Councillors Expenses 2017/18

So we have crunched the data on Cllrs Expenses and for the fourth year in a row they are wrong. – Expenses include – subsistence (food drink) Travel, eg train, taxi etc and other allowances, eg Hotel stays for conferences.

In the chart below the figure in the second column below is what the council have published for each Cllr and represents all four quarterly figures added together. The column next to it in light orange is the figure produced by the Council for the whole year. You can see there are discrepancies. (All data available at end of the blog.)

So as you can see for yourselves the Councillors expenses data for the financial year 17/18 is WRONG. Quelle surprise. This has been the case for four years in a row. It is NOT wrong because the Councillors have been on the fiddle. It is WRONG because the data has been corrupted. The data has not been monitored, by a competent person. Thus making Cllrs potentially look like they are on the fiddle, when they are NOT. The blame lies squarely at the Council beancounters (accountants) door for failing to monitor the data. This is the fourth year Cllrs expenses have not reconciled.

The white column in the chart above is data our public face has received from the Council while the accounts are open. He has received 14 sets of data so far out of 31 requested.

The Council published data shows, Cllr David Monk (pictured), the Leader of the Council has either been Over Paid (OP) £801.24 or Under Paid (UP) £801.24. Cllr Jennifer (9 Homes) Hollingsbee has either been OP £425.81 or UP £835.20. Cllr Frank McKenna has claimed £26.16 according to FHDC’s data. However, when we called him, Cllr McKenna declared he had made no claims for expenses in 17/18. Cllr Paul Peacock was according to the data OP £9 or UP £268.86. Again we called Cllr Peacock and he to declares he has made £83 worth of expenses claims for 17/18. We received Cllrs Peacocks data and it too showed £83.

FHDC have managed to get the data right for  only two of the 31 Councillors who received expenses, according to the published data. Those Cllrs which show no discrepancy are: Cllr Carol Sacre and Cllr Roger Wilkins.

So not for the first time, the cock-up is the result of the Council not the Councillors. The data controls and monitoring controls failed miserably. We would ask Cllr David Monk, Leader of FHDC, (currently on holiday in Canada), Cllr Malcolm Dearden Cabinet Member for Finance and Cllr David Owen, Chair of the Audit & Governance committee, to raise the continuous failures to report Cllrs expenses correctly by drawing it to attention of Grant Thornton’s Auditor, Ciaran T McLaughlin (pictured).  We believe he should raise a public interest report, because after four continuous years of cock ups surround Cllrs Allowances & Expenses, something must be done. It’s time for change.

The Shepwayvox Team  – Dissent is NOT a Crime

Q1-£80547.50   –  Q2-£77169.64  –  Q3-£80537.57   –  Q4-£79112.52

Yearly-Figure-£314703.81