Town Hall boss defends admin against ‘sloppy’ charge

Published: 09 July, 2010
by RÓISÍN GADELRAB

THE Town Hall’s top administrators were said to be “furious” this week following the Tribune’s exclusive report of “sloppy” work and irregularities in the council’s finances.

Chief executive John Foster held emergency meetings with senior heads of departments on Friday, hours after our front-page article revealed how audit inspectors had come across a catalogue of errors. 

These included invoices being paid twice and sometimes three times and more than £1million left in a suspense account because the council could not work out which departments the money belonged to.

Mr Foster was said to be particularly angry that the chair of Islington’s own audit committee, Labour councillor Phil Kelly, said a £5.4million “discrepancy” between council tax payments on an old system and those on a new one meant the council did have the money but that it was “mislaid”. 

Cllr Kelly described the revelation that there were no contracts in place for four out of 10 sampled contractors as “sloppy practice”.

In a letter to this paper, Mr Foster said: “The main headline [last week] appears to relate to the £5.4million discrepancy between the old and new council tax systems, which existed during the changeover of systems. 

“This is not ‘sloppy admin’, but rather it is best practice to ensure that all records are transferred to the new system before the old one is switched off. At no time was any money ‘mislaid’ and no records were lost. To suggest otherwise is a complete fabrication.” Islington Council has still to explain how the “discrepancy” came about.

But Town Hall Labour sources said they fully stood by the comments made in the Tribune and that the report was a reflection of the auditors’ findings of fact.

One senior Labour councillor, who asked not to be named, said: “Officers have come out of a culture where members did more or less what they were advised to do and when the council was attacked, members defended everything that happened. 

“We’re a new administration, we’re going to handle things differently. There’s a change going on in the council and we’re trying to deal differently with officers than the last administration did.”

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