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News and Comment November 2019

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28 November - It must be all coincidence

Barnet FraudAs this newspaper cutting indicates there have been three frauds against Barnet Council carried out in quick succession under the noses of their senior finance officers. (Click cutting for source web page.)

Bexley’s new senior finance officer Nickie Morris left Barnet in August 2019. This was soon after the Capita employee (Barnet Council employs Capita to do almost everything for them) was jailed for five years and two more frauds by finance staff have come to light very recently. What does that say about the financial control exercised in Barnet?

I wonder what was in her CV to cover those events when Ms. Morris was given a job in Bexley? It must have been an enormous stroke of luck that her ex-boss Paul Thorogood had already jumped ship to Bexley via oneSource - Bexley’s partnership with Newham and Havering - and a vacancy was created for her.

What sort of negligence allows a two million pound fraud to go unnoticed for two years? What sort of coincidence is it that someone was around to ease her path into a nice new job in Bexley while bypassing the recruitment process? Who better to rewrite Bexley’s financial rule book?

After appearing to clean up its act after the dark days of obscene blogs and lying about the public running riot in the Council chamber, Bexley Council must not be allowed to return to where it was ten years ago.

 

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