Cllr Liam Preece

Steve Eling seemed to start so well as the new Leader of Sandwell Council but his promise of "greater transparency" already looks hollow. Whilst he is quite rightly getting rid of the top management structure (with the exception - so far - of two of the worst culprits) who presided over the corruption, incompetence and cronyism of the Cooper/Britton regime this is at huge cost to the taxpayer. And, of course, the leavers are signing confidentiality agreements in return for secret payments of huge sacks of our dosh (more on this shortly).

This blog has shown time and again that a number of councillors have potentially committed a criminal offence by failing to accurately complete the statutory Register of Members' Interests eg Mahboob Hussain, Mohammad Rouf, the liar Lucy Cashmore, Stephen Frear/Andrews/Bloxham, and Tony "Fudgy" Meehan. The most serious cases were referred to Sandwell Labour's friends at West Midlands Police who did precisely nothing even after my complaints were upheld by the Independent Police Complaints Commission!

In the "new spirit of openness" under Steve Eling only the current Register of Members' Interests is available online and SMBC would only disclose earlier entries pursuant to a Freedom of Information Request!!!! How crap is that? (I am building a database of entries for future reference....)

Incidentally, whilst "Hurricane Eling" has been showering cash on the leavers a further problem arises in that most right-thinking Local Government workers do not want to work for such a dysfunctional authority nor under a pathetic, useless (or worse), greaser like Jan Britton. Nor to they want to live in the dog-sh*t smeared streets of the "socialist paradise". Thus the new regime is having to (secretly) pay out what a senior councillor told me is "a fortune" for various people to come in and fill the vacancies on mega-expensive short-term contracts.

One such is the new, temporary, Monitoring Officer appointed by Jan Britton - one Meic Sullivan-Gould. He has come to Sadders from that other bastion of Labour corruption, er, Tower Hamlets. One can guess how much of our money this character is receiving since, despite the costs of travelling and working in London, he was able to shamelessly boast that the taxpayer had funded a little present to himself:

Regular readers will know that Richard Jones - son of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and brother of Cllr Stephen Jones - was directly involved (with SMBC) in the bent application by Sport Wednesbury to Sport England which netted his own boyfriend a £35k per annum job for three years (£105K). (Another matter the local "Cowards in Blue" are, so far, refusing to investigate).

Readers will also know that Richard Jones operated his "5 Star Performance Academy" from Wednesbury Town Hall whilst neglecting to pay us taxpayers any rent (there is STILL an outstanding FOI request about this Cllr Eling!)

Now yet another Councillor has been drawn into this scandal (Cllr Peter Hughes also supported the bent Sport England application as did Cllr Paul Moore - though the latter has stated that he had no idea that Richard Jones's boyfriend was the main beneficiary of the deal. Cllr Elaine Costigan was directly involved with Cllr Olwen Jones as "trustees" of Wednesbury Celebrates and there was the mysterious involvement of Murray Hall Community Trust where Cllr Bob Lloyd was Chair of Trustees. Finally, Friar Park Millennium Centre also supported the bent bid where the Chair of Trustees was Cllr Simon Hackett).

Yes, it now transpires that Cllr Liam Preece was actually on the payroll of Richard Jones's Academy as a freelance* Drama Teacher until, at least, August 2014!!!

Sandwell have now finally supplied me with Preece's various Register of Interests entries. Although he was elected in May, 2012 the first is not dated until 5th March, 2013 (?) and he doesn't declare any job with Jones in his handwritten entry. On 17th February, 2014 a typewritten entry and been amended in manuscript to add that he was working for 5 Star and giving Jones's business address as, er, "Wednesbury Town Hall". Whilst Preece has told The Skidder he stopped working for Jones in "August, 2014" he did fill in a typewritten Register entry on 20th August, 2014 stating he was still working for Jones then and also repeating the business address as "Wednesbury Town Hall".

And so at least it seems that Preece has made an effort to comply with the disclosure rules although that should not be surprising really as, in the murky, incestuous, world of Sandwell Labour, he states throughout that he is cohabiting with a "Sadwell" Council employee working in....wait for it... Governance Services!

But the fact is that whilst Richard Jones was shafting us taxpayers for rent, Cllr Liam Preece was prepared to take his shilling. What a guy!

And finally....

Thanks to all collaborators and, of course, readers of The Skidder. I am pleased to announce that we have now exceeded half a million views!

*"Freelance" in the sense of self-employed worker rather than in the Hosellian sense....

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PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER, DECEASED!