How the scales of justice will affect the council budget £24m Tory cuts are the tip of a very unpleasant iceberg.

Jackson and some of his band 

 The first real Jackson budget facing Northumberland is a predictably slippery one. But we should at least be thankful that it's published and not kept away from public view like the Arch accounts after 1 full year of Tory vandalism. 

The top line for the council budget is £24m has to be found at the behest of the twice bankrupt Nick Oliver who now splits his time between dismantling and selling off public assets in Arch and 'fiddling away while the council burns' like Corbridge's answer to Nero. 

So let's look under the £24m figure into the undergrowth where Nick Oliver tries to distract from. Start with the latest external auditor report. 

FIVE serious value for money risks (where is the Chair of Audit I hear you ask) spanning the first year of Jackson and his gang. They are, in no particular order, because they are all serious - The cancellation of the Portland Park project for the new county HQ in Ashington, the cost of the refurbishment of County Hall at Morpeth, the decision to remove the lawful core strategy, the dismantling of Arch and the senior management restructure including the removal of Chief Executive Steven Mason. FIVE significant issues which have and will cost the council significant amounts of money and here's a tip for the readers of this blog - at least one of the audit issues involves an UNLAWFUL act (or acts). All will be revealed in due course.

When you look at EY (the external auditor) report it's enough to set the alarm bells ringing and souls searching. 

How could a council get into this mess in just 15 short months? 

The cancellation of Portland Park project happened within one month of the Jackson gang hostile takeover at Arch and has cost the taxpayer at least £7m to date. £7m to Galliford Try as a down payment on the cancellation/renegotiation of a £32.3m package which would have seen over a thousand good quality jobs in Ashington, helping the High Street and as part of an ambitious plan backed by Tory Sir John Hall to help the town thrive. They've now got a derelict site, no takers for their desperate piece of fake marketing, a cinema and a back of a fag packet plan for unspecified shops to presumably kill off Ashington High Street. 

Arch has gone from a regeneration company to a degeneration company under 'Tricky Dicky Wearmouth', the chair with stakes in more interests than there are weeks in a year. More of that to come in a later post though.

Remember when Jackson and his gang 'spun' their way through Northumberland telling people that new Ashington HQ would cost £80m and he could wave a magic wand, spend £500,000 and turn Morpeth County Hall from a mausoleum into a 21st century office with just a 'lick of paint'. 

Both parts of the 'trick' played on residents turned out to be a lie. 

Firstly, think hard - have you heard Jackson or his band mention £80m since they started on their vandalism of the council and its partners? That's because the real cost was £32.3m which they've already had to pay out a down payment of £7m for nothing at all. Secondly, it turns out the lick of paint now costs over £20m and rising. The Tories are finding this money to make their own 'Morpeth Mausoleum' by cutting £24m of services from the most vulnerable communities across Northumberland and especially targeted in the South East. 

The dodgy decision to remove the core strategy is subject to a legal action and seemingly, it's also being looked at by Northumbria Police. It involves dark dealings, bullying, incompetence, intimidation and criminal actions which residents will see played out in front of them over the next 6 months. What's at stake is £10m of taxpayers cash and the cost of a defence for Jackson and the council's CEO Daljit Lally, an expensive secondment from the hard pressed and under staffed Northumberland NHS. 

One joker said the NHS is understaffed because they've all been seconded to Northumberland County Council. There is also a potential that the council may be found to be vicariously liable for up to £193m of lost value on a planning application targeted by Jackson and his gang. 

EY view of Arch is complex but can be explained simply. The Tories are selling off over £120m worth of assets owned by the tax payer to whoever they wish with zero scrutiny. 

That started in June last year when they decided to stop and flog off investments outside Northumberland. It gave 'Tricky Dicky Wearmouth' a predictable soundbite but what he didn't reveal was the decision started a 'fire sale' of assets worth an estimated £124m. They were land and buildings under the Arch Housing company, Arch Commercial Enterprises and Arch Developments.

