The Continuing Adventures of Councillor Hassan Ahmed

Councillor Hassan Ahmed does keep us busy here at NCCLols.

You will be aware of his difficulties in remembering who he worked for and which charities he was trustee of and the understanding and sympathetic attitude he received on this from Standards for England, something that shocked even the supremely supine Standards Committee at NCC.

Well, I've managed to get a bit more information about that in the form of the (heavily redacted) full report on the case against him from Standards for England. I am still trying to get as much of the redaction removed via the Information Commissioner but I'm not over hopeful. And it's more than I got from an identical request to NCC who refused to provide anything.

This document provides more insight into the thought processes behind SfE's decision making, I'll quote a few examples, see if you can spot a pattern emerging -

"...At the same meeting, the executive agreed to fund Nottingham Training and Enterprises Ltd [one of Ahmed's interests] for £50,000 per annum over three years. At the time of the council executive's decision, Councillor Ahmed was not a member of the executive. He did not attend the meeting or take part in the decision..." 

"...Forest Fields Advice and Neighbourhood Centre [another interest] received a grant of £3,092 during 2008-2009. The decision to approve funding to this organisation predated Councillor Ahmed's appointment as portfolio holder. I have seen no evidence that Councillor Ahmed was involved in the decision making process in relation to funding the Advice and Neighbourhood Centre..."

"...Nottingham Training and Enterprises Ltd and FEBA [both Ahmed Interests] also submitted bids to the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Bids for ERDF monies were decided by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA). The city council participates in a commissioning group, which assesses preliminary applications...At the time of Nottingham Training and Enterprises Ltd's ERDF bid in 2008, the group was chaired by Councillor Graham Chapman, the deputy leader of the council...

...FEBA was awarded two ERDF grants in July 2009 of £179,810 and £230,468...That decision predated Councillor Ahmed's appointment as portfolio holder..."

There seems to be quite a lot of reliance on the fact that Ahmed had not been appointed to the Executive at the time funding decisions were made. But he was Graham Chapman's Executive Assistant. Who jointly made the decision to cut CEHRNN's funding with him.

Then there's this -

"...I do not consider that Councillor Ahmed was required to declare an interest in Central Education and Training Ltd at the time he met with an officer from EMDA, as this was not a meeting of the council. At that time, no application had been made for ERDF funding..."

WTF? I can only assume that slipped through the redaction process because there's no mention of this meeting anywhere else. But essentially, SfE sees nothing dodgy in the fact that Ahmed was meeting EMDA officers when he was a director of two organisations that had not been declared on his register of interests, shortly before those organisations submitted funding bids to EMDA. Because it wasn't a City Council Meeting. Words fail me.

Anyway, it seems like Ahmed's forgetfulness in keeping his regulators up to date extends to Companies House and the Charity Commission. On 28 October this year he resigned as a director for 'Voice East Midlands' and yet the Commission don't seem to be aware as he is still listed as a trustee. Needless to say his NCC register of interests is yet to be updated. He also seems to have a habit of notifying Companies House about changes in his details with regard to one company but not with others; for example, in October 2008 he updates his address details for First Enterprise Business Agency, a local small business advice agency of which he is chair* but there is no corresponding notification for Nottingham Regeneration Ltd or Voice East Midlands. In April 2009 he does update address details for VEM but to a different address to the one notified earlier to FEBA. Again, no corresponding notification to FEBA nor to NRL, although he does deign to inform the latter that he is usually resident in the UK.

Let's hope that he advises FEBA's clients to act more appropriately.

*Or at least that's what he says in his annual report but I'm not sure what is real any more.

Standards Board for England - Huh! Wusses

When I first heard that the Standards Board for England was to be abolished by the ConDems I have to say I was a little perturbed. Who will be there to catch up with dodgy councillors who have been exonerated by their mates I wondered?

That question was sort of answered when SFE considered Cllr Hassan Ahmed's case where, despite being found guilty of comprehensively breaching the members code of conduct, he faced no further sanction because he couldn't possibly expected to know what he was doing. In fact SFE seemed almost apologetic for wasting his time. Ahmed wasted no time in releasing a blatantly false and misleading statement claiming to have been 'exonerated'. Somebody buy him a dictionary.

So, it seemed that SFE saw themselves in the role of chief apologists for dodgy types and their impending demise suddenly didn't seem to be much of a loss.

It seems that SFE's forgiving stance took NCC's Standards Committee by surprise too. At their last meeting they considered the SFE decision in Cllr Ahmed's case and, despite their discussions being behind closed doors seem to have been fairly open as to their wonderment at the findings, saying -

"...but felt that the reasoning which led to the decision that no further action should be taken could have been justified more fully. Not doing so could lead to the perception that a councillor may breach the Code with some impunity, reasoning that no further action may be taken..."

Never thought I'd say this with regard to the SC but nail, head, hit.

