Integrity of Council’s procurement card data in serious doubt.
Exclusive
We have long doubted the integrity of Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s data they publish.
In the last few days the Council have published all the data for their procurement card data for 2022/23. and a simple analysis of the data, identifies some very serious irregularities in the data.
It’s clear somebody in the Governance Law & Regulatory Services department of the Council, has access to use a Council procurement card. On eight occasions a person, or persons, have used the procurement card/s for “Clearing Blocked Drains“.
This department of the Council is overseen by Amandeep Khroud (pictured). Amandeep is the Council’s solicitor, monitoring officer and she is also one of the three statutory officer’s the Council need to function. The sum for “clearing blocked drains” in the department she leads during 2022/23, was £2,265.
However, if one looks at the supplier to clear the blocked drains, it is self evident almost none of the companies stated, undertake the clearing of blocked drains.
Lets start with Euro Office.
Euro Office do provide Mr Muscle Drain Gel 1L for £11.81 (Incl. VAT) and the Department for Governance Law & Regulatory Services say they purchased £584.44 worth of “clearing blocked drains”, which would be equivalent to 49.5 bottles. Now forgive us for being scepticial but we no more believe the Council bought that many bottle of Mr Muscle, than we believe men have landed on Mars.
The next company on the list is Hut.com Ltd who operate as an online departmental store. The Company offers clothing, accessories, footwear, dining, home furnishing, sports, electronics, and beauty products. Hut.Com serves customers in the United Kingdom.
It is clear they do not offer the services of clearing blocked drains.
The next Company is the Uk Point Of Sale Group Ltd. UK POS is the exclusive designer, manufacturer and supplier of four leading point of sale display brands. Their brands are Clipable ™, Digini ™ The Chalkboard Company ™ and Supervue ™. So again nothing to do with clearing blocked drains.
Then there is Vidaxl UK, whose marketing makes it clear you can “Live it up for less!” Vidaxl are a global online retailer based in the Netherlands, selling everything you need for your home and garden. We believe that you should be able to easily turn a house into a beautiful, functional home at every stage of your life. So again nothing to do with clearing blocked drains.
Then there is the final company, Viking UK, who like Euro Office provide Domestos Diversey Professional Drain Unblocker Gel Fresh 1L, for £8.99 (Incl. Vat). Are the Department for Governance Law & Regulatory Services saying they purchased £259.45, or 28.86 bottles of drain unblocker? We think not. We honestly do not believe they purchased drain unblocker.
When the Council’s Solicitor’s team, does not publish data which is honest and true, how can she and her department she leads be “trusted to ends of the earth“?
One must not forget all the payments for “clearing blocked drains“were made in February 2023. This was three months after Dr Susan Priest (pictured) made her announcement the Council were doubling down on procurement because of all the financial and contractual irregularities. Training for officers in relation to procurement begun on 12 Jan 2023.
We hope you can see why we doubt the data, and its integrity?
But as always we’ll leave you to make up your own mind if the Council’s Governance Law & Regulatory Services department, overseen by Amandeep Khroud, the Council’s Solicitor, spent £2,265, on “clearing blocked drains.”
The Shepway Vox Team
Unblocking the Truth since 2015
Isn’t it time a complaint was lodged and the police asked to investigate?
No one is above the law.
@Ian – You can clearly see that the Council are doubling down on this kind of thing and stamping it out. It looks like a handful of staff were previously taking advantage of poor organisation and missing checks, but it looks to me that they are coming down on these instances hard now. The fact that the information has been given out shows that they are being open and transparent, and the fact that they are discussing further procedures and training makes it look as if they are fixing the issue. Maybe you should give these poor people a break. It’s not them that have done it, it’s them trying to fix it.
Surely this has to be another leadership failure.
@Colin
It’s not a leadership failure for the incoming Cllrs it’s a systemic failure by the last leader of the Council one David Monk who either wasn’t capable of controlling Khroud and Priest or he was complicit in their incompetence and gross mismanagement of our money .
What will be a failure of the current incumbents is if they fail to get rid of Khroud and Priest .
@ Kevin – But you can see that they are both trying to stamp the bad behaviour and mismanagement of staff out. I don’t understand why you think they are the bad guys here.
It is plainly obvious that the incompetence lies with those at the top Priest and Khroud.
Time after time they have failed to ensure our Council Tax is being spent wisely .
They had the comfort of being under Monks blanket for too long, now the leadership has changed and they must go .
It’ was too easy for them to blame the staff beneath them but everyone is wise to these two now
1.
Responsibility for errors does not stand alone, these matters indicate gross failure at other levels.
2.
Failure to investigate and address errors repeatedly underlines gross failure on a broader spectrum.
3.
While one must review all aspects of what is going on, security and otherwise, addressing irregularities appears to be in benefit of the public purse, while order to recompense, seizure of personal assets, (a practice apparently available to certain council officers) may begin reigning in behaviours frequently considered ‘Ultra Vires’.
4.
A ‘privileged’ culture has been publicly witnessed at Downing Street, giving rise to public disapproval, a belief of abuse, that such a culture runs down through central and local government. Indeed, FHDC seemingly exhibits similar attitudes.
5.
Local contractual irregularities, for example, frequently noted in Shepway Vox, sometimes receive nick names, so to speak, it appears, from the public :Rock Salt and Golf Club contracts are just two comments from observers.
While such comments may be misconstrued, the fact remains, confidence in FHDC practices appears, contemptuous.
Someone has a nice new wardrobe and fancy garden
Before I criticise the people in your comments I should advise that I have numerous friends neighbors and family who have worked at Folkestone HDC over the years, recently, and now!
Parent to me from discussions I have had it is common knowledge at the council the solicitors and legal department is unfit for purpose and has been for some time!
They have been very suspicious decisions made and work not even carried out work that was a responsibility of the council’s solicitors and their department.
Suffice to say Folkestone and Hythe Council are operating in neglect of many of their duties (yes so are many other councils) but they are our local council. It’s impacting on our citizens badly and it will get worse. There I suggest that the council leader Mr Martin and his colleagues get to grips with the staff that are there to support them maybe a few redundancies or misconduct hearings would suffice?
Regarding the comment by Andy, yes, other people have witnessed similar, including bullying of the public, it has been alleged.
Very sad, as I am sure we would rather have a council to be proud of and support, plus,there are many good people being regrettably painted with the same brush.
Surely, in their name, if not in ours, a professional body with integrity is deserved.
The Executive requires a major over haul.
Thanks for making investigations into these transactions. Clearly something needs to be done.