Question about directorships...

[perseus]

I have a question. How many 'open directorships' do you think are currently held by the 21 Labour Councillors between them? In light of the 'potential' inquiry into declared interests and links to the voluntary sector, it's (potentially) a very relevant question. I know the answer, but I invite your guesses in a 'Play your cards right' HIGHER!!! LOWER!!! type stylie... 

[rabbit]

One hundred and eighty!!

[Stig of the Seaton Dump]

Chop it in half ... 90 ?

[rabbit]

Treble nineteen: 57?

[steveL]

If that is an attempt at irony then i'm not quite sure that it comes off........

[fred c]

Nope, as far as I can see, based on information held by companies house, it's........ 31 between them.
The 'top boys' are G.H with 12 open directorships and K.C with 4 active. Obviously i allege no wrong doing whatsoever, and i mean that sincerely.

An awful lot of the 31 directorships held appear to be fully understandable directorships (in the legal definition of director at least) in organisations that (in a lot of cases) they were appointed to (essentially) by HBC.

As one would therefore expect, a lot of these organisations are in receipt of funding either direct from HBC or from organisations connected to HBC in some way or other.

I'd also imagine that all of these directorships are non numerated and therefore warrant our praise and thanks rather than suspicion.

As a Hartlepool tax payer, I applaud the fact that this information is in the public domain already. It begs the question of why we even need an inquiry into registration of interests and links to the voluntary sector.

I imagine the fact that just 5 of our current councillors hold 26 directorships between them is pretty much 'par for the course' nationwide.

"Self-interest"?, "Independent Inquiry"?................... I don't see the need.

Thank Goodness for that.......... We should be thankful that as ratepayers we will save £2. 14 Millions on the cost of having an Inquiry.

[steveL]

I think we're in need of a list of who is a director of what, councillor by councillor; what these companies do and whether or not they are fully or part-funded by HBC.

[rabbit]

Allegedly it is possible to run a business as a Sole Trader and not register with Companies House. (eg eBay sellers?), and other small time businesses (window cleaners, odd job people perhaps). It would still be necessary to pay all your income taxes from the profits, VAT where required etc.

[Lucy Lass-Tick]

I may be out of date on this one, but isn't Companies House registration only needed for limited liability companies (whether private or public) with share issues? Directors of limited companies certainly used to be subject to quite complicated tax regulations, and their annual accounts had to be signed off by a qualified accountant. It isn't just Ebay sellers etc. who are sole traders - owners of small businesses such as small shops/mechanics/garages/hairdressers etc. may well choose to keep things simple - if they go over the VAT threshold they must register with the VAT man, but they still don't need to be a limited company.

[rabbit]

Yes that seems to be the case re limited liability companies and their need to register with Companies House, although whether they all need to issue shares I am not clear about.

The principle still stands that a councilor with a business (whether registered at Companies House or not) must not be seen to receive an unfair advantage over other similar local companies.