Kent County Council audit: clean opinion, deep financial risks
Kent audit signs off the Tories’ final year — but warns of structural risks the new Reform UK leadership must now tackle Grant Thornton will issue an unqualified opinion [...]
Audit
Grant Thornton Audit Fees Tripled Across 12 Kent Councils
Kent’s 12 district councils are grappling with a dramatic rise in the cost of their annual audits, as new data reveals fees tripled between 2022/23 and 2023/24. The [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council Spent £3.1 Million Outside Contract Rules, Records Reveal
Calls are mounting for Grant Thornton the external auditors to intervene at Folkestone & Hythe District Council, after new evidence emerged of more than £3.1 million in [...]
Audit calls foul: Folkestone & Hythe Council’s £1.74 m no‑bid contracts branded a “huge own‑goal”
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Contract Standing Orders could not be clearer: any officer who wants to buy something costing more than £10,000 without first [...]
Kent County Council Paid Out £10.7 Million in Secret Exit Deals — But Only Reported £3.65 Million
In an era defined by rising council tax, stretched services, and mounting pressure on frontline care, Kent County Council (KCC) has managed to lose sight of something rather [...]
Investigation: 49 FHDC Contracts Worth £28.6m Breached Procurement Rules — Standstill Period Abandoned, Oversight Missing
EXCLUSIVE — A Shepway Vox Team investigation has uncovered that Folkestone & Hythe District Council failed to apply the mandatory 10-day standstill period before [...]
“Schrödinger’s Councils, Heisenberg’s Chaos: Kent’s Quantum Local Government Restructure Dooms (or Saves?) All”
In a nutshell, Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) is about how the powers and funding that sit with local government are organised between councils. Think of it like [...]
Council fail to publish accounts on time for third year in a row.
For the third financial year in a row, Folkestone & Hythe District Council have failed to published their draft statement of accounts (DSoA) by the deadline of the 31 [...]
Council Accounts 2022/23 – Another dog’s breakfast?
On the 1 June 2023, we informed you that Folkestone & Hythe District Council had failed to publish their draft statement of accounts, for 2022/23, by the statutory [...]
Council fail to publish draft accounts by deadline for second year in a row.
Folkestone & Hythe District Council, have failed to publish their draft statement of accounts for 2022/23, by the statutory deadline of 31 May, 2023. This is the second [...]
Council not publishing information in a timely manner
In Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s recently published Code of corporate governance it states at Part G: We comply with the local government transparency code [...]
Part 1: Your Rights to Inspect the Council’s Accounts
In the days to come the council will open their accounts for inspection to you the residents of the district. As a local resident you have legal rights to inspect, ask [...]
Council are acting beyond its powers by giving £16m plus to the two companies it owns
Folkestone & Hythe District Council have acted beyond their powers (ultra vires) by allowing in excess of £16 million to be paid to companies in which they allege they [...]
Are Folkestone & Hythe District Council cooking the books?
It’s a first, and not one Folkestone & Hythe District Council should be proud of at all. For the first time in the history of our Council, they have failed to [...]
Is this evidence of Fraud, Financial Irregularities, Non Compliance @ Folkestone & Hythe District Council?
Each year the Chairman of Folkestone & Hythe District Council Audit & Governance Committee (A&GC), must respond to the external auditors letter which asks: [...]
More bent council contracts? You decide.
Is it incompetence, fraud, stupidity or something else? How can contracts begin before they are even awarded? The answer of course is they can’t, as this would be a [...]
So, Where’s The Money Gone?
So, where’s the money? The financial data below has all come from Folkestone & Hythe District Council. It excludes VAT. It is the Temporary staff costs data from [...]
Part 2: Folkestone & Hythe District Council Financial Irregularities.
Folkestone & Hythe District Council are looking for a new statutory s151 Officer. According to the Candidate Breifing Pack on Penna Recruitment & the [...]
Grant Thornton telling lies? You decide.
Grant Thornton is under investigation for it’s audits and earlier this year the Chief Executive of Grant Thornton informed the business, energy and industrial strategy [...]
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, [...]
SDC Employees and their Pensions
The Times has reported this morning [01/09/15] (paywall) that: The legal cornerstone underpinning the entire edifice of bank accounting is defective, according to a QC’s [...]