Council Investments
I have been closely monitoring with the finance team the recent turbulence on the London and international money markets.
The Council agrees a Treasury Management Policy in February each year, which prescribes the institutions, credit ratings and limits on lending that govern our investment of the Council’s investments of £40-50m. This policy is being followed strictly.
Over recent months, the application of the Treasury Management Policy was tightened in the light of the higher risks in the money markets. This was done by using only those institutions that had a credit rating better than that prescribed in the policy.
This week I agreed a further tightening of our operational arrangements:
* A cessation on forward deals – these are agreements to lend an amount at a future date for a prescribed period of time.
* No further long term lending to be undertaken i.e. lending over 1 year.
* Limits on the arrangements for short term lending.
These are all aimed at reducing the risks the Council faces on its investments.
Our advisors, Butlers have told us that there may be some risk associated with the Council’s investment with Glitnir bank, based in Iceland.
The Council currently has £2m invested with Glitnir and it is not possible to assess the implications for this investment at present. As a term depositor, we will be relatively high up the order of creditors if the bank is liquidated and assets realised.
Members may have seen that the LGA is pressing Government to safeguard these investments by local authorities.
I am continuing, with the finance team, to monitor the position and should there be any further significant developments, I will let you know.
Thursday 9 October 2008
Rushmoor's Finance Director's letter to Councillors
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
It has been common knowledge for months that there was a problem with Iceland.
- Don't forget the Town Hall twits, Gordon
- Council taxes to rise for the next 25 years after collapse of Icelandic banking system...
- Iceland's Banki Hankipanki goes belly-up!
- Councils trapped in £1bn black hole
Once again the local community has been badly let down by officials.
Someone should pay, and it should not be the local taxpayer.
Is it not time we had a massive clearout?
Thanks David for keeping us infomed.
No mention on the Rushmoor website!
It has been common knowledge for months that there was a problem with Iceland.
Once again the imbeciles at Rushmoor have screwed the local community.
Contrast Rusmoor with Brighton
- Icelandic banks - council not affected
Surcharge councillors to recover the money? It should not be the long-suffering local tax payers who pay for the mistakes of others.
Heads should roll!
JOINT STATEMENT FROM GOVERNMENT AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION
9 OCTOBER 2008
We had a very productive meeting and we agreed to stay in close touch, meeting again next week. Government and the LGA agreed that there is no evidence of recklessness by local authorities. They also agreed the financial framework for local authorities, which requires them to strike an appropriate balance between security of investments and returns, appears to have been adhered to.
Many authorities have already publicly stated that any risk is not a threat to frontline services but a small number of authorities may have specific problems.
We agreed once the LGA completed its analysis of the effects of the situation on individual local authorities, we will look at issues arising on a case by case basis. For those local authorities who are facing severe short term difficulties Government and the LGA will agree an appropriate set of ways to assist. We will judge what's appropriate on a case by case basis but in previous situations support has included helping local authorities restructure their financial priorities, providing additional expertise and capitalisation of expenditure.
The Government and international partners have already acted to support stability of the banking system. Action has also been taken in relation to the position of Icelandic banks – including freezing assets of Landsbanki. Local authorities, along with all other investors, will benefit. The LGA will be seeking to open discussions with administrators of the UK subsidiaries. The LGA and Government encourages all councils to continue operating investments in accordance with the guidance.
LGA and Government will continue to monitor the situation closely.
Copy of letter from LGA to Council Leaders and Cheif Executives
9 October 2008
Dear Leader and Chief Executive
You will all have heard about the crisis affecting several Icelandic banks, including Landsbanki, Heritable, Glitner and Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander and from breaking news today many of you will also know that many councils have money invested with these banks. At close of play today 108 councils reported deposits of around £800 million with these banks.
There is no evidence to suggest any council has been imprudent in its management of these funds and Government has agreed with s on that. This is an unfortunate fall out from the global financial crisis. This letter is to update you on our progress.
