The proven liar Labour Cllr "lol" Ian Jones is apparently due to appear before the Sandwell Council Audit Committee on Thursday 29th September. Unfortunately, I am unable to be there but I do hope some of you, dear readers, will attend to cheer him on.
[Note 15/09/16 - I was feeling a little unwell yesterday and this may have been the cause of a number of typos in the original piece - now amended. My apologies. I have sent a copy of the SMBC FOI request to the members of the Audit Committee and also suggested they encourage the Council's auditors, KPMG, to attend for public scrutiny.]
A problem is that everyone seems to be hung up on Jones's mysterious involvement in the BogGate affair (the sale of three public conveniences at an undervalue by Nick Bubalo and Neeraj Sharma of "Sadwell" Council to a close relative - via marriage - of Cllr Mahboob Hussain). I will be returning to this very important subject in due course but, in the meantime, we must not lose sight of the Jones family's involvement in the Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury scandal too.
Let me just digress with a direct message to the (relatively) new Leader of the Council, Steve Eling. (Incidentally, gob-sh*te Cllr Yvonne Davies's pathetic "legal challenge" against the election of Eling as capo di tutti capi has inevitably petered-out......).
Under the crazed Cooper/Britton regime many local "organisations" received public funds - our money - for unspecified activities. Often these bodies have no known legal status and are, happily, connected with Labour Party members and even councillors eg Tony "Postman Prat" Meehan and "The Friends of Fudgestock". Only yesterday I was making enquiries about a West Bromwich organisation and they have, so far, been unable or unwilling to provide their constitution or accounts.
There are many people doing wonderful voluntary work etc in Sadders and many reputable organisations and they play by the rules. But I am calling on Cllr Eling to change the Council's procedures so that only "community" organisations that:
(a) make public their constitution and membership of their governing body; and
(b) make public their accounts
should be eligible for
any taxpayers' money. Fair enough isn't it and hardly onerous?
Of course, when we come to the shambles of Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury we come to a different kettle of fish altogether. This secretive body has steadfastly refused to disclose the above information and is quite prepared to lie about its status anyway. When they shafted Sport England for a substantial grant that has largely been used to pay £35,000 per annum for 3 years to the partner of Richard Jones - son of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and brother of Cllr Stephen Jones they told Sport England they had six members on their "private" governing body but this is the massive porkie they then told the Big Lottery Fund when making another grant application to them:
We now know that Wednesbury Celebrates self-reported to SMBC about their use of Wednesbury Town Hall. Their own minutes of January, 2014 show that liar Ian Jones chaired a meeting of the governing body and specifically stated, contrary to the Council's standard charging policy, that Wednesbury Celebrates would CONTINUE to use the facilities for free! How did that come about? At the bottom of this post is a detailed Freedom of Information Request about this which the Audit Committee would do well to peruse!
Jan Britton's staff then issued invoices for rent of around £25,000 on the basis of information Wednesbury Celebrates submitted themselves to the Council but when they got them Cllr Olwen Jones and Cllr Costigan etc disputed the bill! There seems clear evidence of false accounting connected to this (if not outright fraud) and KMPG, the Council's auditors were supposed to be investigating (where have we heard that one before, eh readers?) In the meantime, the FOI below also deals with this.
Meanwhile, Richard Jones was advertising fee-paying activities at Wednesbury Town Hall via "Five Star Performance Academy". The place was plastered both inside and out with his advertising materials and he was making extensive use of the premises and even using it as Five Star's postal address. But my FOI request of last year showed that Jan Britton's staff had failed to notice this and invoice him for the use! Once again, my new request follows this up.
It gets worse. Jones was allegedly also using a room at the Town Hall for his other business interests and apparently had access to printing equipment there to produce these leaflets for another private enterprise:
You will not be surprised that I am also questioning Sandwell about the rent the taxpayer received from Jones from all this.
Even though the Association [sic] owed the taxpayer huge sums, Cllrs Olwen Jones and Elaine Costigan submitted yet another grant application to their own comrades. Happily they themselves decided at an un-minuted Town Forum meeting to award their plaything another £5k and Jan Britton's cowboy/girl staff paid out the money despite all the cash owed to it and to us taxpayers. In fact this was authorised at very senior level by Hussain's go-to man (no, not Bubalo), Adrian Scarrott, who I am pleased to say will very shortly be the subject of a post on here in his own right......
I am informed that Wednesbury Celebrates under the Jones's have effectively been kicked out of the Town Hall but there remains the question of the outstanding rent. Clearly there must be consideration of recovering it direct from the trustees themselves if payment remains outstanding. But Britton better get a move on (probably not easy given his obesity) as Wednesbury's golden couple have been publicly flashing the cash via social media:
(Captions for the above image of Ian giving Olwen a new car very welcome.....).
When it comes to public exposure we normally look towards Cllr Simon "Two Homes" Hackett (who infamously had one of the Wednesbury Celebrates caravans meant for the "disadvantaged" for a week - though he claims to have paid for it) but then we have this on social media from former agoraphobic, Cllr Olwen:
Of course, we have become accustomed to Sadwell's "Assistant Chief Executive" Melanie Dudley's capacity for arse-licking the members of the Labour Politburo and true to form she hastened onto social media to "like" the unappetising but presumably familiar "up-bottom" image of the flashing fibber:
But it has, inevitably, all gone pear-shaped for Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury and the Council itself had to intervene and stop them running children's events at Brunswick Park due to alleged failures to apply proper safeguarding procedures. It seems that they have also been booted out of the Town Hall which begs the question how they can provide the services they claimed they would supply to Sport England, the Lottery Fund etc when they were screwing them for cash. Also set out below is a FOI request to Sport England which is largely self-explanatory but also asks why they declined to co-operate with the police in respect of a complaint about the grant application.
Just one aside before the texts of the FOI requests - regulars will know that the late vicious scumbag, Darren Cooper, had a letter written to smear Hackett in respect of "CockGate". The word on the street is that the letter was actually sent to SMBC by a female Labour councillor to try and destroy her colleague. I have written to her about this (and another matter) but she has declined to comment as yet.
FOI to SMBC:
On 28th October, 2015 the Cabinet met and made key decision FR022 which gave alleged “community organisations” free or cheaper access to, inter alia, Wednesbury Town Hall. The then Deputy Leader of the Council (now the Leader) gave the following statement which was duly recorded in the Cabinet minutes:
“The revised fees would be effective from the date of the of the Cabinet decision and not retrospectively.”
Question 1: Was this minuted decision subsequently overridden? If yes, please provide details.If the decision was overridden to apply retrospectively how was this applied to (a) Wednesbury Celebrates and (b) how much has been repaid by SMBC to all other community groups who have used Town Halls across the Borough for, say, the last five years.
Question 2: In accordance with your replies via one Kerry Robbins to my FOI requests 1- 713803722 and 1-718594708 the Council has submitted invoices to Wednesbury Celebrates (apparently on the basis of their own submitted booking forms) on 9th March, 2015 totalling £20,836.50. A further invoice was submitted for the first quarter of 2015/2016 in an unspecified sum on 27th July, 2015. Please state:
a Of the invoices totalling £20,836.50 please state the total payments received from Wednesbury Celebrates and the date(s) of payment.
b the actual amount of the invoice dated 9th March, 2015 and if the invoice was paid in whole or in part including the date(s) and amount(s) thereof.
c any further invoices submitted from the date of the end of the first quarter of 2015/16 (as per the invoice of 27th July, 2015) to the date of the Cabinet decision of 28th October, 2015. If no invoices were issued please disclose copies of the booking forms submitted by Wednesbury Celebrates for the said period. If an invoice or invoices were submitted please state the dates and amounts and the date(s) and amounts of payments received.
d please confirm any invoices and amounts thereof submitted to Wednesbury Celebrates under the new charging regime following the Cabinet decision of 28th October, 2015 to 30th August, 2016 and the date(s) and amount(s) of payments received.
In her earlier legal FOI replies Ms Robbins stated that all invoices were raised in accordance with “standard booking forms” submitted to SMBC by Wednesbury Celebrates themselves and that they were subsequently “charged in accordance with the agreed fees and charges of SMBC”. In earlier requests I requested copies of the actual booking forms but this was refused by SMBC on the grounds of cost although an offer was made that SMBC would consider making copies available if I made a more “tailored” response. The difficulty I have is that you are quite specifically saying that the invoices were raised based on information submitted by Wednesbury Celebrates themselves. But then in her legal reply Ms Robbins stated that the invoices were disputed as “they included other organisation’s charges”. Thus the booking forms go to the heart of the matter as they were used, by your own legal statement, to formulate the invoices.
Question 3
a Please disclose copies of the actual invoices. You state that there have been a series of meetings between SMBC and Wednesbury Celebrates (including one attended by the Asst Chief Executive) and one assumes that some of the invoices have been amended following agreement. If so, please also disclose the amended invoices and the date(s) of payment of same.
b Please disclose all minutes, records, notes and documents prepared of whatsoever nature relating to what you say in a legal reply was “a series of meetings” concerning the allegedly disputed invoices. Please state the identity of the “other organisations” whose details are claimed by Wednesbury Celebrates to have been included in the forms which they themselves signed and submitted to SMBC.
c The actual booking forms must be bundled together as they constituted the basis for the invoice calculations and, presumably, for “the series of meetings”. As above, I assume some sums have now been agreed and I have requested payment details. To save costs I am content for you to simply disclose those booking forms which remain disputed. If, however, NO monies have been recovered against the invoices I do need to see the actual booking forms. To save costs I do not require copies but am content to visit your Oldbury offices to see the originals and make notes.
d State what steps are currently being taken to recover any outstanding amounts.