However, I was somewhat disturbed by the fact that the SFE appeared to have provided the SC with a confidential report on Ahmed's case, over and above the decision that had been made public. I have written before about the blatant disparity between the levels of confidentiality enjoyed by the great unwashed when faced with the quasi/criminal justice system compared with that of councillors caught with their trousers down. Whatever happened to the need for justice being SEEN to have been done, not just a sanitised version for the masses.

So I'd like to call on the Standards Committee to make this report public in the spirit of justice and openness. In order to chivvy them on a bit I've put in a Freedom of Information request on the matter and, for good measure, I thought I'd send one to SFE too.

As ever, I'll let you know how I get on.

Standards Committee Unnecessary Secrecy

The Standards Committee is meeting on 21 June. They don't appear to be doing very much apart from considering the outcome of Cllr Ahmed's case (see agenda item 9 via the above link) before the Standards Board for England.

Interestingly, you will see from agenda item 8 that they intend to do this in private.

What is the justification for this? The decision is a public document and the matter is closed so what do the committee expect to be saying that's not for our ears?

In related national news the ConDems have announced that the Standards Board for England is to be abolished. This is also something the committee will be discussing and I'm sure that will keep them busy for, ooh at least a couple of minutes.

Now I know that Ahmed's case showed them to be a bunch of hapless stuffed shirts and it's not clear what the implications will be or whether there will be some sort of replacement but it appears that there will be no independent adjudicator for councillors' misdemeanors.

This of course means that council's can continue to pack their Standards Committees with ruling party lackeys which and it will be even more unlikely that any meaningful sanction will be applied to dodgy gits like Hassan Ahmed in the future.

Hassan Ahmed Found Guilty of Breach of Members Code of Conduct

Blimey, I reckon I must be psychic. Barely an hour after finishing my post about complaints about councillors and codes of conduct the news comes in that Hassan Ahmed has been found guilty of breaching the members code of conduct by the Standards Board for England because he failed to declare a number of interests.

Despite this the board decided to take no further action accepting that -

"...there is an inherent risk for any member who is involved in the number of organisations that Councillor Ahmed is involved in, of inadvertently failing to consider the requirements of the Code to register those interests, declare those interests at meetings of the authority, and consider those interests when approaching officers of the authority."

Oh for fucks sake. How hard can it be? Harder than being an executive portfolio holder? Does he need someone to remind him where he lives? After all, he does own two properties, must be very easy for him to get them mixed up.

But in a spectacular combination of breathtaking arrogance and delusion he told the 'Post' -

"I am delighted that, after a thorough investigation, I have been exonerated. The Standards Board found that I had no case to answer."

Erm, no mate, you weren't exonerated at all you were found to have BREACHED YOUR CODE OF CONDUCT. That's not the same as being exonerated. Being exonerated would have meant that you were found to have NOT BREACHED YOUR CODE OF CONDUCT, which wasn't what happened.

Do you see the difference Councillor Ahmed? One is being exonerated, the other is being found guilty. You were the latter. I realise that telling the difference is almost as difficult as remembering which pies you've got your fingers stuffed in but keep working at it you bullshitting fucking twat.

One of the factors that helped Ahmed escape any sanction was that -

"The ESO found that there was no evidence that Councillor Ahmed had attended any council meeting, while a portfolio holder, at which one of his registered, or unregistered interests had been discussed or where funding or grants had been considered or approved."

Well no, he wouldn't have been. That's because, unless it was a very big grant (>£500k) virtually all funding decisions are taken by a single portfolio holder. Unless Ahmed happened to be that portfolio holder (and I think that would be too brazen even for him) he wouldn't be formally involved. But that ignores the informal influence that any councillor might have and the Standards Board should have taken that into account.

And of course, as we've written about previously, Ahmed was very much involved with a decision to suddenly end all NCC funding for the Council for Equality and Human Rights Nottm + Notts which is arguably a potential competitor to Nottingham Equal, one of the organisations Ahmed was involved with. Although this decision was made after he was forced by the Post to declare his interests, a councillor's involvement in an organisation is not only relevant to how NCC deals with that organisation but how it treats its competitors. It may or may not be relevant to note that the details of this decision was kept secret.

Interestingly, Ahmed has recently submitted a new register of interests which no longer lists Nottingham Equal as one of his interests. Wonder why that is? (older edition here)

Councillor Hassan Ahmed Still Not Out of the Woods

The Evening Post has today claimed that Hassan Ahmed, the Executive Portfolio Holder for employment and skills at NCC, has not been entirely straight over previous claims to have ended links to companies that constituted a conflict of interest with his council role.

Ahmed had previously been caught out not registering these interests and, on being exposed, quickly putting them on record and acting as if nothing was wrong.

Interestingly, the article reveals that Ahmed is being investigated by the Standards Board for England. Normally, investigations into councillors are looked into by NCC's Standards Committee, cases normally only go up to the national Standards Board if they are more serious and the local committee don't feel able to deal with it properly.

I've already written quite a lot about the apparent effectiveness or otherwise of the Standards Committee so it's quite reassuring that the matter has been taken out of their hands.