Several steps have been taken. Firstly we are gauging the scale of the problem - the number of councils affected; the level of deposits held and the dates when they were due to mature; and which councils might be facing immediate difficulties. We have contacted all council finance officers for assistance here on the understanding that any information supplied will be eld in confidence. We’ve undertaken to go back to Government with a full picture and we will need further information from you to assist with thi. Stephen Jones will be in touch on this and we would ask that you give this priority.
As Chairman I wrote on behalf of all councils to the Chancellor and today Paul and I met with John Healey Minister for Local Goernment and the new Economic Secretary to the Treasury Ian Pearson MP. It was a very productive meeting and we agreed to stay in close touch, meeting again next week. Perhaps what is most helpful is to share with you the joint statement arising from that meeting and that is attached.
We will be continuing to represent councils’ interests very strongly over the coming days and weeks and will keep you informed. It is real progress that we have got assurance that further and due consideration will be given to appropriate assistance on acase by case basis.
Yours sincerely,
Cllr Margaret Eaton OBE (Chairman)
Paul Coen (Chief Executive)
Local Government Association
LGA would say that wouldn't they. It is not the view of independent obervers. It has been known for several months that there was problems in Iceland.
Well done guys, even by your own abysmally low standards you have done yourselves proud. This time you have really screwed up big time. A couple of million of our money lost in Iceland!
- Billionaire Tchenguiz takes £800m hit with forced sale of investments
- Town halls fear for millions after Iceland bank collapse
Councillors get told, but not the public. No mention on the Rushmoor website. The usual contempt for the local community. Well done David for having the decency and integrity to keep the local community informed.
The failure to inform the public is to forgot one important thing, this is not your money, it is our money. The money was held in trust and that trust was abused.
Do not even dream of cutting services or raising local taxes. If you do, councillors will be sued for recovery of the money and this may still happen.
Officials on over-inflated salaries to match their over-inflated egos and self-importance, guilt-edged inflation-proof salaries. Local people are already going to suffer as they lose their jobs as the economy nose-dives into a depression. They will be hit with a double whammy as taxes go up to pay for the banking bailout. £500 billion is about a third of the UK economic output. They should not be required to pay out a third time for mistakes made by town hall jobsworths.
The borough chief executive is nothing more than an overpaid jumped-up town hall clerk. Cabinet member for finance a hon treasurer. But the titles look good and you then get the salary, company car (oh yes, company cars) and allowances to match.
You have demonstrated malfeasance in public office, and you are going to pay back to the local taxpayers the sum of money you have lost through sheer incompetence and maladministration.
It has been common knowledge for months that Iceland was in trouble. If Brighton knew to pull out their money why not Rushmoor?
- Icelandic banks - council not affected
When a country of only a few hundred thousand starts buying up many of our High Street chains, including the supermarket Iceland, when it finances many of the management buyouts, it leads to the obvious question: where was all this money coming from? Well now we know, councils like Rushmoor. An economic miracle? No, a confidence trick!
I daresay a delay in informing the public to give time over the weekend to drew up some cock-and-bull story, to manufacture pathetic excuses.
Resignations will be expected from chief executive, head of finance, finance director, leader and deputy leader of the council and those cabinet members who approved the decision to invest a million pounds of taxpayers' money in banks that were known to be in trouble.
If you think you are going to get away Scot free, think again.
There is though a wider question. Why invest in a foreign bank? Should this money not have been invested locally? Or have been invested in an ethical bank such as Tridos (not sure of name) or Coop Bank?
Are we surprised? No. Not when the council gets into bed with a Kuwaiti-financed developer and helps them trash Farnborough town centre. Not when the chief executive falls over backwards to try to push through a development next door to Tesco which will finish off what is left in Aldershot town centre. Not when they allow expansion of a Saudi-financed airport.
Argument has always been, we need to pay high salaries to get good people. We all know you get monkeys if you pay peanuts. Rushmoor employs gold-plated monkeys.
