Council borrowed £20m in 2022/23, but must repay £35m by 2027/28
Both the Greens & Labour have promised to build more Council homes in their manifesto’s during their campaign. Neither party had sight of the accounts for 2022/23, [...]
Finance
Is this the end game for Sunningdale House who want to buy Princes Parade?
David Richard Pownceby (pictured), the owner of Sunningdale House Developments Limited, the company who has offered Folkestone & Hythe District Council, somewhere in the [...]
£61m of contracts across eight Kent councils started before they were awarded
An analysis of eight out of twelve Kent Council’s shows that £61,317,807 worth of contracts were started before they were awarded, according to publicly available [...]
Solutions to protect your public pound.
£71,422 does not appear on either of Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s published purchase order data, or its payment to supplier data, for just one contractor. [...]
Princes Parade: Financial mismanagement of Faithful & Gould contract
Updated 6 March @ 07:40am According to the Council’s procurement guide under Value for Money it states: Value for money is a balance of quality, price and delivery and [...]
Incompetence: Power without accountablity
Purchase Orders (POs) are either the prevention of all evil, or the creation of all evil in local government, and elsewhere. At Folkestone & Hythe District Council, they [...]
Interim Chief Finance Officer likely to cost minimum of £104,000
According to Cllr Jackie Meade‘s quick back of the fag packet calculation, at the Personnel Committee on the 2 Feb, an interim s151 officer was £100,000. A s151 [...]
Folkestone & Hythe District Council: Audit Reports Expose Contract Rule Failures and Demand a Compliance Reset
They are, without doubt, three remarkable women: capable professionals with a clear, shared intent to get Folkestone & Hythe District Council back to basics on [...]
Council failing to publish the notice explaining why the audited accounts for 2021/22 have not been published
Folkestone & Hythe District Council are in breach of the law again, but neither of the two statutory officers, Charlotte Spendley -s151 officer, responsible for the money [...]
Holidays & Hypocrisy
On the 1 August 2022, the public were supposed to have been allowed to inspect Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s accounts, as per s26 of the Local Audit & [...]
More Financial Irregularities at the Council
It took two hours and four minutes before Cllr Lesley Whybrow (Green) Cabinet Member for the Environment pointed out that the s151 Officer, – Charlotte Spendley [...]
Otterpool Park Update: We Name Developers for Phase One
Exclusive Updated: 26/09/22 @16:43 Back in July when the sun was warm, skies were clear and talk of a drought was sweeping its way across the nation’s media, we [...]
Part 2: Your Rights to Inspect the Council’s Accounts
Following on from Part 1 yesterday, if after inspecting the accounts and asking questions you are concerned about something in the accounts, you may wish to object to the [...]
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 reluctant to place reports about financial and contract irregularities into the public domain.
Updated 26/10/22 @19:30 Sometimes, just sometimes, we do feel for Cllrs who try their best, but find themselves unsupported by other Cllrs who sit on the same committee. [...]
All four suspended officers have now left the Council
Updated 15/09/22 @21:37 So it has come to pass, after two and half months since we published the fact that four Folkestone & Hythe District Council officers; who were [...]
Kent County Council loaned £20m to authority now under investigation due to ‘exceptional’ debt
During the financial year 1 Apr 2021 & 31 Mar 2022, Kent County Council (KCC) lent £20m to Thurrock Council which is now under investigation due to its “exceptional [...]
Council whistleblower vindicated over contract irregularities
In a guest post back in June 2022, a Council Officer whistleblower claimed there was a lack of governance and internal controls within Folkestone & Hythe District [...]
And yet more contract irregularities at our Council
And yet again it happens. Three further contracts have been let which are in clear breach of Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Contract Standing Orders (CSOs). [...]
Another financial irregularity at the council
Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s constitution describes how they operate, makes sure they perform well, and are transparent. The constitution is the [...]
Council hiding seven years worth of credit card financial payments.
Seven years Folkestone & Hythe District Council have hidden, and failed to publish financial data for their Government Procurement Cards (read credit card), in clear [...]
Council accidentally release Covid Grant data
Curiosity killed the cat – Anon Honestly you would have thought they’d learnt by now, but no. Folkestone & Hythe District Council have committed another faux [...]
Council misleading residents about Cllrs allowances and expenses again.
On June the 12th we published the allowances of all Folkestone & Hythe District Cllrs for the financial year 2020/21. The Council are omitting the fact, that three Cllrs [...]
Cllrs claim more allowances in 2020/21 than 2019/20
In the 2020/21 financial year, when Covid hit, when all Folkestone & Hythe District Councillors couldn’t travel to conferences and claim subsistence and other [...]
FHDC look set to have highest Council Tax in Kent for eighteenth year in a row
On the 24 February 2021, Report A/20/08 will go before Folkestone & Hythe District Council Full Council at 7pm. This report concludes the budget setting process for [...]