Like A Bad Penny...

If we thought we'd heard the last of Hassan Ahmed, whilst snooping around the interwebs I found out that he has now been appointed a Director of the Renewal Trust.

The Renewal Trust is a charity with the purpose of carrying out good works in St Anns and Sneinton. However, its board includes three senior City Councillors including JoCo (inevitably) and Jane Todd also appears to be involved.

One of the things it does is run a couple of business centres, one of which, the John Folman Business Centre, houses the Nottingham Labour Party. Cllr Toby Neal, Labour's Chief Whip at NCC, also appears to work there as a part-time administrator.

Cosy then. The gang's all here.

Let's make no bones about this, Ahmed is dodgy*. And as Cllrs Collins, Williams and Mellen, not to mention Jane Todd, were all in front seat positions to see what was going on you have to wonder what the hell they are doing appointing him to the board of a registered charity.

*After I wrote that article, CEHRNN did in fact close down and the District Auditor recommended that Ahmed should be referred to NCC's Standards Committee for the second time for his games with the Future Jobs Fund. That seems to have died a death though.

Canning Circus Creative Hub; The Next Radford Unity Complex?

Stumbled across a petition asking for support for the Canning Circus Creative Hub the other day, I'd recommend that you sign it.

The Hub is, in its own words

'... a hub for creative individuals and organisations, taking our name from the area of Nottingham in which we are based.

We are a collective of creative companies who work together to share resources and ideas. We represent a shared movement, intended to promote, inspire and create work we’re all proud to put our name to.'

They are based in buildings on Wollaton St which they rent from the City Council. The regular readers of this blog may already be able to guess the way this is going.

Yes, despite happily toiling away for nigh on 30 years, the council has asked them to leave. They have a press release which gives some background. As yet, NCC has just asked them to 'leave quietly' as opposed to serving a formal notice quit.

I've been in contact with a couple of people based at the Hub. Their feeling is that the situation has arisen due the City Council's failure to maintain the range of buildings it owns on Wollaton St, of which the Hub is only part, leaving them on the verge of being condemned. They have an 'amusing' story of NCC contractors bungling the fitting of fire doors so badly they had to redo it themselves. Redevelopment is clearly on the agenda, almost certainly via the private sector, but the Hub's residents were apparently the last to be told.

Broadly speaking, the businesses at the Hub are very happy with how things are going as they are. None of them are interested in expanding and none of them want to move, particularly if it means being dispersed around the City. None of them receive any grant funding. The impression I get is that the Hub is more than just the sum of its parts but is very much an interdependent community. Such things are hard to translate into cold business language and, as such, tends to get ignored.

As a backdrop to this we have the Radford Unity Complex debacle where NCC wasted gobs of cash trying to hand the building for a cut-price to an arts organisation called Nottingham Studios, completely disregarding the needs, not to mention the legal tenancy rights, of the community groups who were already using it. When that fell apart NS were handed another set of buildings to become 'Primary', ironically just round the corner on Seely Rd. We also have the planned 'Creative Quarter' in the Lace Market, whose 'ambassador' has apparently cited CCCH as a major inspiration.

Unfortunately, the CQ doesn't reach as far as Canning Circus so CCCH cannot access any of the mountain of funding from the City Deal if they want to stay where they are. Some of the residents have looked into relocating to the CQ but feel the properties on offer aren't suitable. And of course, everyone wants to keep their artistic community together which may not be possible if they do move.

As sort of an aside, CQ has launched a loan scheme to assist companies with the costs of relocating there. Now CQ is a separate body to NCC but they are clearly working closely together. Seasoned council watchers therefore may not be over surprised that the company who got the gig managing the loan scheme is First Enterprise, one of whose directors is one of NCCLols' very old friends, former councillor Hassan Ahmed. They were also mentioned as benefiting from the dodgy Future Jobs Fund allocations that Ahmed presided over. So I'm sure that's all completely above board then.

So, with all this past and future money flying around it seems somewhat unfair that at the first sign of panic about the state of their building, NCC's first reaction is to ask them to leave. Since then Cllr Nick McDonald has been quoted in the Post saying that 'no decisions have been made'. However that isn't really very reassuring because, technically speaking, 'no decisions had been made' when Nottingham Studios were invited to buy the RUC building from under the feet of its tenants. At least CCCH seems to have got a bit more warning than the RUC groups did.

We'll be watching this one closely.

One Nottingham And Its Voluntary Sector Representatives

While we're on the subject of One Nottingham (see previous post wrt workfare issues) I thought we might have a look at the categories of voluntary sector reps that serve on its board because it's a bit odd.

As mentioned previously the board has a 'faith' representative, a BME representative and a 'general' representative.

