UPDATED (9/6/22): Latest Attacks on Glastonbury Government and Council Crony "Slush Fund"

 

Is Mendip District Council Corrupt?

UPDATED (9/6/22): The normally Labour-friendly Mirror is reporting the latest attacks on the Conservative Government's "Levelling Up" by the (Labour) Chair of the Commons Public Accounts Committee:

"Ministers were today accused of "gambling taxpayers' money on policies" which are "little more than a slogan" over Boris Johnson ’s flagship levelling-up plan.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee blasted the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities for using "unsatisfactory" methods to hand out billions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash.

In a report published today, the cross-party group of MPs highlighted how the first round of the £1.7bn Levelling-Up Fund was only awarded after the ministry knew the identities of shortlisted bidders."

This adds to the revelations that we have reported below in Somerset about Glastonbury money and how it has been handled by Lib Dem-run Mendip District Council, with Internal Audit intervening as we have previously reported. We have also received worrying allegations regarding Glastonbury Town Council, relating to how the money is being handled.

The Mirror goes on (Commons) Public Accounts Committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier "fumed": 

"Without clear parameters, plans or measures of success it's hard to avoid the appearance that government is just gambling taxpayers’ money on policies and programmes that are little more than a slogan, retrofitting the criteria for success and not even bothering to evaluate if it worked."

Leader of Somerset Independents, Andrew Pope, responds:

Andrew Pope

"We reported it, but local media have not given this scandal and this slush fund the attention that the public deserve.

The Tories nationally have opaquely allocated public money that has then been channelled and promoted very loudly by Lib Dems and Greens on Mendip District Council and Glastonbury Town Council.

Lib Dems, Greens or Tory, same old story - these Westminster parties want to look like "Lady Bountiful" in handing out the money. But as we've pointed out previously and many times over, it is public money that must be accounted for properly and distributed with due process and criteria.

At every level, national or local, this Levelling Up money is grubby dirty money, because of the way it has been dished out.

Residents would have hoped that these Lib Dem and Green councillors would be ashamed to have accepted this money when it has been repeatedly slammed by auditors and those accounting for it - at national level and at local level, as we have reported (see below). Lib Dems and Greens have no shame though...

One Glastonbury councillor, Chair of Mendip District Council, Nick Cottle attacked Somerset Independents for pointing out the national and local criticisms. He needs to listen to the public's valid concern.

Today's criticisms from the Public Accounts Committee are legitimate, despite them coming from a Labour-friendly newspaper quoting a Labour MP attacking the Tories.

And it's the latest criticism that makes "Levelling Up" look nothing more than a slush fund to corruptly build networks of cronies for the Lib Dems, Greens or Tories and to be used for what these Westminster parties hope - to influence voting patterns in constituencies or local council wards.

It's a scandal and the local media must give this due reporting now.

Too many local news outlets are asleep at the wheel, letting councillors and MPs get away with it."

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UPDATED (19/2/22): Mendip District Council (MDC)'s internal audit function (a.k.a. SWAP) has now reported again to Mendip's Audit Committee of councillors. 

Minutes of the 2nd February 2022 meeting contained a report by SWAP. This had previously been mentioned as a "Fraud Risk Assessment" in a previous meeting of the Audit Committee in December 2021. 

Financial anomalies including weaknesses in how these millions were handled, were reported in Daniel Mumby's report that we linked to in the original article (see quotes below).

At the February 2022 meeting, councillors were asked to consider this report on the millions without the public being able to see it, or hear their deliberations.

This is public money, millions of pounds of public money. It is being handed out without public scrutiny.

WHAT DO THESE COUNCILLORS HAVE TO HIDE?

Somerset Independents has received information from a whistleblower about the Glastonbury Town Deal.

We will be looking into how MDC has conducted itself, and what conflicts of interest there have been in relation to how MDC, its councillors and officers have managed the money allocated by Boris Johnson's Conservative Government.

*At the August 2021 meeting, the minutes stated:

"Payments were issued without the required cashflow documentation to ensure funding was only distributed to verified project need. 

 Limited invoice and cashflow information from the grantees resulted in low level monitoring being undertaken to ensure that funds would be appropriately used during the projects’ lifecycles. 

 

The expenditure reports for Building C contain anomalies and questionable items that have not been queried by the Council. 

 

There is no distinct Code of Conduct for the Town Deal Board, nor is a formal process documented for members of the Town Deal Board to register gifts / hospitality and declarations of interest.

A follow up audit will be scheduled into the 2021-22 plan to confirm that recommendations are implemented to address the control weaknesses identified."

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Ever since Somerset Independents was formed, we've been challenging Mendip District Council (MDC) for how it spends YOUR money and how it makes decisions.

We have not said that Mendip District Council is corrupt.

But we have provided the evidence so that Mendip residents can make up their own minds and have their own ideas about corruption.

We define corruption as the abuse of power, so we present the evidence again.

Here are just five examples of what is wrong with Mendip District Council, but there is more on this website and more to come:

1. For two years running, we have got agreement from MDC's External Auditor Ernst and Young (EY) that how MDC operates is wrong. We are helping EY with their enquiries, following our second complaint into MDC, its accounts and governance.
2. We have shown that conflicts of interest are not managed, including on Licensing and Planning decisions that affect Mendip residents' lives, and we have shown that MDC are mostly deaf to the public's concerns and objections but allow grave contraventions of good practice to go ahead, unchecked.
   
3. We have shown that Mendip Council officers have suppressed information relating to councillors who have not paid their council tax, and taken this to local and national media, plus the Information Commissioner's Office.
   