They should have seen this coming, as they should have seen the other disasters that they have created.
Councillors and their officials have behaved with reckless abandon with our money. Reckless abandon that borders on the criminal.
Why did they not have a chat with their mates at TAG, fly by executive jet to Monte Carlo and gamble our money on the roulette and the blackjack tables? They might have got a better return.
It is one calamity after another. There is time for a wholesale clear out in this council.
History repeats and nobody remembers. Maybe Rushmoor should have consulted with Western Isles Council in Stornoway about putting our money in strange places. Remember the affair of BICC and the millions of pounds that was deposited with it? Remember BICC, the favourite bank of the mafia, gun dealers, drug dealers, narco-traffickers, terrorists and money launderers?
Why did they not respond to Nigerian e-mails offering a cut of dodgy money?
We have The Economics of the Greater Fool. Buy something dodgy, like sub-prime loans, and sell at a profit to a bigger fool. Eventually the world runs out of fools, and like a game of pass the parcel, the light comes on and someone is left with an unpalatable package. Only this time it is not a game.
- Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis explained
If the council has to borrow to put the books right, who will they go to, Loan Sharks Direct?
Well done guys, even by your own abysmally low standards you have done yourselves proud. This time you have really screwed up big time. A couple of million of our money lost in Iceland!
- Billionaire Tchenguiz takes 800m hit with forced sale of investments
- Town halls fear for millions after Iceland bank collapse
Councillors get told, but not the public. No mention on the Rushmoor website. The usual contempt for the local community. Well done David for having the decency and integrity to keep the local community informed.
The failure to inform the public is to forgot one important thing, this is not your money, it is our money. The money was held in trust and that trust was abused.
Do not even dream of cutting services or raising local taxes. If you do, councillors will be sued for recovery of the money and this may still happen.
Officials on over-inflated salaries to match their over-inflated egos and self-importance, guilt-edged inflation-proof salaries. Local people are already going to suffer as they lose their jobs as the economy nose-dives into a depression. They will be hit with a double whammy as taxes go up to pay for the banking bailout. 500 billion is about a third of the UK economic output. They should not be required to pay out a third time for mistakes made by town hall jobsworths.
The borough chief executive is nothing more than an overpaid jumped-up town hall clerk. Cabinet member for finance a hon treasurer. But the titles look good and you then get the salary, company car (oh yes, company cars) and allowances to match.
You have demonstrated malfeasance in public office, and you are going to pay back to the local taxpayers the sum of money you have lost through sheer incompetence and maladministration.
It has been common knowledge for months that Iceland was in trouble. If Brighton knew to pull out their money why not Rushmoor?
- Icelandic banks - council not affected
When a country of only a few hundred thousand starts buying up many of our High Street chains, including the supermarket Iceland, when it finances many of the management buyouts, it leads to the obvious question: where was all this money coming from? Well now we know, councils like Rushmoor. An economic miracle? No, a confidence trick!
I daresay a delay in informing the public to give time over the weekend to drew up some cock-and-bull story, to manufacture pathetic excuses.
Resignations will be expected from chief executive, head of finance, finance director, leader and deputy leader of the council and those cabinet members who approved the decision to invest a million pounds of taxpayers' money in banks that were known to be in trouble.
If you think you are going to get away Scot free, think again.
There is though a wider question. Why invest in a foreign bank? Should this money not have been invested locally? Or have been invested in an ethical bank such as Tridos (not sure of name) or Coop Bank?
Are we surprised? No. Not when the council gets into bed with a Kuwaiti-financed developer and helps them trash Farnborough town centre. Not when the chief executive falls over backwards to try to push through a development next door to Tesco which will finish off what is left in Aldershot town centre. Not when they allow expansion of a Saudi-financed airport.
Argument has always been, we need to pay high salaries to get good people. We all know you get monkeys if you pay peanuts. Rushmoor employs gold-plated monkeys.