Personally I think this is a bit odd. I absolutely agree that an organisation such as One Nottingham should have at least one board member representing BME communities but why is this only as part of the voluntary sector? Don't black people work in banks too?

I also wonder about whether a faiths representative is justified. Yes, I know the majority of people in Nottingham identify with a religion but I suspect only a tiny number of the 44% of Nottingham people identifying as Christian actually bother turning up of a Sunday. I'm sure levels of devotion in other religions is much higher but I suspect there's a lot of overlap between BME and non-Christian faith issues. Maybe combine the two?

That said, a sound justification for having a 'faith' representative is that, like race, it is one of the protected characteristics in discrimination law. However, that opens several worm-cans as One Nottingham appears to have no representation for the other major categories of women (yes, I know it's actually 'sex' but it's generally women who face the discrimination side of things), disability, older/younger people and LGBT communities, other than via the 'general' VCS rep. It's this that concerns me the most and I have no idea what the justification is. Please feel free to write in if you do.

It seems to me that a better way of doing things would be to have board reps representing the above sections of the community, based around the protected characteristics rather than on a particular service sector. Don't get me wrong, a voluntary sector rep is still justified as they are important service providers in the city. However I think it's wrong to assume that the interests of that particular business sector are necessarily the same as the people they serve.

What got me thinking about this is the current elections to the VCS reps on the ON board. While looking into this an aspect of the organisation of the vote for the BME rep concerned me a little and that is the involvement of Nottingham Equal;-

"The BME candidates will be elected by an electorate who have been notified to ON primarily (but not only) by Nottingham Equal."

Why does Nottingham Equal play such an important role? I've written quite a lot about this bunch in the past, largely due to its connections with two of Nottingham's dodgier characters, Hassan Ahmed and Tyron Browne, as well as the coincidental rise of this organisation concurrent with the demise of the former Racial Equality Council, more recently the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts, which had Ahmed's fingerprints all over it. Browne is, of course still involved with NE. He is/was also involved with PATRA which did quite nicely out of the Future Jobs Fund (Prop. Hassan Ahmed).

I seem to remember that NE 'facillitated' the VCS BME rep election where the Chief Exec of CEHRNN was voted out of the role back in 2010 which left a bad taste in the mouth. Now they appear to effectively be the gatekeeper for the BME rep this time round.

With this latter point in mind it seems quite astonishing that one of NE's own board members, Prof Cecille Wright, is running for the BME rep post on the ON board. Have they never heard the phrase 'perceived conflict of interest'? Prof Wright is also a board member for PATRA too which is quite a coincidence.

So Nottingham Equal seems to have the entire BME sector in Nottingham in lockdown, quite an achievement for an organisation little more than three years old. How much of this is down to Browne's influence cannot be quantified but it's certainly true that NCC, and thus One Nottingham, have a very big motivation to keep him on side. After all, nobody knows better where the housing allocations scandal bodies are buried.

Future Jobs Fund Report Arrives at Last

....or most of it at least.

Yes, in a surprise development, NCC has released a copy of the District Auditors report into Future Jobs Fund irregularities that they had been desperately trying to keep from the hoi-polloi. Presumably this is following discussions with the Information Commissioner.

First thing to say is that there seems to be absolutely no excuse for them to have kept the report secret at all. Originally they told me that the report was exempt because they were intending to publish it in the future. Presumably the fact that this hasn't happened has prompted the Information Commissioner to prod things along a bit.

Now they are saying

"...it was this Council’s opinion that the report should not be disclosed (at that time) as it was yet to be considered by the Council’s Audit Committee..."

At the Audit Committee meeting itself, councillors voted to discuss the report in secret because publishing it would supposedly prejudice a potential Standards Committee investigation into former councillor Hassan Ahmed's conduct. Are we to assume that's not going ahead now?

The thing is, the main body of the report doesn't actually mention anybody or any of the groups by name. Yes, it's obvious they're talking about Ahmed when it mentions the Portfolio Holder for Employment and Skills and the two Corporate Directors mentioned are identifiable (Barry Horne and Michael Williams, both also long gone) but that is no good reason to keep the report secret. The only part with any personal details in is an appendix with details of Ahmed's myriad connections to groups who, by an amazing coincidence, received a large amount of public money. And that was all redacted.

