Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
Fury at £2.5m cash blunder
Monday 22nd March 2010, 11:30AM GMT.
Taxpayers will be left £2.5 million out of pocket, an investigation into a council accounting disaster revealed today.
Senior high-earning Walsall Council officers could now face disciplinary action. The results of an investigation into the way European funding was commissioned and managed in Walsall up to 10 years ago has been revealed.
The authority dished out more than £3million to more than a dozen community groups during 2003-2008 expecting to recoup the cash from the European Regional Development Fund.
But it cannot claim back large chunks of the money from the European Union after it failed to keep a proper audit trail of how cash was being spent.
Council chiefs had expected the amount they were to lose out on to be around £700,000.ImpactBut the full extent of the crisis has emerged today after the publication of an independent investigation by financial advisors Grant Thornton LLP carried out on behalf of the council.
The firm estimates the total impact on the taxpayer to be £2.5million – but the real amount could be higher.
Walsall Council leader councillor Mike Bird was not in charge during the spending of the European funds – he only took over last year.
But he said the knock-on-effects could not be ignored.
“None of the elected members come in for criticism in the Grant Thornton report, it is down to the senior officers and there may well be disciplinary action, that is being looked at at the moment. You can’t turn your back on losing £2.5million.
“We are reliant upon officers and I was being told last year it would not be any more than £700,000 and that it was getting bettter and better, whereas every day it was getting worse and worse and £700,000 became £1million and £1million became £2million.”
Sponsored Links
Most Commented
- Host of clubs chasing Wolves star Matt Jarvis
- Wolves confirm interest in Bjorn Bergmann Sigurdarson
- Chris Hughton still favourite but Albion will not be rushed
- Ray Wilkins in shock link with West Brom job
- Bjorn Bergmann Sigurdarson 'will have ideal grounding at Wolves'
- Bjorn: 'I'd love to play for Wolves'
- Danny Batth: 'My heart is still set on making the Wolves first-team'
Business Awards
Read the full story here
Full coverage of awards celebrating the region's best businesses.
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
LIVE traffic updates
Road, rail and airport - latest
Our new, live traffic and travel updates service - check before you set out.
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
I’d expect nothing less from Walsall council
Report abuse
Why am I not surprised by this?
Walsall and other local authorities waste millions annually on these so called community schemes. Now we will all have to pay for them! It’s time that local authorities disclosed what is spent where so that council tax payers can see exactly where their money is going!
Report abuse
An absolute disgrace. Once again a local council spends OUR money which we have earned through hard work whilst they sit at there desks drinking tea and spending our money. Its time to fire and re-hire.
Report abuse
Well Done Walsall Council… Yet again you fail us all.. Not only do you loose money you waste it too and then have the audacity to increase our council tax .. What is going on …..
Report abuse
Easy come even easier go, We’ll just increase the council tax next year by a few pounds no one will guess where the money goes we can hide the bad news at some time, still claim all our over inflated expenses, keep drinking the tea and coffee, eat the biscuits the tax payers can afford it.
Report abuse
Probably not qualified to do the job these managers were in. Seems like PC is more important in Councils than qualifications and commonsense!
Report abuse
An interesting FOI would be to ask what qulaifications the senior accountants had who administered and oversaw these projects.
Who signed it off, etc.
Main accounting bodies demand Technical competence.
If they had this then the bodies may wish to reconsider this.
So ggod all accounting qualifications now have ethics as part of its requirements
Report abuse
LOL, this is what is meant to happen and has been happening for years, the council just love wasting our money, only solution is to stop paying council tax as there is no law out there that says one must pay.
Report abuse
Give these officers a pay rise.
The place would be in a right mess without them…………….
Report abuse
Quite right English Exile. If these council employees didn’t waste council tax on such projects the residents would only spend it on frivolous things like food and heating. I think their should be a Directorate of Useless Spending to ensure Walsall Council is brought up to the same standard as the best wasting councils in the country.
Report abuse
Not suprised at all…. I worked in walsall’s accounts department for 6 months.
The levels of incompetence was there for all coming in to see, new staff arriving looked to get out as soon as possible, so did I.
At the end of the year used to put in some accruals, hey presto, accounts done. no real checking, no following up, no one understood financial systems,used lots of manual input s/s, etc. Senior accountants not qualified, although they wernt always the problem.
All local authorities have got there good workers and bad, but at walsall there was just somthing wrong, to many staff, not enough work…. with that breeds complacancy and through it a bit of management incompetance and you get the position walsall is in now!
Shame really as there were lots of people warning them of this in the short period I was there & its unsuprising most of these got out sharpish and walsall is in the position it is in now!
I doubt this will be posted, but lets see…
Report abuse
It seems that working for councils is the last preserve of the imbecile… i wonder if most of these people would ever be allowed to look after so much money in the private sector. I doubt it.
What needs to be done is that the public sector takes up the work ethic of the private sector. Root out the chaff and bucks up its game plan. Thats the only way Councils and other government bodies can be turned around. Too many council workers are just jobs worths having nothing better to do than waste cash, raise taxes and sneer at the decent working people outside of the clique.
Report abuse
None of this surprises me. I worked for Walsall Council for many years before leaving in disgust and frustration at the sheer incompetence of so many people there who were paid huge management salaries but who clearly had no idea what they were doing. Anybody who did try to change or improve things had their ideas squashed and was bullied into silence. Too many of the staff just saw working for the council as a nice safe job for life and had no interest in getting anything done. The time-wasting and inefficency would never be tolerated in the real world where businesses have to perform well if they are to survive.
Report abuse
We need Peter Rhodes on this story straight away. He is the only one capable to do the proper muck-raking and get to the bottom of this mess. When it is all sorted I recommend a bloke named Scot McCloughan to take over as he did a bang up job in a similar circumstance.
Report abuse