No smoking gun but still lots of questions
Cornwall Council has got through the first working day of the Daily Telegraph's "spending card scandal" relatively unscathed.
Silk ties - nailed at 7am. £1,080 on Rick Stein's restuarant? It wasn't for food or drink, but payment for a Future Jobs Fund project recouped from the Department of Work & Pensions. The One Eyed Cat restaurant bill for £1,269? A lunch for 43 people as part of a European Union project about higher education, recouped in its entirety from the EU.
So here are a few more items which, on the face of it, merit further inquiry:
* £2,425.20 on mobile phone socks
* £1,260 for a senior official and two councillors to stay at the Palace Hotel
* Several hundred pounds in various pubs
* Two nights accommodation at the Alveston House Hotel for two people, at £90pppn, totals £360 - yet the bill was for £540. So what was the £180 "extras" and what was the purpose of the stay?
* £500 bills at Sainsbury's supermarkets
I've just emailed a few dozen questions of this nature and look forward to the answers in a few days. There may well be perfectly acceptable explanations, although on the face of it a £3,000+ return taxi ride to Bolton will take quite a bit of explaining (did they go via New York?)
I'm keen to clarify the council's policy on alcohol and whether these cards can be used this way - it seems it might be OK to have "some" alcohol with a meal, but no-one seems to know how much "some" actually is.
I've also asked the council to clarify its spending on consultants. The data for 2010-11 should now be available so that we can make valid year-on-year comparisons.
One area where the council is clearly struggling is the way it handles information - a Freedom of Information request which contained serious errors, as well as breaching data protection laws, was sent to a national newspaper without being checked. As usual, the cock-up theory of history appears to be winning over the conspiracy theory - but that's probably no cause for celebration.
I'm ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Devon’s Graham Smith, blogging on news, views and some fresh insights into West Country life, particularly the way government works locally and nationally.
Comment number 1.
At 31st May 2011, John Macloud wrote:If I heard it right I believe Alex Robertson said on Radio Cornwall today that the Council on occasions takes out government officials and companies with whom it is doing or seeks to do business for meals i.e. offers corporate hospitality. It would be interesting to know more about the expenditure on this - it may well not show up on the current list since this does not cover expenditure under £500. It would also be interesting to know who decides which companies are offered this hospitality and who sanctions the expenditure. Do companies who do or are seeking to do business with the Council reciprocate with their own hospitality? If so, is this declared by officers and councillors and are there robust audit checks in place to ensure full disclosure is made? And is this regarded as an ethical and proper way to conduct council business?
I hope your questions about hundreds of pounds being spent in local pubs will include a question about expenditure shown on 6 April 2009 of £750 at the Sailors Arms under the description "Bars/Taverns/Lounges/Discos" and coded to TRE. If this is the Sailors Arms in Newquay (which I occasionally frequented in my youth) then it is difficult to believe this was corporate hospitality for a government official or company (no disrepect to the Sailors Arms but I think it caters for a different market and I am sure does it very well). Perhaps though the Council was attracted by the VIP package offered by this establishment and more fully described on its website.
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Comment number 2.
At 1st Jun 2011, Graham Smith wrote:Many thanks for this John, well spotted:
I have added the question to my list.
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