Anyway, there follows a short summary of what the report says. I've linked above to the rather comprehensive summary the Post wrote when it got hold of a leaked version so have a look at that, or the report itself, if you want more detail

• In some circumstances e.g. urgency the council can suspend normal procurement rules but to do so must be formally authorised by the Portfolio Holder. In this case the rules were dispensed with but no formal authorisation took place.
• Decisions to award contracts that should have been authorised by the Portfolio Holder apparently taken by officers instead. Contracts were worth around £500k in some cases and the maximum an officer can authorise is £200k.
• Barry Horne in particular is singled out for not keeping on top of this and for not keeping records of decisions that he made.
• Decisions for 5 contracts of £1m each which should only be made by the Executive Board, yet no clear records of who made them.
• One contract extended twice, from £1m to £1.5m, then to £2.5m, despite clear rules prohibiting contracts being extended more than once.
• Lack of required input from Legal Services in award of large contracts.
• Late addition of further requirements to contracts putting some tender organisations at a disadvantage.
• Hassan Ahmed's many connections to organisations bidding successfully for contracts, his involvement in the decision making to award such contracts and his failure to notify others involved of his interests.
• The bid for funding for the programme differed markedly from reality; the bid stated that 'partners' formally signed up, in fact the bid was submitted via the already long formed One Nottingham, some 'partners hadn't even seen the bid even though it was submitted in their name, steering group mentioned in bid not formed until late in the day.
• Late involvement of 'intermediary' organisations, lack of clarity as to how they had been chosen, half of all contracts issued via these intermediaries.

Like I say, there's lots more in the detail so do have a read.

The bit I don't understand is that the District Auditor says -

"My concerns arise from the need for transparency and good corporate governance rather than that there was any actual inappropriate allocation of contracts (in relation to which I did not find any evidence)."

before going on to, as far as I can see, provide lots of details of how contracts were awarded inappropriately. If a contract is awarded by a public body without the required authorisation then that is at the least 'inappropriate', probably illegal I'd have thought.

But of course no-one will face any sanctions. To be fair, the main players are all now gone, sacked stood down by mutual consent, sacked retired and sacked deciding not to stand again. And of course, no doubt that great public sector fuck-up mantra can be repeated, 'lessons have been learnt', even if they haven't.

Some Are More Equal Than Others

It's been a while since I last wrote about Nottingham Equal. I've been chasing up a few Freedom of Info requests here and there which has shed a bit more light on the help they have received with their fundraising activities.

I have been writing about concerns with possible conflicts of interest between NCC's decision to end funding for the now closed Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts and the funding of Nottingham Equal for some time. These were initially based around Hassan Ahmed's involvement in the NE and jointly making the CEHRNN funding decision.

Let's have a bit of a recap. Ahmed and Cllr Chapman made the decision to stop CEHRNN's funding immediately in March 2010. In October that year a portfolio decision was published to fund Nottingham Equal to the tune of around £70k which seemed a bit of a coincidence. This funding came via One Nottingham. In April 2011, a further year of funding was allocated, the decision to do so citing 'satisfactory monitoring information' as a justification.

I was quite interested in this 'satisfactory monitoring information' so I put in a FoI for it. An interesting point this revealed is that the monitoring information concerned a period from April to December 2010 and reported on performance on a service level agreement which was only signed by representatives of Nottingham Equal (one of whom was Tyron Browne) on 19 January 2011. In other words, we have a report on outputs and outcomes before those outputs and outcomes were even agreed. Odd that.

What is also apparent is how closely that Nottingham Equal matched its targets. The target for the number of organisations supoorted was 8 and the number of organisationas actually supported was 8. The target for getting individuals involved in 'dialogue' on decision making was 30 and, you'll never guess, the number of individuals who became involved with 'dialogue' was, happily, 30. One target was exceeded, they organised two meetings against a target of just one, but of seven targets, six were met exactly. There was a week between the SLA being signed and these outputs reported. Thank the maker for happy coincidences.

In the meantime I had been trying to get hold of the tender consideration meeting minutes for this decision from One Notttingham who eventually refused. I went to the Information Commissioner who decided that, although ON weren't subject to FoI, the council should have responded instead because I had copied them into my review request. Not the result I was expecting but I have now had the minutes of the meeting, held 10 May 2010, and they make some interesting reading.

Firstly, the attendees include Hasseeb Ahmed, NCC's Head of Equalities. He was CEHRNN's project officer and wrote the damning (and seriously flawed) Equalities Impact Assessment which resulted in CEHRNN losing their funding. He was also listed as Nottingham Equal's project officer on their SLA but whether he had become involved by the time of this meeting I don't know.

Secondly, the original NCC portfolio decision confirming funding for Nottingham Equal (see link above) said that funding an alternative organisation had been considered as an option but that 'no comparable organisations existed'. The minutes contradict this somewhat because there was an alternative tender from an organisation called 'HRN'. In the remarks it was noted that their 'delivery vehicle' was CEHRNN.

