Open letter sent to Cllr J Murphy. Cllr Murphy, Thank you for your email reply. Unfortunately you have not answered the points I asked which is surprising as they could not be made clearer. Allow me to remind you; Can you please let me know exactly why you voted to reject a fully independent investigation in to the conduct of Ian Stewart, David Lancaster and Martin Vickers in relation to the match-day costs and severance payments scandal? Turning now to your scant reply. I take issue with you regarding some factually incorrect points. First of all the external auditors restricted themselves to the financial reporting. They may be satisfied the sums were properly recorded in the annual accounts, but will not offer an opinion as to the veracity (or otherwise) of this matter. Correct me if I am wrong, this is a matter of public trust and the circumstances of the mayor saying one thing, while behaving differently behind closed doors. Secondly, as I pointed out in my earlier email, both Salford council appointed independent persons were deeply concerned with what was disclosed at the audit meeting and voted with the chairman. They obviously did not accept the objectivity and impartiality of Ben Dolans’ report and possibly many of his findings. They felt the public interest would be served by a fully independent inquiry. Again, correct me if I am wrong. Finally, and possibly of greater concern to the public, was the fact Martin Vickers was allowed to buy a relatively cheap iPad, but the Monitoring officer could not say for certain wether or not this iPad was wiped clean of all confidential data, data which would be of great commercial interest to outside organisations. You may recall. Cllr Garrido had asked if the iPad had been data-cleansed a week before, but even so, Ben Dolan could not give an answer, saying he did not yet (after seven days) have an answer on what could be extremely serious and with a matter which is entirely his departments responsibility. You may remember there was a sharp exchange between Ben Dolan and Cllr Garrido. You will appreciate this ‘omission could result in prosecution if a data breach has indeed occurred. Do you have any further news on this matter? From the street this looks what it is, a severe case of very poor management only equalled by the shoddy, some may say complicit, oversight from sections of this Audit committee. I would be grateful if you could reply to all the points above. Looking forward to hearing from you, Regards Bob Goodall
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:12:22 +0000
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