage full-time employment”.
(Clearly if Murray Hall were involved they failed in their duties as the first six-monthly (and very poor) report to Sport England was grossly delayed).
I do not believe there was any proper process for recruiting the “Activator” as this whole application process was intended to deceive Sport England and, for obvious reasons, a person or persons unknown made sure Sport England were never informed that Richard McVittie was to be the “Activator” from the outset. Sport England have, of course, confirmed that they had no idea that the post had been specifically created for McVittie when agreeing the grant.
I have not yet contacted Black Country Housing or Accord Housing but clearly there is a cover-up in progress via “Health for Living”.
1.16 The next partner is Sandwell Sports Council who pledged £3,000. They are a shadowy organisation who used to receive some funding from SMBC. It is known that both Cllr Ian Jones and Cllr Steven Jones (Richard’s brother) have had prominent roles in that organisation. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx In a document submitted to Sport England, Cllr Ian Jones is shown as “Chair” of this organisation.
1.17 Friar Park Millennium Centre is a charity which receives funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund and from SMBC. The Manager is another Labour- party person - featuring on Tom Watson MP’s electoral leaflets in May. The Chair of Trustees is Sandwell Labour Cllr Simon Hackett. This allegedly independent charity which has its premises rent-free from the taxpayer via SMBC told Sport England that they would give up their own facilities (which they get free) to Wednesbury Celebrates to a financial value of £9,360 as part of the project. Whether their constitution permits this is a moot point but it is clear from this note in their accounts that that they are giving up their own potential income not to another charity but to a secretive “community association” with no track record. I am in the process of communicating with their own funders (eg the Heritage Lottery Fund) to see how they feel about their financial support being squandered in this way.
“The charity is based at the Friar Park Millennium Centre in Wednesbury. This building is owned by Sandwell MBC. Although no formal contract is in place, it has been agreed with the council that the charity may occupy the centre rent free, in return for its management. Additionally, the charity hires out the building to local groups, for which it is entitled to keep the income. From this income, the charity is required to pay for the business rates, utility bills and internal repairs of the building. The external upkeep of the building and ground maintenance remains the responsibility of Sandwell MBC.”
This organisation also gets substantial grants from SMBC.
1.18 Wednesbury Celebrates informed Sport England that they would put £3,000 from their own resources into the project. This was confirmed in a letter signed by Cllr Olwen Jones. We have seen that they too are being part-funded by Labour SMBC and, as we shall see in part 2 below, there is a major scandal involved in respect. Suffice to say here, that they also specifically stated to Sport England that THEY would supply £9,360 of matched funding by way of providing facilities at Wednesbury Town Hall. This is pure fiction.
1.19 Of course, Labour SMBC are involved in this murky business at every level. In addition to using their own staff to help a private organisation shaft Sport England they also committed taxpayers’ money of £18,720 as “matched funding”. This included, inter alia, “free” use of Brunswick Park - Cllr Ian Jones is a member of the “Friends of Brunswick Park”.
1.20 In addition to the alleged “partners” Sport England were presented with a number of “to whom it may concern” letters from persons supporting the “project” almost all of whom are connected to the Labour Party and/or Labour Sandwell Council.
1.21 Local MP Adrian Bailey wrote a fulsome letter of support on House of Commons notepaper dated 1st July, 2013 (the date is important - this project was ongoing before the deposits were paid into the Bank to bolster the Wednesbury Celebrates bank balance much later in October/November, 2013.
I wrote to Bailey, who has close personal connections with the Jones family on 15th July, 2015 but in the absence of a reply I wrote again on 4th September, 2015. Once again, there was no response and Bailey will not say what he knew:
“I cannot trace a response from you in respect of my email of 15th July, 2015. Here is what I sent and I now look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible:
You wrote a letter to Sport England in support of the bid by Wednesbury Celebrates for "Sport Wednesbury".
1. Who asked you to write the letter?
2. Did you know at the time that the scheme's proposed "activator" was the partner of Richard Jones - son of your good friends Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones?”