Now then, due to Haseeb Ahmad's previous involvement with CEHRNN there is a strong argument that he had a massive conflict of interest being involved in this decision. He cannot possibly have come to the discussion with an open mind and assessed a bid involving CEHRNN dispassionately. Two other members of the panel expressed 'concerns about the delivery vehicle - CEHRNN' which strongly suggests that HRN never stood a chance. Nobody expressed any concerns about Nottingham Equal, despite Hassan Ahmed being a founder member and at the time of the meeting being before Standards for England accused of breaching the councillors code of conduct, nor of Tyron Browne's involvement when he had figured rather large in the housing allocations scandal.

If you've followed the story of CEHRNN, Nottingham Equal and the associated individuals it is extremely hard not to seriously wonder whether it was a king sized stitch up to take the funding from CEHRNN, pass it over to a more friendly organisation in the form of Nottingham Equal and do it via One Nottingham to make it more difficult to scrutinise what happened. This latest information in the form of the tender meeting minutes only adds to that impression.

Shameless Cover-Up Continues

The Post is reporting that the Audit Committee yesterday voted to discuss the critical report into the administration of the Future Jobs Fund in private. An early contender for smallest surprise of the year I reckon.

One of the recommendations is apparently that former councillor Hassan Ahmed's conduct be referred to the Standards Committee. The article quotes Cllr Stuart Fox agreeing with monitoring officer Glen O'Connell's opinion that publishing the report could prejudice an investigation by the Committee -

"In the public domain it would prejudice the next step. It would undermine one of the district auditor's recommendations."

I'm sorry but how? The only way it could prejudice proceedings is if those making decisions i.e. councillors in the main, get to see information that could unduly influence them in making their decision. As it is already public knowledge that the District Auditor already believes that Ahmed breached the code of conduct that horse has already bolted. Furthermore, the councillors will have already seen the full report so any further prejudice that could be said to occur has already happened. Letting the public see the report can make no difference because we don't have a say in the matter. It's not like a trial where we could potentially be picked for jury service.

It also seems pretty pointless to bother with a Standards Committee investigation anyway. Ahmed is no longer a councillor and all the committee could do is to make a public finding against him which, hey, the District Auditor has already done. The man's reputation is soiled beyond redemption anyway so what more could they say?

Of course, pursuing a Standards Committee investigation gives them the excuse to kick the full report into the long grass. The investigation into Grocock's case has taken the best part of three years and, whatever else might be said about him, he does at least appear to have done everything he could to co-operate with them. There's not much chance of Ahmed being so compliant and, after all why should he be? He's got absolutely nothing to lose or gain. I doubt we'll hear any more before the next local elections.

It's interesting to note that the District Auditor did actually say that it was her 'preference' that the report be published. Well, grow some fucking ovaries missus, if you'd made it a public interest report they wouldn't have had a choice would they?

In the meantime Freedom of Information Act requests have been issued and no quarter will be given re time limits. I doubt very much that the Information Commissioner will have a lot of time for the weasel excuses NCC has wheeled out, he's no Nottingham City Council fan anyway.

Future Jobs Fund - NCC and a Certain Person Criticised Again

NCC has posted its latest 'Annual Audit Letter'* (AAL) from the Audit Commission to its website. A dull and rather fusty document normally but this one contains a chunk of info the NCC will NOT be keen to draw your attention to. So I suppose I'd better.

You'll remember that former councillor Hassan Ahmed decided not to run for office at the last local election and the Post speculated it might have been due to skullduggery with the Future Jobs Fund. Well the the AAL confirms that he was in the firing line. The letter only contains brief details but does say that a full report on the matter was sent to NCC in November but they have so far chosen not to make it public. Funny that.

So, what do we know so far? Let's simply quote in full what the District Auditor says -

• "The Council (acting as accountable body) has failed to comply with the requirements of its own constitution, standing orders and financial regulations in awarding Future Jobs Fund and Community Programme contracts. In particular, specific individuals failed to demonstrate appropriate accountability for the decisions taken. These failures were compounded by poor record keeping within the Council

• My investigation has led me to conclude that the relevant Portfolio Holder’s conduct may have been in breach of paragraph 3(2)(d) of the Code of Conduct (conduct which has compromised or is likely to compromise the impartiality of officers). My concerns arise from the need for transparency and good corporate governance rather than that there was any actual inappropriate allocation of contracts (in relation to which I did not find any evidence).

• The role of partners as set out in the original bids did not fully materialise in practice: As a consequence, some partners felt let down and had concerns around consistency and transparency. In my view the Council could have done more to allay these concerns by being more open and transparent about the need for changes and to ensure everyone was given an equal opportunity to respond to these changes."

The 'relevant Portfolio Holder' was of course our old mucker Hassan Ahmed. Note the finding that he breached the members code of conduct, which is the second time he has been found guilty of this. he has gone now as I say but the other findings, including that NCC breached its constitution, standing orders and financial regulations is as damning as it gets.

