There's something just a tad whiffy coming out of West Dunbartonshire Council. On Thursday 11th of March the details of the recent best value report were put into the public domain. The Accounts Commission, more or less branded the council, the most inept in Scotland.
Last month, the council asked the Scottish Government for permission to borrow £9.8 million pounds to help balance their books. Citing the expenses accrued during the Single Status Process as the main reason for their debt, despite originally having a pot of £21 million from which to fund the scheme.
All of this would be fine, as most councils have contingency funds to which they can dip into on occasion to help pay interest rates etcetera, whilst still maintaining the good governance of the local authority....However, West Dunbartonshire Council's contingency fund is in a seriously bad way. Ordinarily it would hold funds in the region of £5 million. The contingency fund is currently sitting at a barrel scraping, £250,000 - the price of a nice wee hoose in Balloch.
Since 2007 the council has been run by an SNP/Independent coalition. This has not gone down well with the Labour party, long used to having control of the Council, the MSP and the MP. The chinks in their armour began to appear when traditional Labour corruption raised its ugly head, just before the 2007 election, when problems of internecine warfare broke out amongst labour councillors, with scandals in tabloids and accusations of council contracts surreptitiously awarded to businesses owned by Labour councillors, etcetera. So far - so Labour corruption. Fast forward to last year and we discover the chief executive of the council is doing the Hokey Cokey (no Purcell reference intended) with his job, he's quitting, he's sacked, he's retired, he's no, he's shaking it all about...and so on. Not it would seem a happy bunny.
Naturally, the upper management, the majority who were placed in the Council during the heady Labour years, simply get on with running their council. The council is operated by council officers with no time or inclination to listen to their political masters, just like every other council in the country. Honest hard working men and women to the core...or are they? Accusations of cronyism, waste, patronage, nepotism, deception etcetera swirl around the councils ankles, again, just like every other council in the country.
However, what adds grist to the mill in this case is the very odd action of the council sending out this rather strange correspondence to businesses whom they have worked with in the past.
A brief perusal shows you the letter suggests that WDC's books are well and truly kippered, that they don't know who they owe money to and vice versa don't know who owes them money. Are they simply asking businesses, in a recession, "Do we owe you any money? If so please let us know asap, and we'll square you up in a trice." or words to that effect. So far, so generous. It's always nice to know that councils care so much about their contractors and suppliers that they'll chase them up in times of financial strife. Ok, I've laboured that particular point long enough.
What's really interesting is that the council contact has an email address at the council, but uses his mobile phone number (what WDC employees don't have landlines?) and 'if we do owe you any money please fax details to this Edinburgh number'...Edinburgh! Has there been a seismic shift and Dumbarton Rock is now encroaching on the Bass Rock's territory? Further investigation of the fax number leads to an IT company, a cross google on their fax number and address lead to this document which in turn leads to this fraud detection company. Investigative Data Mining Ltd is the UK's leading consultancy specialising in the use of advanced data mining techniques to detect, prevent and investigate fraud.
Are we to presume that West Dunbartonshire Council having been on the shard end of one of the worst 'Best Value' audits in living memory have opted to seek external help in preventing fraud or is it more likely that they are attempting to clear out the stench of alleged fraud within their own coffers?
Much like there is a case for the Scottish Government assuming control of Glasgow City Council, the same should be said of West Dunbartonshire Council.
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8 comments:
Certainly the previous Labour administration were not even good enough to be termed fukking useless.
The current SNP admin has neither the majority nor the funds to do much about their fetid inheritance.
To be fair to them there are some decent councillors there like Iain Robertson and Craig McLaughlin however I fear they are farting against thunder.
You can check out my views here http://bigrab.wordpress.com/tag/west-dunbartonshire-council/
and here
http://businessfordumbarton.wordpress.com/
Mark
How not to run a cooncil, perhaps the Scottish Goverment should take control of GCC what a coup that would be!
Sad thing is so many houses built along the Vale of Leven Glen they must have been awash with cash....
Chickens coming home to roost?
CD
Every Labour council seems to be rotten. Here in Renfrewshire they do not know how many council houses they have or how many workers they have thanks to them.
Unfortunately they have been replaced here by SNP councillors mostly as bad and crooked as the Labour lot they replaced.
The council leader Derek MacKay, has got his position due to his, err! Great experience? or was it his err! Work experience? or his err! Qualifications? Oops sorry he doesn't have any of these but he does waffle a load of crap just what we need to sort out Renfrewshire.
If the standard of politicians is the same all over Scotland as it is here in Renfrewshire then I fear for the future of this country.
It looks as though the inky fingered press is finally getting their erse in gear.
Sunday Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7061166.ece
Scotland on Sunday
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/Call-for-inquiry--into.6150282.jp
Sunday Herald
The sight of those two heather strewn peaks and a small building nestled inbetwen the two towering dirt mounds had me thinking Jackie Baillie had just bent over.....
All we need now is a balmy south westerly to complete the fantasy.
Anyway Sophie
Back on the jube-jube juice?
Mark, It's not only Labour in WDC who have some questions to answer. In my local council, Falkirk, Labour took over from the competent SNP run council with a Contingency Fund of over £13 million. Now, this Fund has been reduced to somewhere around £1 million. Don't know the exact figure because the Labour lot aren't telling us. We don't know what the £12 million missing from the Fund was spent on because again Labour won't say.
Just as an aside, how many other Scottish councils have banned the display of Party logos on lamposts during an election like Falkirk Council under Labour control? They claimed it was because this practice was "unsightly" - truth is Labour don't have enough local activists to find a lampost let alone put their red-rose of Lancashire all over it.
The problems may not yet be over for WDC and the SNP group as according to SNP members in the council area the councillors have gone all Tory on us and want to oust Iain Robertson in favour of someone new to lead the council. Apparently the SNP councillors blame Robertson for the councils current problems.
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