Return of the Ged Eyes . .

[steveL]

OK....who upset Cllr Hall tonight? 

[mk1]

Awaiting the detail but I notice a  surge in guests 'viewing'.  I presume the fa*tty-Belcher circus is looking to  find out  what is being said about them!

[steveL]

Registering interests is all the rage at the moment and Cllr Hall currently registers an interest in MENSA. I'm not sure if this means that he is actually a member or just that he is 'interested' in being intelligent. If it's the latter, then tonight's performance isn't going to help.

It was a little like watching an episode of BBC Watchdog. We've all heard about the double glazing sharks whose companys go bankrupt one week only to be relaunched a week later under a completely different name.

Ged Hall put his name to the first set of accounts from Manor Residents. He also played a leading Cabinet role in getting the £640,000 Connected Care contract awarded to Who Cares (NE), a company set up by people who played and still play a central role in Manor Residents. Cllr Hall now claims he has no connection to Who Cares (NE), or rather that he 'has never been the accountant for Who Cares (NE)' and that it is 'an entirely new and different company.'

Technically, I'm sure that's true. Morally, the suggestion is laughable.

If this is his planned escape route from the unfolding collapse of the Manor cabal then he best dig another tunnel.

Oh and by the way, although anyone in a Band A property in Hartlepool is currently paying the second highest Band A council tax in the country, Cllr Hall thinks it's time 'the myth' about the council tax in Hartlepool being high was exploded. Go figure.

[fred c]

mmmmmm Whoever dressed Cllr Hall  for the meeting last night obviously pulled his underpants up to far, he was decidedly uncomfortable & clearly had his knickers in a twist about the question put to the Mayor.

He was so flustered he replied to a part of question that wasn`t even asked, Oh Dear Cllr.... Calm Down.

He also blustered his way through what can be best described as a Utopian View of the council tax currently paid by Hartlepudlians, Cllr Hall is looking very lonely on the front bench at the moment, i wonder where his pals are .

"Steven" is developing very nicely into a Bullyboy Chairman, his interuptions whilst a member of the public was asking his question was a typical example.............. Talk about Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde............His simpering Charidee persona is in direct contrast to his performance last night.

What was noticable to me was the lack of Cohesion in the ranks of the Labour group, this despite the prescence in the corner of the local labour party chairman & his apparatchiks keeping an eye of the proceedings...... On that.......... Why are we, the Ratepayers still having to pay for Full Time Union representatives..... i think the current costs (All In) is around the £100,000 grand mark.

[steveL]

You're right, Fred. Maybe you've found a way to pay for the enquiry into declared interests  #

These are the days of 'difficult decisions' ; we mustn't use the word 'cuts'. Maybe the 'difficult decision' that unions should fund their activities through their own levied subscriptions, rather than through the taxpayer, is long overdue.

[marky]

Aren't we moving closer to a point of corporate negligence?
I'm hearing of funds being given to Manor Residents by HBC to pay the salaries of staff who haven't actually received any wages for months. In other words, the money is being hijacked once it gets to The Manor. Hard to think that a Labour Councillor could sink so low as to deny people their own earned wages but why does HBC continue to fund an organisation whose financial management is so out of control?
I think we are looking at a culture of denial and of senior councillors and managers hoping that it will all go away. Ride it out and maybe that bloody website will forget about it.
Fat chance.

Strikes me that one of the biggest ironies here is that the labour party appears to have been taken over by the sort of people its founders hated most; namely, those obsessed with self-enrichment whatever the cost to other people.

[testing times]

People in Hartlepool have a strange sense of humour like much of the north, I'd say, and it has its roots in hardship.
This whole situation is just ridiculous and I think people would have some respect for the council if it simply held its hands up and said 'you're right, this whole thing is a total c**k up. Let's pull the plug now before it gets any worse, send it the accountants and the Police and vow to do things better next time.'

[fred c]

There was several attempts last night to show just how squeaky clean things are down at the Civic... a few councillors made a song & dance about if anyone has any proof take it to the police.......

Surely a lot of what is going on is known by both Councillors & Senior Officers, it is they who should be bringing the concerns of themselves & the general public to the notice of the police.

I asked a question some time ago about HBC auditing the organisations that they provide funding to & was fobbed off with.......... We are "Happy" with the auditing processes of those organisations.

It is our money, & we elect Councillors & Employ Officers, to look after the best interests of "Us" the ratepayers........ I`m afraid that isn`t quite the case in Hartlepool.

[DRiddle]

Hello, given my name is on the official minutes of last nights meeting, and given that it's very apparent that it was me who asked the question(s), I thought i'd chip in and try to clarify why i personally think there potentially is an issue.

In a converstaion with Mr Devlin, the solicitor at HBC (shortly after the meeting), he mentioned that I had quoted "The Bribery Act" in one of my questions, which was true, I did.

Below is a link where if you are interested you can find full details of the bribary act.

http://www.transparency.org.uk/our-work/bribery-act

For those lacking the time to read it, the key features of the act are as follows:


The Bribery Act creates four prime offences:
•   Two general offences covering the offering, promising or giving of an advantage, and requesting,    agreeing to receive or accepting of an advantage;
•   A discrete offence of bribery of a foreign public official ; and
•   A new offence of failure by a commercial organisation to prevent a bribe being paid to obtain or retain business or a business advantage (should an offence be committed, it will be a defence that the organisation has adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery).

So, my contention is that the initial awarding of the 'Who Cares North East/Connected Care' contract of £640,000, sailed very close to the wind in terms of the first of those four primary offences.

It's not for me to say that it did, or whether it definitely was a breach of the act. There are people way over my pay grade whose job it is/was to decide if that's the case.  I merely offered a question as to how it LOOKS.

Presumably somebody within HBC deemed it not to be. However, look at what happened. A company was started by (amongst others) 2 serving Labour Councillors who then bid for a contract, other councillors, predominantly Labour ones, scrutinised and held portfolio over the decision making of the award of the contract. The contract was then awarded to the company started by the other Labour Councillors.

On top of all that, it did not go to tender as is usually the case with contracts which are awarded worth over £100,000 in value. 

Finally, other voluntary organisations within the town were precluded from trying to win the contract, due to it not going to tender and essentially been given to the ONLY company deemed appropriate to deliver it, the one started by the councillors themselves.

Go back to the first offence within the act for a second.

Two general offences covering the offering, promising or giving of an advantage, and requesting, agreeing to receive or accepting of an advantage;

Well, presumably the WCNE organisation requested the contract? Ultimately, they certainly received it. They therefore presumably accepted it, agreed to it. The only bit that seems unclear is whether or not they were given an advantage and/or promised it.

Again, that's not for me to say. I am merely concerned with how this could look.

Finally, if I was involved either as a recipient or the benefactor of the contract i'd be concerned with how it looks too.