It's not clear whether NCC intends to make the full report public. There have been numerous rumours about the matter for some time involving certain usual suspects. If it is going to be made public it is likely to be alongside the AAL at the next Audit Committee meeting due on 6 January 2012. If it doesn't appear there it'll be Freedom of Info Act time again.

* Since posting this document yesterday, NCC removed it from their website, presumably hoping to scupper my article in the process. This is why the link now goes to Google Docs, where I saved a copy.

A Further Snippett Concerning Hassan Ahmed Slips Out

You might remember that I have been trying to get as much info as possible about the Standards for England decision that Hassan Ahmed breached the members' code of conduct. I've had limited success, so far getting hold of a redacted report, and I've been trying to get as much material as possible unredacted via the Information Commissioner.

I have to say it is looking unlikely that I'll get any more of that report revealed but an email I've received has let a little more light on the internal NCC processed behind the scenes.

For example, information obtained under a SfE investigation cannot normally be released 'the person to whom the information relates has consented to its disclosure'. Now check out this extract from the email I received from the ICO -

"This is because none of the conditions set out in (a)-(e) are satisfied; in particular, Cllr Hassan has explicitly refused to consent to the report’s disclosure."

So, as you can see, one of the obstacles in seeing the full circumstances behind Hassan Ahmed's little games is the fact that he is exercising his veto over publication, an extraordinary privilege for him considering he was found guilty of the breach of the code. Clearly the system is designed to protect corrupt politicians whereas the little people are hung out to dry.

A more positive development is that NCC appear to have accepted that their tendency to hide stuff behind sch 12A of the Local Government Act 1972. That email again -

"The Council also acknowledges that section 12A of the LGA 1972 does not provide a statutory bar under section 44 of the Act."

If NCC sticks to that it is a significant boon for openness. NCC has been routinely relying on this as a route to an exemption to disclosure under s.44 of the FoIA which bans publication of information withheld under other legislation.

Some More of My Opinions on the Local Elections

If anybody should care here are some of the issues that I believe are important when deciding how to vote in the local elections on Thursday.

My first thought is that, before deciding HOW to vote, it's vital to first decide TO vote. Local elections are notorious for their low turnouts and this is a serious threat to true democracy. Turnout in 2007 was 32.4%, up from 29.1% in 2004, an improvement but still nowhere near a majority of those eligible to vote. And that increase is more than explained by the increase in postal votes which bring in their own problems.

I have to say it, voting for someone is nearly always better than not voting at all in my opinion. Nothing encourages complacency, self-interest and downright corruption in our elected representatives than them knowing that they are in a safe seat and not enough people care about their poor performance in order to bother voting against them. Whatever your political views I firmly believe that just turning up for each election and voting against the current incumbent will improve the health of democracy, at least it would keep them on their toes.

So, presuming that you have decided that you are going to vote, my next piece of advice would be to be sure to avoid voting on national issues at the expense of local. It's tempting to assume that they are one and the same and, while there is clearly overlap, it's not necessarily so. For example, I believe very strongly that the biggest local issue in Nottingham City is the out and out corruption and cover up within the Labour establishment at NCC (housing scandal etc, see the blog passim) and voting Labour to teach the coalition will not solve this. I'm not necessarily saying that Labour in local government is intrinsically bad, and I'm certainly not saying that I would never vote for a Labour politician again, it's just that the current Labour establishment consists of three groups; a small controlling core that has no respect for democracy and due process, a small group of lickspittles desperately trying to get into group one and lastly, a larger group of useful idiots/vote fodder who do as they are told regardless.

Again, I should emphasis that this is not a syndrome that is exclusive to the Labour Party, I firmly believe that if the Green Party won three elections in a row you'd end up with a very similar situation but with different colour hats. You'd probably find a lot of the same names as the politicos changed allegiance to the party that could deliver them into power. The important thing here is that when these cliques do establish themselves the important thing is to bring them down.

So for me at least I will not be looking to vote against the Lib Dems simply to punish them for selling their national souls to a poor-hating disablist right wing government. Locally they have been effective constituency representatives and sources of opposition, their effectiveness limited mainly by their numbers. The Tories are a little different of course, while they have taken on certain issues such as the Radford Unity Complex but I'm quite sure that was for cynical electoral reasons as they were targeting the Nottm South seat in the general election at the time. If a comment on Alanadale's blog from one of the candidates in Radford and Park ward is anything to go by they still see some mileage in this issue yet. In power, the Tories wouldn't give a shit about RUC but most importantly, everybody who's nice hates Tories anyway, that's just a fact.

So, to be a bit more prescriptive and specific, I've made no secret in the past that I strongly believe that a Green Party presence on NCC would be a good thing and if you are lucky enough to have a candidate in your ward I would urge you to vote for them. Those against Tesco on Eastside might want to look at Dave 'Lord Biro' Bishop in Dales ward too. In Basford, former Labour councillor Mick Newton is standing as an independent and seems to be good at getting stuck in to local issues so he will probably get one of my votes.