All of the above follows on from my original two requests but another matter has come to my attention. In documents submitted for a grant Wednesbury Celebrates say they were set up on 1st March, 2011 and yet the above invoices only relate to the period commencing the first quarter of the 2014/15 financial year. Further the actual minutes of Wednesbury Celebrates dated 27th January, 2014 chaired by then Cabinet member and still Cllr Ian Jones read as follows:
““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”.
Question 4
a Please disclose all booking forms submitted by Wednesbury Celebrates relating to their use of the Town Hall between 1st March, 2011 and 31st March, 2014 and state why no invoices were raised in respect of same.
b Disclose all correspondence, notes, records and memoranda and documents arising of whatsoever nature passing between SMBC and/or Cllr Ian Jones and/or Wednesbury Celebrates concerning the latter’s use of the Town Hall during the said period.
For a considerable period of time an organisation of uncertain legal status called Five Star Performance Academy has extensively used the main hall in the Town Hall and at least one meeting room for its fee-paying activities. The person who has control of that organisation is Richard Jones, son of SMBC Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and brother of Cllr Stephen Jones. As shown in previous communications Mr Richard Jones also widely publicised his activities within and outside Wednesbury Town Hall which was also given as Five Star’s postal address.
Question 5
a Please state when SMBC first became aware that Five Star Performance Academy was using the facilities of Wednesbury Town Hall?
b What does SMBC believe the legal status of Five Star Performance Academy to be?
c In a legal FOI reply of 29th September, 2015 Ms Kerry Robbins stated on behalf of SMBC:
“Separate invoicing arrangements are to be applied to Five Star. There are ongoing discussions with the representative of Five Star Academy and the Council”.
Please disclose all invoices submitted to Five Star including amounts and the date(s) of payment of same. If the invoices do not pre-date 29th September, 2015 please state why not.
d Of the “ongoing discussions with the representative” please disclose all correspondence, notes, records, memoranda and documents of whatsoever nature arising from Five Star’s use of the public facility and the “ongoing discussions”.
e If any monies remain outstanding from Five Star please state the amount and what steps SMBC are taking to recover same.
It is understood that the said Richard Jones also used a room at Wednesbury Town Hall to keep printing equipment which he used, inter alia, to print notepads for another business enterprise called “Strictly Creative Design”.
Question 6
a State when SMBC first became aware of Richard Jones using the public facilities at the Town Hall for other business activities than Five Star?
b Please disclose all correspondence, notes, records and memoranda and documents of whatsoever nature passing between SMBC and/or Richard Jones and/or Strictly Creative Design relating to the operation of that business from publicly-owned property.
c Disclose all invoices including amount issued by SMBC in respect of Strictly Creative Designs and the date(s) of payment. If any invoices remain outstanding please state what steps SMBC are taking to obtain payment.
14th September, 2016
FOI to Sport England:
This request follows on from my initial request of 28th May, 2015 about your dealings with this organisation and, in particular, the, at best, dubious and, at worst, fraudulent grant they managed to obtain from you.
At the time of your initial response (in two parts) you had - belatedly received the first six-monthly report from Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury.
As I understand things you have been paying your grant to Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury by instalments and, notwithstanding, the information that was supplied to you. Of course, your funded organisation made extensive media headlines recently in respect of child safeguarding issues and has effectively been booted out of “their” base at Wednesbury Town Hall.
Please state:
1 Please disclose all further “six-monthly” and/or any other reports submitted to you by Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury.
2 Please confirm precisely the dates and amounts of payments Sport England have paid to Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury since my initial FOI request of 28th May, 2015.
3 In respect of the non-payment of rent by Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury you stated in correspondence that you “will be raising the matter with the association”. Please disclose all correspondence, telephone attendance notes, other notes, records and memoranda and documents of whatsoever nature relating to communications passing between Sport England and Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury relating to the rent arrears (which have a fundamental bearing on the veracity of the original application and the solvency of the organisation).
4 I am informed that West Midlands Police/West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit communicated with Sport England but that SE declined to cooperate with any proposed investigation. Please disclose all correspondence, attendance notes, other notes, records and memoranda and documents of whatsoever nature relating to communications between Sport England and the Police with regard to Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury.
5 Have Sport England received any other applications from Wednesbury Celebrates/Sport Wednesbury for funding since the original flawed application? If yes, please disclose all documentation relating to the said application(s) and details of all grants/actual payments made pursuant thereof.
6 Given the shambolic events of recent times what steps, if any, have SE taken to investigate the Association’s affairs and what was the outcome of those investigations?
14th September, 2016
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