They should have seen this coming, as they should have seen the other disasters that they have created.
Councillors and their officials have behaved with reckless abandon with our money. Reckless abandon that borders on the criminal.
Why did they not have a chat with their mates at TAG, fly by executive jet to Monte Carlo and gamble our money on the roulette and the blackjack tables? They might have got a better return.
It is one calamity after another. There is time for a wholesale clear out in this council.
History repeats and nobody remembers. Maybe Rushmoor should have consulted with Western Isles Council in Stornoway about putting our money in strange places. Remember the affair of BICC and the millions of pounds that was deposited with it? Remember BICC, the favourite bank of the mafia, gun dealers, drug dealers, narco-traffickers, terrorists and money launderers?
Why did they not respond to Nigerian e-mails offering a cut of dodgy money?
We have The Economics of the Greater Fool. Buy something dodgy, like sub-prime loans, and sell at a profit to a bigger fool. Eventually the world runs out of fools, and like a game of pass the parcel, the light comes on and someone is left with an unpalatable package. Only this time it is not a game.
- Sub-Prime Mortgage crisis explained
If the council has to borrow to put the books right, who will they go to, Loan Sharks Direct?
Rushmoor has lost two million of our money, and all we hear is pathetic excuses from LGA.
- Rushmoor loses two million pounds
- Excuses, excuses...
The Local Government Association say councils were not imprudent for investing money in Iceland. As the body that represents local councils, well they would say that wouldn't they! Or are they just having a laugh at our expense?
If the councils are not at fault, then who is, the local taxpayers who are expected to foot the bill?
It was common knowledge that there was problems in Iceland and this has been known for months. Both the Tories and Lib Dems have said they made warning noises in Parliament about Icelandic banks.
The claim by LGA does not wash, especially when one of their members, Brighton and Hove City Council, decided it would not be prudent to invest in Iceland.
- Brighton & Hove City Council - Icelandic banks - council not affected
Councillor Jan Young, Brighton and Hove City Council:
'We have no deposits with Icelandic banks. We suspended transactions with the one we had on our books Kaupthing, Singer & Friedlander about a year ago after picking up concerns in the marketplace about Icelandic banks expanding too quickly.'
'Our watchword is caution. We're very aware of our responsibilities in managing taxpayers' money and are very careful both about who we invest with and how much we invest.'
'Clearly the overall financial situation is changing quickly and in an unpredictable way. In the current climate we will continue to monitor the situation on a daily and indeed hourly basis.'
To reiterate what Jan Young, councillor responsible for finance at Brighton and Hove had to say: 'We have no deposits with Icelandic banks. We suspended transactions with the one we had on our books ... about a year ago after picking up concerns in the marketplace about Icelandic banks expanding too quickly. Our watchword is caution.'
If the watchword at Brighton and Hove was caution, and they picked up concerns a year ago, then the conclusion to be reached is that Rushmoor was reckless with our money, and contrary to the claims made by the LGA, councils who put taxpayers' money in Iceland did not behave in a prudent manner.
Ben Yearsley, investment manager at financial adviser Hargreaves Lansdown:
'Many in financial circles had no sympathy for the council money men. You have to question the logic of why a local authority like Kent has 50m in an Icelandic bank. Why wasn't money like that deposited with gilts, which are more secure? A Government body or public bodies should not have been taking risks with money on deposit.'
'There have been stories about the vulnerability of Icelandic banks for weeks and you have to consider why they were offering such a high rate. They were offering a high rate because they wanted money to come in.'
Iceland has a population of a few hundred thousand. Where was the money coming from to buy up half the UK High Street, to buy up West Ham football club, to finance management buy-outs? We now know the answer, it was coming from tin pot councils like Rushmoor who were playing in a Big Boy's Game where they were completely out of their depth, as were a few of the big boys themselves.
LGA are trying to pass the buck. Someone has to pay for this fiasco, and it should not be the local taxpayers, either with reduced services, higher local taxes, or borrowing.
If the money is not recovered from Iceland, as may well be the case as the country is bankrupt, then it has to come from councillors. If needs be, they must be surcharged to recover the money. Maybe then they will learn not to rubber stamp what is put before them.
Even if the money is recovered, those who got us into this mess must resign or be fired.
Did Rushmoor seek advice from Crapita?
Has Rushmoor any more of our money invested overseas? If yes, then it must be repatriated as soon as possible. If invested locally, then it will create or help support local jobs.
If we had any local shops left, sadly there are none thanks to this council destroying local shops, the council could create and underwrite a local currency (cf Totnes and Lewes), redeemable in local shops and business.
- Transition towns
- Somerset - first transition local authority!
It is important to keep money flows within the local economy. If we look at all the developments this council has pushed, such as the destruction of Farnborough town centre or the edge-of town retail development earmarked for Aldershot, it destroys local businesses, bleeds money out of the local economy.
Has Rushmoor borrowed money to speculate?
- The Wall Street crisis
- Councils trapped in 1bn black hole
- Saving Private Banks
- Town halls fear for millions after Iceland bank collapse
In the US, the FBI is mounting criminal investigations into the banking crisis. The same should be happening here. The Serious Fraud Squad should be investigating Rushmoor playing footloose with our money, and at the very least, an inquiry by the Audit Commission. After all, this will not be the first time Rushmoor has behaved unlawfully.
The street parking in North Camp is unlawful. It is unlawful for Rushmoor to obtain money on an unlawful scheme, and yet that is exactly what they are doing. Leeds is under criminal investigation for similar activities. Worst still, traders are suffering. The l.ast thing they need is we head into a recession.
- North Camp traders suffer
- North Camp street parking
The banking crisis and Rushmoor's part in it is as nothing to what is about to come. We are about to hit the limit of the earth's natural resources. What we are seeing is a small taste of things to come.
- Say Goodbye to Peak Oil
- Nature loss 'dwarfs bank crisis'
Gordon Brown has been willing to toss 500 billion, a third of our national economic output, at failing banks. All to no avail. George W Bush has pumped nearly a trillion dollars into the US banking system, and still bank shares go into free fall.
- PANIC DECLARED Empty store shelves, gas pumps, ATMs ahead
- End of the world is nigh
- Bail of the Century
- Debts the way to do it
Franklin D Roosevelt brought in the New Deal to drag the US economy up by its bootstraps out of the Great Depression that followed the Wall Street Crash.
We are at that same epoch in history. We have to move forward with a Green New Deal. A Marshall Plan for the 21st Century. We have to grasp the opportunity to construct a fairer society.
- UK needs Green New Deal to tackle triple crunch of credit, oil price and climate crises
'The key question is, if no-one could have seen this coming why did Brighton and Hove council pull out of Iceland 12 months ago for exactly this reason?' -- The TaxPayers' Alliance
'Rushmoor only deposited money into Glitner because it was an A-Rated bank.' -- Andrew Lloyd, chief executive Rushmoor
It was common knowledge that there was problems with the banks in Iceland.
- Rushmoor loses two million
Contrary to the excuses put forward by the LGA and that councils behaved in a prudent manner, there can be no excuse for what has happened. The council has behaved in a reckless and caviler manner with our money. Those who took the decision must pay, not the local community with higher taxes and cuts in services.
- Excuses, excuses...
It cannot be said no one knew there was not a problem as it was common knowledge. Brighton pulled their money out of Iceland precisely because there was known to be a problem.
- Brighton & Hove City Council - Icelandic banks - council not affected
Arlingclose, one of the companies which advises councils on their investments, has been warning its local government clients and other councils against investing in Iceland since 2006!
- Councils ‘knew about bank fear’
Nor can it be claimed the Icelandic banks had good credit ratings. They did not, and these ratings were being revised downwards. Contrary to the false claim by Andrew Lloyd (hidden on page 3 of Farnborough Mail, 14 October 2008), Glitnir was not an A-rated bank.