But in the end I suppose that it is pretty much inevitable that there will be a Labour majority in the end so what to do? My personal opinion is that a 'decapitation' strategy is the best bet i.e. get rid of those who are at the top of the dodgy clique. Luckily, we have already seen the last of Hassan Ahmed for a while so the priority is to get rid of JoCo and Graham Chapman. If you live in either St Anns or Aspley ward I implore you not to vote for these two even if you are a Labour supporter, their removal will result in an immeasurably improved local Labour Party I'm certain. We can but hope...

So that's what I think, see you at the ballot box.

The Rumour Mill Pt 2

Just for the record, my earlier claim of an Executive councillor not standing in the upcoming elections did not refer to Hassan Ahmed, so that means there two of them leaving in May.

Also, I've heard of another councillor no longer standing so, if all my rumours are true, Labour have lost two key executive members and three rank and file.

Update - Cllr Newton's 'Independent' status now confirmed on NCC website.

Hassan Ahmed's (Hopefully) Last Victim

The Post reports today that the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts is to close due to lack of funding. Previously known as Notts REC, it had been active in the city for 55 years.

It was of course Hassan Ahmed who jointly made the decision to end their funding last year. The decision was kept secret for reasons that remain unclear. I've got a FoIA request outstanding on that (and other issues) but NCC is simply stalling, having provided no response to my request which was sent on 2 September 2010 and so far ignoring an order from the Information Commissioner's Office to respond by 15 February 2011.

In a possibly connected matter, let's remember that One Nottingham are refusing to disclose who was involved in making the decision to award funding to Nottingham Equal, an organisation of which Ahmed was a founding member and whose Chief Exec is his bezzy mate Tyron Browne.

No doubt Cllr Ahmed will be very proud of his achievement, closing one of the most respected and certainly long lasting equalities groups in Notts.

Cllr Ahmed; A Heartfelt Tribute

So. Farewell then. Councillor Hassan Ahmed.

On his announcement that I will only have about half as much material to write about from now on he is to stand down at the next election I thought it appropriate to remember some of the great works he has done for the city and the wider world of business. Not to mention some of his closest friends...

Firstly, Cllr Ahmed very nearly forced the closure of the Council of Equality and Human Rights Nottingham and Notts by suddenly halting their funding on dodgy equalities grounds. Doubly dodgy was the fact that he was involved with Nottingham Equal at the time which, not only had he not declared that on his register of interests, also happened to be a potential competitor organisation.

A number of coincidences followed. Firstly CEHRNN's Chief Exec lost his position as the BME representative on One Nottingham's board after an election that was run by erm, Nottingham Equal. Secondly, Nottingham Equal got a grant from NCC which was suspiciously similar to the amount removed from CEHRNN. This grant was decided by One Nottingham which Ahmed had managed to wheedle his way into as the Chair of its new 'Fairness Commission'. ON has refused to divulge any details of how it reached the decision to pick NE for receipt of grant aid, claiming that it is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Interestingly, one of the criticisms levelled at CEHRNN was that they had failed to adequately address the equalities strands other than race. Nottingham Equal be covering the following strands; race, that's it.

In the meantime, Ahmed was found guilty of breaching the Members Code of Conduct due to multiple instances of failing to register his outside interests with NCC. He celebrated this by claiming in the local press that he had been 'exonerated'. It turned out that a significant part of the reasoning behind the decision by Standards for England not to impose any sanction was down to the fact that he wasn't a member of the Executive at the relevant time. However he WAS Graham Chapman's Executive Assistant so was in a position to influence decisions.

Like a moth to a flame, Ahmed even managed to inveigle himself in NCC's other big corruption scare by being the one who made the decision to award a contract  to Harold Tinworth for political advice on how to win the local election for Labour providing support to members of NCC's executive members. This is now causing all kinds of unhappiness for JoCo and his cohorts.

And now he has apparently been implicated in this new Future Jobs Fund issue and he's decided rather suddenly that he needs to spend more time with his pets. He won't be missed.

One Down...

The 'Post' is on fire these days with revelations about NCC and today's is the news that our old mate Hassan Ahmed has decided not to stand in the upcoming elections. The Post has suggested that his decision may be due to an upcoming report from the Audit Commission concerning irregularities in the Future Jobs Fund although Ahmed denies this.

Slightly frustrating for me because I actually got a tip-off a few weeks back about some dodginess involving Ahmed, the FJF and another local anti-hero but I couldn't verify it. As such I didn't dare run it for fear of a communication from m'learned friends. And I'm afraid I'm still chicken about naming the other alleged party so we'll all just have to wait for that Audit Commission report.

It's good that at least one of the chiselling little crooks has been upended, especially after the cover up over the housing allocations scandal meaning that Cllr Grocock and Tyron Browne have managed to wriggle free, so far at least. It's a long shot but if the poisonous influence that is Jon Collins can be removed at the election NCC will be immeasurably improved.

Addendum - JoCo wrote a puff piece about FJF on his blog recently. For some reason he seems to have switched the comments off...

Tinworth Waters Slightly Muddier

Been having a little Twitter chat with JoCo today and Harold Tinworth came up.

Collins said that Tinworth was first employed by Government Office (presumably GOEM). That's interesting because Cllr Ahmed said that he was first commissioned by former Chief Exec Michael Frater at the call-in sub-committee.

I mean, I'm not one for starting a row between councillor colleagues but there is a teensy bit of inconsistency here, maybe someone should clear it up?

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.

Nottingham Equal Funding Decision

At long last we finally have the release of a funding decision for Nottingham Equal's grant aid of £86k. The money is ostensibly to enable NE to develop a network for BME groups in the city.

I have no idea why it's taken so long for the decision to be made, especially since NE were confident enough of getting the money to have been recruiting some time back

As you can see these posts had already expired by 27 September.

Parts of the rationale behind the decision warrant a further look. 'Options considered' included 'not to provide grant aid'. This was dismissed because it '...could result in the winding up of Nottingham Equal...' Horrors! How would we survive without an organisation that was only incorporated in February 2009 and consequently has no track record of delivery?

Another potential solution was to 'fund another organisation' but this one was discounted because 'no comparable organisations exist'. This is explored further in the appended report; it points out that Nottingham Black Partnership no longer exists which is true and is a sorry story in itself. It then goes on to dismiss the possibility of funding the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts on the basis that it is '...undergoing major change and difficulties resulting in both the City and County Councils withdrawing funding...' Regular readers will be aware that I have already written extensively about CEHRNN's 'difficulties' and I think it might be fair to say that the withdrawal of funding was more the cause of those difficulties rather than a consequence.

Interestingly, the report says that NE's BME network will '...complement other third sector networks being developed by NCVS'. Was NCVS invited to bid for the funds to set up the BME network as well?

Some of the money has been provided by One Nottingham so it's worth a quick look at NE's relationship with them. Part of the job for NE will be to 'support' the BME rep on One Nottingham's board, a job to which they are no doubt suited as it was them that facilitated the removal of CEHRNN's chief exec from the role.

Sorry, what I MEANT to say there was that NE facilitated the election in which CEHRNN's chief exec lost his place as BME rep on ON's board. Which, coincidentally, was a couple of months before NCC removed their funding.

I have been trying to get hold of a copy of ON's decision to pick NE as the recipient of their funding. As well as being sent copies of ON board minutes which didn't mention NE specifically I got this response -

"If you are after a written decison from the One Nottingham Board to award the funding to Nottingham Equal there is not one.

As I explained in the previous email, the ON Board approved the amount and purpose for the funding but not the delivery organisation.

A tender process was organised and the tender panel comprising of partner organisations involved with One Nottingham selected Nottingham Equal through this process."

I'm surprised that this tender exercise wasn't mentioned in the NCC portfolio holder decision or the supporting report but no biggie. 

Lastly, let's have a quick recap of some of the personalities involved. We know about NE's Chief Exec Tyrone Brown, he of 'legging it after NCH homes allocation scandal' fame and I would certainly question the wisdom of funding any organisation with him involved. Still, NCC are perfectly happy to throw money at his other little fiefdom PATRA so any concerns appear to be falling on deaf ears.

Similarly, Hassan Ahmed who was a founding director of NE but resigned when he got caught out not declaring it on his register of interests. He was jointly responsible for the decision to end CEHRNN's funding. I've been saying for a while that CEHRNN was a potential competitor organisation to his latest pet project and this decision provides the first direct evidence. He is now the chair of ON's 'Fairness Commission' which wasn't formally involved with this particular funding decision but, well, you know...

One last mention must go to NCC's Head of Service Equality and Community Relations. He was responsible for the dodgy Equalities Impact Assessment carried out on CEHRNN and was significantly criticised by CEHRNN for the manner of his involvement with them. He now turns up as a contributor to the report recommending funding of NE.

Addendum - NE has recently registered as a charity

Standards Committee Fail 2

The Standards Committee is finally meeting on 8 November. This is the first time it has met since 21 June so that's nearly 5 months off.

At that last meeting all they did was to review the report by Standards for England about Hassan Ahmed. Despite the justified complaint that SfE appeared to have stretched logic to ensure he got off scot free (more on this soon) one can't help noting that at least SfE does actually get round to hearing its cases.