4. We have shown that Mendip Council officers allowed a Chair of Scrutiny to preside over his own election as Chair, and after the Head of Legal (Monitoring Officer) ruled it was OK to do this, then through our action we forced Mendip into a u-turn and a proper vote of the Chair, months later.
5. After a bitter fight over 2020 and 2021, we have forced MDC to change their Constitution on Planning. Despite this, a senior planning officer described the changes to councillors as "tidying up" when presenting the changes to them. And bad governance and practises continue in MDC Planning.
   

But there is more.

This brings us to The Glastonbury Town Deal, part of the corrupt Prime Minster Boris Johnson's (BoJo's) Government "levelling up" agenda.

Nobody seems to know what "levelling up" means. Spitting Image have derided it in their latest episodes. Things have got so bad that Michael Gove has been sent in to explain what it is. That is desperate.

So what is The Glastonbury Town Deal? It is part of the £3.6 billion Towns Fund for England that has awarded public money to 101 towns. Some of this appears to have been done in the correct way, but most (around 60%) of the allocations were not done correctly. Tory Ministers interfered.

Glastonbury needs investment, but the way this has been done is wrong.

In short, the Towns Fund is a multi-billion pot of public money handed out by Boris to help the Conservative Party win elections. 

The Towns Fund is dirty money used for corrupt purposes. And therefore the Glastonbury Town Deal money, which Mendip District Council applied for, is also dirty. 

Why do we say this? 

Because the evidence is clear that the money was allocated with political interference by Conservative Party ministers, instead of according to clear criteria and methodology by public servants.

It isn't just Somerset Independents that says this. Multiple other credible sources also say this, including MPs, the National Audit Office and independent journalism.

According to Byline Times, it is "61 Pork Barrels", with "weak and unconvincing arguments" used by Government Ministers in defending how money was allocated, according to MPs on the Commons Public Accounts Committee.

According to the National Audit Office (NAO), "the UK's independent public-spending watchdog", in their review of the Towns Fund:

"On 27 July 2019, the government announced the £3.6 billion Towns Fund for England (The Towns Fund). The Towns Fund is expected to support towns that currently do not have the right conditions to develop and sustain strong local economies"

The NAO said:

"This review describes the process followed by the Department to select the 101 towns. First, this involved an assessment – scoring, ranking, filtering and prioritising – of all 1,082 towns across England by the Department’s officials against a range of criteria. Second, ministers selected the towns to be invited to bid for Town Deals using the officials’ assessments to guide them.¹ The Department published the list of selected towns in September 2019 but did not publish the basis on which they selected the towns."

Like we have said when we have challenged local councils in how they operate, politicians should not be involved in any interference in the allocation of public money via grants. There should be clear criteria and a methodology, and civil servants or local government officers should be allowed to make the decisions in an open and transparent way.

Leader of Somerset Independents, Andrew Pope says: 

Andrew Pope

"Glastonbury Town Deal money was allocated in a corrupt way by  Conservative Government Ministers. This is not the fault of civil servants, but of Boris Johnson's corrupt MPs, most of whom recently voted to protect corrupt Tory MP Owen Paterson. This included local Somerset MPs.

We say again that Glastonbury and a whole host of other towns in Somerset including Yeovil, Shepton Mallet and Frome - desperately need investment and a plan for investment and jobs.

But not like this with dirty Tory money being laundered by Liberal Democrat and Green councillors, who like the Tories are desperate to spend millions of pounds of OUR money for THEIR political gain.

The Liberal Democrat Leader of Mendip, Councillor Ros Wyke, is doing the Conservative Party's dirty work for them, when she is crowing about the money. And so is any other Lib Dem, Green or Tory councillor or MP that is crowing about this dirty money.

Already Mendip have claimed transparency, but provided anything but transparency (see here and * below). Even the normally pathetic Internal Mendip Audit (SWAP) has found "questionable items" within the accounts!

It is no surprise as Ros Wyke has form for this, which we know from our campaigning on the governance failings at Mendip on how our money is spent in the Asset Management Group and Phoenix Sponsorship Board.

The Tories have used public cash on a spending spree to enhance their election chances in a marginal seat. That's why Tory MP for Glastonbury James Heappey is so involved on this "Board" for spending the money.

Other parts of Somerset are being taken for granted, because of the broken First Post The Post voting system which provides "safe seats" for Tories.

We want to see investment in Somerset and a plan for jobs, but done in a way that Somerset can be proud of, not in a way that is shameful and grubby."

 

Standing Up For Somerset
Not Westminster

From the Mendip District Council "Frequently Asked Questions" page (emphasis added):

Where can we, the citizens of Glastonbury, see the detailed accounts of the money spent thus far?
All funds will eventually flow through Mendip District Council, which is the Accountable Body for any eventual grant allocation.  An accountable body generally takes responsibility for the legal and financial management of a grant given to a particular project or projects.  MDC's Section 151 Officer oversees the accountable body function.  As such, MDC works to government guidance and will eventually be reporting to government and the Glastonbury Town Fund Board.

Some limited prefunding of matters such as architects and project managers is taking place at the moment through MDC to enable the 12 projects to deliver their HM Treasury Green Book Business Cases.  The actual grant allocation of £23.6m will not be approved until each project completes this process.  Thus, the full grant allocations will not be available until a few months after MDC has received permission for the projects to proceed.  We anticipate that the first 'major' funds will arrive in mid 2022.

As well as MDC's role as the Accountable Body, the operation of the Glastonbury Town Deal, including financial, is overseen by the Glastonbury Town Deal Board which will receive detailed financial reporting once the grant allocations start to be received.  This reporting will be recorded in the Board minutes which are posted regularly on the MDC website.  Please note that some confidential information may necessarily be excluded if it is 'commercial in confidence'.  Both MDC and the Glastonbury Town Deal Board are committed to working in an open and transparent manner.  Currently, there is simply no information to share.