In January, Moodys Investors Service warned that it was planning to cut ratings on the main Icelandic banks. It downgraded the biggest, Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, from C to C-minus a month later. In April, Standard & Poors raised concerns about Glitnir, downgrading it from A-minus to BBB-plus, the lowest rating at the time of any western European bank.
- Councils invested £100m in Iceland despite warnings
Rushmoor had two million of our money stashed away in Glitnir!
Does Rushmoor make a habit of only employing people who are incompetent? Worse is that they do not care as they know no matter what they do, nothing will happen to them. They also show appalling contempt towards the public, as we have seen with Mike Bamber (with parking in North Camp) and David Quirk (with fortnightly waste collections and half-size wheelie bins).
Councillors were told last week of the lost two million. As of Friday, the public was not told, there was no statement on the Rushmoor web site. They seem to have forgotten that it is our money they have lost.
The people responsible for this loss cannot expect to get through this unscathed. People have to lose their jobs.
Nor can the public be expected to pay either in service cuts, higher local taxes or borrowing. If the money cannot be recovered from Iceland, then those councillors responsible must be surcharged.
People have already taken to the streets in Edinburgh. Widespread civil unrest will take place if any attempt is made to cuts services and increase taxes and no attempt is made to bring to book those responsible for losing our money.
- Edinburgh Financial Protest: "We wont pay for your crisis!"
Tucked away on page three of the local rag is coverage of the millions lost by local authorities in the Icelandic banking collapse. Millions of pounds of local taxpayers' money lost due to town hall incompetence does not it seem merit front page coverage. [Millions invested in Iceland Banks, Farnborough Mail, 14 October 2008]
In total, councils in the local area have between them lost £32 million. Plenty of excuses, but not a single chief executive offers an apology, not a single one admits to any wrong doing, not a single one does the honourable thing and offers to resign.
Rushmoor had £2 million invested in Glitnir. In a statement to the local rag Rushmoor chief executive Andrew Lloyd states: '[Rushmoor] only invested in Glitnir because it was an A-rated bank.'
This statement is simply not true. Glitnir had been downgraded by the credit rating agencies.
In January, Moody's Investors Service warned that it was planning to cut ratings on the main Icelandic banks. A month later it downgraded the biggest, Glitnir, Kaupthing and Landsbanki, from C to C-minus. In April, Standard & Poor's raised concerns about Glitnir, downgrading it from A-minus to BBB-plus, at the time the lowest rating of any western European bank.
In a statement to councillors, Rushmoor Finance Director Peter Gardner said:
'I have been closely monitoring with the finance team the recent turbulence on the London and international money markets.'
This begs the question what were they closely monitoring? It clearly was not the credit ratings or the warnings about Icelandic banks. Nor were they apparently heeding the warning signs.
Brighton and Hove pulled their money out of Iceland a year ago, because the signs were not good.
Arlingclose, had been warning their public sector clients for the last two years of the dangers of investing in Iceland. According to Mark Horsfield, director of Arlingclose: 'These banks have been getting steadily worse for quite a long time.'
The warnings signs were there, but apparently not seen by Gardner and his financial team, even though they were 'closely monitoring the recent turbulence on the London and international money markets.'
In his statement to the local rag, Andrew Lloyd goes on to say: 'it is likely that we will receive some of, or possibly all of, the deposit back.'
Is this wishful thinking? Icelanders believe in elves. Does Lloyd believe in faeries? What part of the word bankrupt does he not understand?
Maybe Lloyd would care to elaborate on how he intends to recover the money he has lost.
Even in the highly unlikely event of the elves and faeries returning all or part of our missing millions, those who have played footloose with our money should be fired or forced to resign – chief executive, finance director, leader and deputy leader of the council.
Were no lessons learnt from the crash of BCCI in 1991?
Apparently not.
