Wednesbury Celebrates Insolvent?

We now have some financials and it seems clear that someone at Wednesbury Celebrates has grossly mislead the Big Lottery Fund in another grant application and that in April this year Wednesbury Celebrates was undoubtedly insolvent unless Sandwell Council have committed the criminal offence of false accounting.

This blog has shown how Wednesbury Celebrates shafted Sport England with a grant application a large percentage of which was to applied to paying £30,000 per annum to the partner/close personal friend of Richard Jones - son of Labour Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones. This matter has been referred to West Midlands Police and to Sport England since, amongst many other things, Wednesbury Celebrates appear to have failed to mention to Sport England that they owed huge sums to Labour Sandwell Council which they could not pay and were, therefore, insolvent (see further below). At the time of writing Sandwell Council have failed to say how much of the debt they have collected and I am writing to them with regard to this. I have also referred the matter to KPMG who are the Council's auditors since there has been no satisfactory explanation why the large debt has not yet been recovered.

Wednesbury Celebrates made a grant application to the Big Lottery Fund on or around 22nd January, 2015 but the (allegedly audited) financial details they supplied was from their accounts of 15th March, 2014 when they declared:

Income                                £41,118
Expenditure                        £33,566
Surplus for year                  £ 7,100 (?)
Accumulated surplus          £13,652

In other words, for a small organisation they were claiming healthy reserves. But, of course, in an earlier blog I put up the minutes from an agenda meeting of January 14th where Councillor Ian Jones told Wednesbury Celebrates they would not have to pay Labour SMBC any rent.

Then it becomes even more strange since for financial year 2014/2015 Sandwell Council started invoicing for rent. The Council claim that the invoices were based on booking forms submitted by Wednesbury Celebrates itself. What could be clearer than this system (even if it is very lax) being effectively based on the paying party effectively self-invoicing.

So SMBC say booking forms were submitted by Cllr Olwen Jones and Cllr Elaine Costigan's fiefdom for the time that they claimed they used Wednesbury Town Hall. Two invoices were duly raised on 14th October,2014 for the first and second quarters totalling £9,348.25 which would have made a big hole in the surplus referred to above.

But then - according to SMBC staff - Cllrs O Jones and Costigan and/or others then disputed the invoices. How could this be if they were effectively self-invoicing?

Labour kicking Sandwell in the teeth again!

Of course, an anonymous SMBC insider has alleged that the invoices were a charade and that it was never the intention that they should be paid. They would be raised in financial year 2014/15 and then quietly written off in the current financial year. This, if true of course, is obviously fraud and false accounting.

But on a date after 14th October, 2014 the invoices for the first two quarters were quietly cancelled.
Once again it gets odder still since Wednesbury Celebrates continued to submit booking forms. What on earth would be the point of this if no charge was contemplated unless SMBC were just making extra work for themselves?

And so, when Wednesbury Celebrates made the application to the Big Lottery Fund in January, 2015 they were still filing booking forms. Either THEY knew they were never going to have to pay the rent due to a fraudulent deal with SMBC in which case the grant application was legit or they were deliberately failing to mention a huge liability to the Lottery which would drastically change their financial position and make them actually insolvent.

Indeed, on 9th March, 2015 SMBC re-issued the two invoices for the first and second quarters of 2014/15 and issued two further ones for the third and fourth quarters to a grand total of £20.836.50 and so Wednesbury Celebrates were undoubtedly technically insolvent at that date but did they inform the Big Lottery Fund? Alas no, and so - none the wiser - the BLF approved a grant on 24th March, 2015 and actually paid out £9,816 on 27th March, 2015 for Wednesbury Celebrates to run a "buddy scheme" for old people and the odd coffee-morning.

Once again, if the invoices were raised by SMBC on 9th March as part of a fraud and/or false accounting so that Wednesbury Celebrates never had a liability then the criminality lies within Sandwell Council House. If Wednesbury Celebrates was supposed to pay rent then they failed to disclose their insolvency to either Big Lottery Fund or Sport England (who are paying their grant out by instalments).

As it is when I last heard from SMBC the sum of £20,836.50 of taxpayers' money had still not been paid as Costigan, O. Jones and Wednesbury Celebrates had once again disputed the charges based on their own submitted time sheets!!!!! There had been at least one further rent invoice which has also remained unpaid. Now Labour are trying to change the rules to say that "community groups" can use the Town Halls for free (more anon!) - attempting to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted!

There is a really bad smell around all this - someone has farted, but we don't know who!

And finally, did you know Wednesbury Celebrates has been doing its "good works" further afield? No-one I have spoken to were aware of this but WC (!) have been operating in Tipton in conjunction with, er, Cllr Khatun's Bangladeshi Women's Association and also in Walsall and Smethwick! They are now working with Walsall's "Community Care Entertainments" and with Dartmouth Neighbourhood Forum (whoever they are).

ADDENDUM 12/11/15 - WHAT THE F*CK!

The stench just got a whole lot worse......

Look who is involved in Walsall's Community Care Entertainments - none other that Sandwell Labour Councillor - currently voluntarily suspended from the Labour Party to clear his name from unspecified allegations - Ian Stephen Jones.

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