We can't scrutinise what's happening as the Tories rush to sell off Arch and turn the rest into effectively a private company with no value to the taxpayer. There are no Arch accounts published even though they've been signed off for nearly two months. We'd urge the Chair of Audit who has taken an unnatural interest in the past operations of Arch to look at the current operations especially how the council can protect its interests given the current structure of the new Arch lodged at Companies House. The Tory actions in Arch have been assisted by CEO Alison Joynson, a doughty community campaigner who opposed Labour's plan to tackle the £6m bill for post 16 transport but also happens to be...…… cue drumroll...…. a secondment from Northumbria NHS Trust. Mrs Joynson may have faced accusations that she was a 'political appointment' given her politically advantageous campaigning for Jackson and the gang in 2015 and 2016 but that remains to be seen. Mrs Joynson is a 'shadowy figure', she doesn't seem to turn up for many Arch Board meetings despite being the CEO. But readers may not know she's also Director for 'Change' and International Projects within the council too along with being second in command to Mrs Lally as deputy CEO. 

We're not sure whether that's a secondment from the NHS or from Arch to the council but you have to admire Mrs Joynson for her work ethic or at least her ability to do four executive roles at the same time. BTW, she's paid £171,000 by the council which also falls within the last 'serious value for money risk' identified by EY. 

We'll finish this section by highlighting one of Mrs Joynson first actions along with the Head of HR Kelly Angus... who is a secondment from the health service. They 'procured' Mr Steve Crosland of Riding Mill based Crosland Consulting to carry out 'investigations' into whatever 'Tricky Dicky Wearmouth' thought was useful in his quest to 'clean up Arch'. After £80,000 spent on Mr Crosland to do his 'Inspector Clouseau' impression and an audit carried out by EY costing an estimated £360,000 (it still hasn't finished like the painting of the Forth Bridge) and a high profile 'police review' started nearly a year ago which has been the centre piece of the Tory smear campaign against Labour politicians and independent contractors, we now await the next expensive, tax payer funded exercise in 'fishing around for no purpose'. As Mr Crosland popped up (he's not surprisingly married to an eminent professional in the NHS) another blast from the past sloped into Arch and Active Northumberland under the guise of a private company called Engage-n-Change. Ken Dunbar was CEO keeping Jackson and some of his current gang under control at Castle Morpeth and a fine job he did too. Now he's a supremo in Arch, arguably the HEAD HONCHO given how thinly Mrs Joynson is spread but he's another 'secondment' this time to Active Northumberland, the council's leisure charity He produced a Crosland type report under the guise of Engage-n-Change which was used to smear Labour politicians by claiming incredulously that the report was 'independent'. One wag observed it was as independent as Cllr Hill, the disgraced Tory spin doctor now masquerading as an 'independent' councillor in Berwick. We presume Mr Dunbar stopped off in Active before he took up the reins (and the 'independent investigations) at Arch. 

The final 'value for money risk' identified by EY is foreshadowed by earlier blogs and the strange case of 'fat cat managerialistis'. Since May 2017, this has spread like a contagion across the council. Jackson and his gang are rumoured to be the hosts and we hope the auditor will be able to administer a serum. We have Daljit Lally at £200k plus a £37k bonus for jetting around the world with her fellow NHS 'refugee' Mrs Joynson. We have the controversial appointment of Paul Johnstone, brought in allegedly to shepherd through the removal of the planning core strategy at the Jackson gang's bidding. He's costing you over £180,000. You've got Mrs Joynson on £171,000 and whatever she's paid at Arch since we can't see Arch salaries anymore in the new era of Jacksonian 'Transparency' in the council. Jackson himself has seen his pay roll in at over £90k despite being an director of an offshore based company, Greenshields Agri and having an interest in at least 5,000 acres of land in Northumberland and Borderlands Scotland. Mr Dunbar is an enigma - all we can find for him is his payment for his 'independent report' into Active worth a cool £26,600 plus VAT. We estimate that Mr Dunbar will be on an equivalent package as Mrs Joynson at £170,000 which could be the reason he's leaving the ship in November. The head of HR Mrs Angus pockets over £90,000 but we shouldn't finish without a mention of the money removing Steven Mason, the former CEO given a glowing testimonial by Jackson and his gang which topped £417,000 and the head of planning who left under a 'settlement agreement' worth a rumoured £50,000. 

So when you see the Jackson 'spin machine' spring into action about the £24m budget cut and how its all Labour's fault think of the eye watering figures revealed above and say to yourself - what if we'd spent that money on services and people not vanity, politics and covering up dodgy decisions.