Rushmoor finance director Peter Gardner assured councillors he and his team were closely monitoring the financial situation. Was this his idea of a joke?
How was this done, by reading tea leaves perhaps?
He seems to have missed the warning in the Sunday Telegraph way back at the beginning of the year. A bit hard to miss when the headline read: 'Is Iceland heading for meltdown? A Northern Rock-style crisis is threatening its entire banking system'.
Maybe that was a little too subtle for a town hall jobsworth to comprehend.
In February, both the Sunday Telegraph and the Sunday Times more than hinted at a meltdown in Iceland.
Early this year the signs were not good. Did Gardner not notice that the Icelandic Kronor was falling, or that there were no assets in Iceland? Did it never occur how a remote Arctic country could possibly be underwriting the massive expansion of its banks?
I assume Gardner also missed the warning by Professor Richard Porter, an expert on Iceland, when he told the Financial Times in March: 'The question arises whether the banks are not just too big to fail, but too big to rescue.'
Where else does Rushmoor have our money invested? Banks in Cyprus, Ireland, India, Nigeria, all of which like Iceland, that have been offering rates that are too good to be true, and as we have learnt with Iceland, were too good to be true. Or maybe Dubai, another hot favourite, with no real assets.
What other investments has Gardner succumbed too? Maybe RBS or HBOS. Or perhaps a little overseas flutter, AIG or Lehman Brothers maybe?
Westminster, in addition to losing £17 million in Iceland, has also lost £6 million invested in Lehman Brothers, AIG and HBOS.
Gerrymandering and losing money in failed banks is nothing new to Westminster. Westminster lost £1.5 million in BCCI under the watchful eye of Dame Shirley Porter. She also kicked council tenants out of their homes to rig local elections.
Not unlike Rushmoor giving the go-ahead for Pavilion to kick out its tenants at Firgrove Court in order that their favourite developer KPI/St Modwen could go ahead and trash Farnborough town centre. Three Rushmoor councillors, board members of Pavilion, also sat on the planning committee that gave the green light. Three councillors subsequently found guilty by the Standards Board for England of a very serious offence.
Any Rushmoor councillor who thinks they are beyond the law, may care to have a chat with Dame Shirley holed up in Israel, unable to return to UK because of pending criminal charges.
Mayor Boris may wish to think twice. His appointed deputy Sir Simon Milton is a former Porter protégé and until appointed as Deputy Mayor of London, former leader of Westminster.
We need a full list of where Rushmoor has stashed our money, including terms.
Why is Rushmoor sitting on such a large pile of our money? According to chief executive Andrew Lloyd in a recent statement to the local rag: 'At any one time we have £45 million in deposits in banks. This is capital money not revenue.'
A contingency fund is one thing, but this far exceeds any contingency fund.
The role of a finance director is to safeguard public assets, not use them for speculation. Gardner has spectacularly failed to discharge his responsibilities, and for that reason he must go.
We can no longer rely upon the Audit Commission to investigate as they have joined the growing list of public bodies to have lost money in Iceland.
- Audit chiefs have £10m in Iceland
This lunchtime a member of the public had a brief conversation with Rushmoor finance director Peter Gardner.
Asked of the missing millions, Gardner was quite confident of their recovery. Asked how, Garner did not know!
Gardener, like chief executive Andrew Lloyd, would appear not to be able to comprehend the meaning of the word bankrupt. Maybe Gardner should look at the ratio of liabilities to assets.
Gardner claimed he had no idea that there was a problem in Iceland.
Asked where the other money was invested, he refused to say, other than it was safe. Gardner then refused to discuss the subject any further.
This little exchange is all too typical of the arrogant contempt for the public, in this case a former Rushmoor councillor.
Employees of Rushmoor have been fed the same garbage as councillors and the local community. Staff cuts are already being considered. Why should the minions lose their jobs for something that is not their fault?
The sooner Gardner and his associates are fired, the better.
Post a Comment