17 July - We have no money, will this I.O.U. do?
If
you Google ‘Newham Council Draft Accounts 2020/21’ you get, guess what, an immediate link to Newham’s latest Accounts.
If you substitute Bexley for Newham the best you can get from Google is last year’s accounts; the set that was
severely criticised by the Auditor
pre-Covid in February 2020.
With no Draft available for Bexley and the Scrutiny meeting hidden from the
public by the unresolved technical disaster comparisons on how the two boroughs
may have fared after one lost its Finance Director and the other recruited him
are not yet possible. Shame; but Newham helpfully refers to Bexley.
They remind readers that Bexley was in the OneSource partnership from April 2016 until July
2020 when Bexley opted out and then reveal something far more interesting.
At the end of the 2019/20 financial year Newham owed Bexley £274,000 and since then
have not paid back a single penny.
What sort of Finance Director allows that to happen in a year when Bexley was forced to take its begging bowl to Government?
With nothing revealed at Scrutiny meetings it must remain a mystery. Was its Chairman ever told? We know that
Council Officers have a track record of
withholding vital information.
Page 74 of Newham Council’s Draft 2020-2021 Accounts.
Pure speculation but maybe Bexley owes OneSource even more for leaving a year ago but it could have been worse for Bexley, Newham owes Havering one and a half million!