1.22 Wednesbury Water Polo Club provided a letter of support signed by its Chair, Cllr Ian Jones. In the original application Sport England were led to believe that this lot would also be providing “their pool” for matched funding of £12,480 but, of course, this is fiction as the Club owns no pool and uses baths operated by Labour SMBC. Once again the Jones family is tied up in this matter.
1.23 On 1st July, 2013 the then Director of Public Health at SMBC provided a letter to Sport England.
1.24 Wednesbury Rugby Club also provided a letter of support. They receive funding from SMBC and the letter was signed by Labour Cllr Peter Hughes. It is not known whether Hughes knew that the “Activator” post had been rigged for the benefit of McVittie or how much he knew being a local Councillor himself.
1.25 The Midland Water Polo League provided a letter of support signed by Karen Jones - sister of Richard Jones etc etc No family connection was declared to Sport England, of course.
1.26 Gemma Ryan of SMBC provided a letter of support without mentioning any involvement of the Jones family (although she knew Richard Jones was involved in the application) as did Adrian Scarrott (see further below) the Director of Neighbourhoods.
1.27 Labour Cllr Paul Moore wrote a letter of support with no mention whatsoever of any involvement of the Jones family. [Addendum - Cllr Moore has very kindly confirmed in writing today 12/10/15 that he had no knowledge of Richard Jones being involved in the grant application and no knowledge that the job had specifically been set up for Richard McVittie].
1.29 Someone from EMDP supplied a letter of support but I am not sure what their involvement was or is.
1.30 Many of the support letters are dated early July, 2013 but, as above, the bank statement is much later.
1.31 All parties have tried to cover up this scandal to date apart from one. They have refused to speak with me or, more importantly, to the BBC which, in itself, is suspicious. The shining exception is a Mr Simon Hall of the Black Country Consortium. I do not know why he was asked to supply a letter of support save that he is an ex-employee of Sport England and the conspirators may have seen his involvement as an advantage.
His evidence is very important since his letter of support dated 24th January, 2014 was specifically addressed to “Richard Jones” of “Sport Wednesbury”. He duly wrote, “Dear Richard….. I am very pleased that you have taken on board the comments raised following your previous submission….May I wish you every success with your project and funding applications you have made….”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
We have seen above that there was a mysterious “development officer” involved in this project. Was this Richard Jones? Clearly he was purporting to represent “Sport Wednesbury” in its dealings with Mr Hall. As above, Richard Jones was living in the same house as McVittie in Guilford and shares a house with him now. If he was involved in this he certainly did not declare
an interest to any party that has spoken with me and most definitely not to Sport England. As we shall see in Part 2 below - Richard Jones is also operating his own business from Wednesbury Town Hall and may be doing so on very favourable terms.
What I can now say definitively, thanks to Mr Hall, is that Gemma Ryan of SMBC most definitely knew that he was involved and your officers will, no doubt, wish to question her about this. I cannot say what her state of knowledge was, and I suspect that she may have been “only obeying orders” from above but, nevertheless, she definitely knew of his involvement as Mr Hall was using Richard Jones’s personal email to communicate with him and copying in Gemma Ryan to that correspondence. She did not, of course, mention his involvement in any of the documentation she herself signed or prepared.
Mr Hall specifically states that he was most definitely NOT informed that Richard McVittie was connected to Richard Jones or that he was lined-up to get the “Activator” job.
1.32 To conclude Part 1, I submit that a person or persons unknown conspired to create a position so that Richard McVittie (who has a background in sports) would be employed on good terms in Wednesbury and that Richard Jones could operate a business from Wednesbury Town Hall. A very elaborate conspiracy was hatched involving a number of parties (almost all of whom are connected to Sandwell Labour). Some parties have apparently acted innocently (eg Mr Hall) but many others knowingly collaborated with the deception of Sport England and used our taxpayers’ resources to do this. Please allocate resources to conduct interviews and to thoroughly investigate this sad affair.
