A Conflict of Interest? You Decide

It has been brought to our attention by a member of the public who informed us about a little company called Creative Places & Spaces. It is a Community Interest Company [Cic] see its website here → Creative Places. The Company came into being in Oct 13.

Screenshot from 2017-08-19 08-51-55 Screenshot from 2017-10-01 10-22-29

The Cic has two directors see → Directors. Mr Andy Jarrett, (pictured) who is Head of Strategic Development Projects at Shepway District Council and Ms Tamasin Jarrett (pictured), who is Community Development Manager at Shepway District Council, according to their LinkedIn pages.

In 2014 Creative Places and Spaces was awarded a grant from Shepway District Council to the sum of £7,800. In 2015 Creative Places and Spaces were again awarded a grant by SDC for the sum of £5,908.

As both Directors are according to their LinkedIn pages see → Tamasin Jarrett & Andy Jarrett ,  employees of SDC one might think this was a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest might best be defined as follows:

“A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest.” wikipedia

The presence of a conflict of interest is independent of the occurrence of impropriety,  and Shepwayvox is NOT saying that any impropriety has happened. It does though appear odd perhaps that 2 employees of SDC have received the sum of £13,708 since 2014 for their company.

We are sure the company do sterling work offering creative courses and workshops, but they do so with the help of the public purse and the generosity of their employers SDC.

We’ll leave you to make your mind up if this constitutes a conflict of interest.

Shepwayvox

About shepwayvox (1801 Articles)
Our sole motive is to inform the residents of Shepway - and beyond -as to that which is done in their name. email: shepwayvox@riseup.net

2 Comments on A Conflict of Interest? You Decide

  1. Just seen building the dream episode 7 ,I have worked in the construction industry for years and not believe how Mr & Mrs Jarrett got away with planning for hideous modern house in that beautiful village. Totaly out of character with the area.

  2. doggerbank56 // May 12, 2020 at 17:44 // Reply

    The question is did they declare their joint connection as Council employees when they applied for the grant? If they did (and I am sure there must be a Council policy to which one can refer) were steps taken to ensure that neither of them could influence the decision making process? I would hope that the Council’s senior management team could provide you with a prompt reply on both these points.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: