Following major criticism regarding the huge cost of changing its name and make up of the Council owned Group of companies known as ADVANCE Northumberland by the outgoing external auditor, Ernst Young,who expressed concern in auditor speak in their first report on the company known as ADVANCE.
As well as hiding a small profit from work with Newcastle Airport as a £6.3M loss the Auditor recorded the following as an element of their findings of failure:
Significant matters arising during the audit in connection with the Councils related parties (ADVANCE Northumberland) including, when applicable:
·
Non-Disclosure by management.
·
Inappropriate authorisation and approval of transactions.
·
Disagreement over disclosures.
·
Non-Compliance with Laws and regulations.
·
Difficulty in identifying the party that currently controls the
Authority (In that organisation).
The administration of this Tory Council were
so aggrieved that someone should question their superior being status regarding
the findings at ADVANCE who’s chairman is Cllr Richard Wearmouth, that in
similar fashion to the problems found by the auditor, Councillors (not officers
of the Council)wrote a report to the Councils audit committee to spin a
completely different set of findings on the day Ernst Young’s report was
released and Councillors issued innuendo without proof about the predecessor to
ADVANCE, the Company ARCH which these same Tories spent four years poisoning
the brand due to its success in delivering fantastic projects on the then Labour
and previously LibDem Councils behalf.
But today we at Murky aren’t looking at that element of ADVANCE which currently has multi-agency investigators crawling all over it following whistleblowing allegations from the Councils top officer, were looking at the effect two of the above findings have on you the public and how deceitful the Council’s Cabinet members who make up the majority of directors of the board have been.
Disagreement over Disclosures and non-compliance with Laws and Regulations:
As part of its role in the region ADVANCE Northumberland manages the rural growth network and funding on behalf of Government, one of the matters it funds is i-Northumberland the information arm of the County Council yet that is a far as the company ADVANCE gets towards sharing any information with its council tax paying ultimate resource, you the public.
This company being fully owned by you the
public is covered by the The Freedom of Information Act 2000 its an Act
of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of
access" to information held by public authorities. It is the
implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a
national level. ADVANCE Northumberland do not recognise that law and do not
respond to FOI requests, they do not appear on the Government web site ‘What do
they know’ as a public body which we all know they are.
Currently the County Council of and for Northumberland has been hijacked by pirates who believe they can do what they like when they like. Through fiddling expenses they have lost their Leader a former director of ADVANCE and ARCH, Peter Jackson and their wider Group has been accused among other things of corruption and bullying of staff. The Councillors involved with this administration at County Hall believe they are the professional officers of this organisation and the Council and it doesn’t seem to matter to them what they do. But compliance with national law is essential and we the public need to know whats been going on behind the closed doors of ADVANCE Northumberland since 2018.
Its interesting that Labour’s leaders in Northumberland have made public their wish to close ADVANCE Northumberland and manage regeneration through a department of the council.
But we wonder what the Counties three Tory MP’s think of this latest scandal in the name of Northumberland Conservatives and will Government pressure be brought on to ensure compliance with the Law ASAP?
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