PART 2 - FRAUD, CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD, FALSE ACCOUNTING ETC.
2.01 If Part 1 is not bad enough, there is more. This aspect of the matter started with an anonymous communication purporting to be from an employee of SMBC that, following representations by unnamed Councillors, staff at SMBC had made no attempt to collect over £20,000 of rent owed by Wednesbury Celebrates (it is even more now). My informant alleged that there was NEVER any intention by SMBC to collect this rent.
2.02 As part of the debacle surrounding the closure of The Public arts centre, Cllr Mahboob Hussain, hired top property consultants Jones Lang LaSalle at a cost of thousands of pounds to determine how greater income could be obtained from Sandwell’s Town Halls. In respect of Wednesbury, SMBC also spent taxpayers’ money on expensive renovations. But Wednesbury Celebrates have been using parts of the Town Hall for some considerable period of time as has Richard Jones with his private business enterprise, Five Star Academy (incidentally he coyly gives the address of the business as “Holyhead Road”, Wednesbury rather than Wednesbury Town Hall).
2.03 Following receipt of the anonymous information I duly made a Freedom of Information Request to SMBC with a surprising result. SMBC had invoiced Wednesbury Celebrates for rent as follows (bearing in mind that the Council’s financial year runs from 1st April to 31st March:
1st Quarter 2014/2015 £4,492.50
2nd Quarter 2014/2015 £4,855.75
3rd Quarter 2014/2015 £4,970.75
4th Quarter 2014/2015 £6.517.50.
I had asked for rental details before that period but SMBC has not supplied the information. Whether more rent is due remains to be seen. The key thing here is that this large sum of £20,836.50p - public money - remains unpaid.
2.04 It gets worse as SMBC confirm that the rent for the first quarter of 2015/2016 is also unpaid although they do not tell me the amount. An invoice for an unknown sum was raised on 27th July, 2015 and remains unpaid. Thus the total arrears must now be in excess of £25,000 and more is now due (see below).
2.05 If one goes to Wednesbury Town Halls there are pop-up banners, leaflets, notices etc everywhere for Wednesbury Celebrates, Sport Wednesbury and 5 Star Academy and Wednesbury Celebrates control the box office. Cllrs Costigan and Olwen Jones are constantly advertising the joys Labour are bringing to the people of Wednesbury and yet not a single penny of rent has been paid.
2.06 Unbelievably, SMBC now say that Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury do not have a regular agreement with the Council but simply hire the the hall and offices etc on an ad hoc basis as required. They are refusing to disclose the booking forms on the basis that this would be too expensive to provide under the Freedom of Information request. But if this arrangement is correct then why would the rent be in arrears? The facilities have been booked and the rates are known. Wednesbury Celebrates are submitting their own booking details and so there can be no dispute….
2.07 In a second Freedom of Information Act, I queried why all four invoices referred to in 2.03 above were all dated 9th March, 2015 - shortly before the end of the Council’s financial year. The reply was that the 1st and 2nd Quarter invoices were dated 14th and 20th October, 2014 but then disputed by Wednesbury Celebrates (which is run as a personal fiefdom by Cllrs Olwen Jones and Costigan and other trustees). But how can there be a dispute and why are Wednesbury Celebrates not paying for the bookings which they accept they made (see further below). Anyway, the first two invoices were cancelled and four invoices for the whole year issued on 9th March, 2015. But SMBC now say all five invoices are being disputed by Cllrs Olwen Jones and Costigan! By this I mean the four for 2014/2015 and the first for 2015/2016. The 2nd quarter invoice for 2015/2016 is now also due and so the outstanding rent is around £30,000! And so two Labour Councillors are apparently instrumental in withholding substantial sums from their own, allegedly cash-strapped, Council.
2.08 Sport England are paying the grant they were deceived into paying to Wednesbury Celebrates in instalments. Having paid no rent whatsoever, Wednesbury Celebrates (a tin-pot organisation) would almost certainly be insolvent if obliged to pay this rent and so this must be hidden from Sport England or the tap will be turned off. This may explain the alleged “dispute”.
