We know there has been recent chaos under Corbynista Labour Leader "Red" Yvonne Davies (when she is actually in Sadders and not at her luxurious Herefordshire home away from the riff raff.) Richard Luckman, the head of "HR" has gone and the finance supremo, Darren Carter, has been suspended for some time (though he should be sacked immediately for his role in the wrongful suspension of the secretaries referred to frequently in this blog.)
By law, and unsurprisingly, Council's have to have a "s.151 Officer" in charge of finances but Sandwell have declined to say who that is in the absence of the hapless Carter.
But today Red Yvonne's joke outfit has confirmed that the audit is still not complete for the year ended 31st March, 2019!!!!! So fourteen and a half MONTHS after the end of the financial year the accounts have not been audited despite the Labour outfit's reputation. (A company has to file accounts nine months after the end of the financial year and is fined if it does not do so.)
In the circumstances, I have written urgently to the Minister for Local Governement and copied in the local MP's. Here is my letter:
Simon Clarke MP
Minister for RG & Local Gov
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
Cc: James Morris MP
Nicola Richards MP
Shaun Bailey MP
John Spellar MP. 19th June, 2020
Dear Mr Clarke:
Sandwell Council - Unaudited Accounts
I am writing about the incredible and alarming situation where Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council have still not filed audited accounts for the year ended 31st March, 2019!
At present the statutory s151 Finance Officer is also suspended from duty for reasons not in the public domain.
Sandwell Council has become notorious for fraud, cronyism and incompetence - see James Morris MP’s Adjournment Debate of 25th January, 2018 which has not been acted on by the Government. Millions of pounds are flooding in during the Covid 19 crisis but who is monitoring where this money is going? Please note that it is not so long ago that £15million was unaccounted for some three years of accounts.
There needs to be some urgent independent oversight here given that proper accounts have yet to be produced for 2018/2019.
Can you please review this situation as a matter of urgency. I am copying this to the three Conservative Party MP’s now serving the Borough and, for what it is worth, the nominal MP for Warley.
Yours faithfully,
Julian Saunders
There are a couple of other issues which arise from my enquiries about this dreadful Labour shambles. Even though I am clearly involved in journalism in accordance with the legal definition Jan Britton barred the expensive "press office" from communicating with me. Any general or press enquiry was unilaterally turned by Britton and Co into a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. These shysters are then complaining to the Information Commissioner that I am submitting "too many" FOI requests!
Red Yvonne bullsh*tted me that all this would change and yet when I raised the question of the delay in the audit David Stevens converted the request unilaterally into a FOI request! Plus ca change!
(Happily, thanks to a kind soul, I hope to be in a position to mount a legal challenge on this soon!)
I also raised an issue about payments out. Again by law, the bent reds have to publish all payments made over £500. In the old days these were published monthly and then collated into an annual list at the end of the financial year which made it very easy to establish how much person or company X was paid during that year. Disgraced former Chief Exec Jan Britton stopped this annual listing and so now if one wants to see, say, how much taxpayer's money was shelled out for a particular London barrister in any year one has to undertake 12 seperate searches per annum!
It is my honest opinion that this has been done deliberately to make life difficult for the likes of me. You might think when Red Yvonne spouts b*llocks about openness that things like this could be easily amended. I asked Stevens about this but have hust been told that there is no requirement to consolidate the lists and I can bog off as the disclosure is in accordance "with the transparency code" - whatever the f*ck that is! Another triumph for LACK of transparency from Cllr Davies!
Info Please...
Genuine enquiry - can anyone tell me what the "Service Improvement" team actually does and how many of them there are? One employee tells me that "this is a team of employees that no longer have substantive posts and are found unnecessary work to do rather than make them redundant. The team organised Jan Britton's staff recognition events and other equally pointless undertakings." Surely not? Let me know please folks!
And what has happened to non-entity Labour Cllr Sue Crumpton. Some say she has "retired" and got the hell out of the sh*thole Borough asap, moving to Wales. She has disappeared from the list of councillors on the SMBC website and the field has been reduced to 69 from 72 with two other comrades now dead. Anything anyone?
Get Well Soon - Peter Lowe
Sorry to hear that Pete Lowe of the Warley League has been unwell - not Covid-related. (He has had to endure a lot recently as Red Yvonne pressed on with the proposed destruction of Lion Farm Fields.) All the very best from The Skidder team and, I am sure, from all football-lovers throughout the Borough!
THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!
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