2.09 Because of the domination of the Town Hall by Wednesbury Celebrates other groups who may be prepared to pay rent have to go through them. Who knows what funds SMBC may have recovered for the taxpayer if the place was run on a proper basis? The organisation apparently also uses publicly-owned equipment free of charge for its events.
2.10 The alleged dispute on rent (ie with Wednesbury Celebrates allegedly disputing rent for bookings the details of which they themselves have submitted) has been adjudicated upon by the Assistant Chief Executive [of SMBC] no less, Melanie Dudley, but she has allegedly been unable to resolve the impasse. Notwithstanding the huge arrears one of her Directors, the aforementioned Adrian Scarrott, has authorised a further grant of taxpayers’ money of £5,000 for 2015/2016 and, incredibly, this has been paid out to them rather than set-off against the rent arrears. All this is, frankly, unbelievable.
2.11 Perhaps there is another explanation. At about the time Wednesbury Celebrates were applying for the Sport England grant the trustees had a meeting on 27th January, 2014. Then SMBC Cabinet Member Cllr Ian Jones was in the Chair. Xxxxxxxxxx has supplied me with the minutes of the meeting which state:
“Terry asked that at present we get the use of the Town Hall for free will this continue? Ian said that this is OK whilst the present party [a]re in power, we have to build bridges with others to keep all options open for the future”.
And so a high-powered SMBC Cabinet member was telling an organisation with two other Labour Councillors in charge that they would get the premises rent free whilst Labour remained in power (and with only a third of the Council re-elected each year it will be a very long time before Sandwell can cry freedom).
As above, Cllr Ian Jones was saying that there would be no rent payable at precisely the time that Cllr Olwen Jones and the “development officer” were telling Sport England that Wednesbury Celebrates would be providing “its” facilities at the Town Hall at a value of £9,360 by way of matched funding. If the truth was that the there was no rental payable in any event this sum in the bid was entirely fictitious.
2.12 I cannot say why the invoices were ever issued if Cllr Ian Jones had ordered that there should be no payments made. Perhaps the auditors had picked up on this and the invoices were issued with the intention of them being withdrawn at a later date? Nevertheless, no payment has actually been made. There is the question of false accounting by SMBC employees if the invoices were raised to be shown in the annual accounts when it was not envisaged they would ever be paid.
2.13 SMBC do have form is this area too. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx would be able to confirm this but it is not known who at SMBC ordered this odd arrangement nor why.
2.14 In my FoI request I also asked what rent Richard Jones paid for his use of the premises by his private business Five Star. This is the EXACT wording of the reply:
“Separate invoicing arrangements ARE to be applied to Five Star. There are ongoing discussion [sic] with the representative of Five Star Academy and the council.”
The obvious inference from that is the SMBC have not been charging Richard Jones rent for his private business at all. Clearly someone within SMBC has authorised this - why? Incidentally, if you are not aware, SMBC retain staff in the building and are clearly aware that 5 Star are using the premises and I am also posting some photographs on my blog. It is all openly advertised.
2.15 You will be aware that a number of dubious transactions are beginning to surface at SMBC. This episode is not part of the current RFT investigation but requires police intervention at the earliest opportunity. I await a crime reference number.
For WMP only - xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Yours faithfully,
Remember, you can still report potential corruption at SMBC to DS Wayne Haynes and his team at the Regional Fraud Team on 0121 251 2175.
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - A COMMUNITY BLOG - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
Email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com Twitter: @bcrover (Vernon Grant)
Confidential phone no: 07599 983737
Why don't you deal with any issues you have face to face instead of hiding behind this blog. You need help.
ReplyDeleteAlso they are related to Helen James the west Midlands singer who Olwyn got singing jobs for and got her to be noticed and Ians brother in law Alan and his sister Maureen have got jobs within the council too.favouritism every time.
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