True to form the Committee is not going to be considering any of the (at least) four outstanding cases against serving councillors. After all, it's starting to get close to the elections and I'm sure none of the councillors concerned would welcome the bad publicity.

And, true to form, Monitoring Officer Glen O'Connell is still ignoring my emails about the two cases I referred. If he doesn't get back to me by Friday it's going to the Ombudsman.

Equality Impact Assessments and CEHRNN

There was another interesting little snippet in the progress report on RUC recommendations that I discussed in my previous post. It concerned the use of Equality Impact Assessments and said -

"The corporate report writing guidance has also been amended to be clear that EIAs are needed for reports relating to new or changing policies, services or functions..."

In other words, if you a considering a change in policy, operations or whatever, as EIA is carried out to assess the potential impact on equalities issues and maybe make changes as a result.

NCC's EIA guidance says that priority services will also be subjected to an EIA according to a yearly timetable, more of an equalities review from what I can see. As a former manager who used to be involved in such things I'd question that. Services never stand still and will be subjected to a general review from time to time (and NCC certainly loves its reviews) and it seems somewhat fragmentary to have a separate EIA process happening at different times, better to carry out an EIA of your service review I'd have thought. Best practice is to have EIAs integrated into policy making and service development. But I digress.

Which brings me back to NCC's treatment of the Council for Equalities and Human Rights Nottm and Notts whose funding was removed by Cllrs Ahmed and Chapman ostensibly following an EIA which found the group wanting.

Let's have a look at the background here.

Firstly, Notts Racial Equality Council (CEHRNN's former handle) were awarded grant aid of £122k pa for three years at the Executive Board Meeting on 16 December 2008, the funding due to start in April 2009. The EIA looking at CEHRNN was started in November 2009 which means someone decided to do so some time before, when isn't known. The EIA document itself also confirms that it wasn't on the list of routine 'review' style assessments.

So why carry out an EIA on a funded external organisation only a few months after you've handed them £122k for 3 years? Why wasn't an EIA carried out as part of the decision to fund them i.e. before any money was handed over, if at all? What does it say about NCC's grant application procedures when so much money is handed to an organisation when, only months later, problems are found which are supposed to be so serious that they warranted an instant decision to withdraw that funding, a course of action which is pretty much unprecedented in the history of NCC's relationship with the voluntary sector? And why has that decision never been made public?

I've said before that an EIA is an inappropriate tool to use to review an organisation's overall effectiveness and this adds another element of inappropriateness to such action.

The EIA report notes that the initial decision to move from a purely race based organisation to one covering all equalities strands in 2007 and that the process was completed in Summer 2009. And yet one of the concerns highlighted in the EIA was that they had taken too long to widen their remit. Why wasn't this picked up in their funding bid if it was such a concern?

What's more we know that NCC had fabricated a complaint from the police about CEHRNN's involvement in protests against the EDL and were forced to withdraw it from the report. You have to wonder why they did that. And even if such a complaint had been made a) that's no proof that it was justified and b) CEHRNN is an independent organisation who can campaign on any issues it chooses, the only relevance to the grant aid would be whether it breaches the service level agreement between them and NCC.

And there's the rub. There was a contract. As far as I know there has been no explicit claim that CEHRNN was in breach of that contract by missing targets or failing to produce agreed outcomes. Do you think that's why they had to find another reason to remove the funding instead?

The multiple ironies are that NCC carries out an EIA which alleges that CEHRNN hasn't been carrying out its remit adequately so the funding was withdrawn in its entirity and the work is now not being done at all. Where's the Equalities Impact Assessment of that decision? And, despite the complaints that CEHRNN was only concentrating on race and not its wider remit, NCC/One Nottingham has since funded a new organisation, Nottingham Equal, which has no track record and only deals with erm, race issues. It does however, include Cllr Hassan Ahmed among its founding directors who only resigned when the Post busted him for not declaring the fact on his register of interests.

And so the ingredients which point to this being a stitch up are -

• Lack of concerns at the time of the funding decision
• Inappropriate use of EIA
• Cllr Ahmed's non disclosed involvement with a potential competitor organisation
• ...and involvement in the decision to withdraw funding
• That decision being withheld from the public, what have they got to hide?
• The competitor organisation later being awarded significant funding

Well, I'm afraid I'm convinced. I believe that the decision by Ahmed and Chapman to end CEHRNN's funding should be made public without delay so that as much light can be shed on this sorry matter as possible. I'm working on it.

Standards Committee Fail

Here is the text of an email that I have just sent to Glen O'Connell, Nottingham City Council's monitoring officer concerning the consistent and ongoing failure of the Standards Committee to deal with complaints against councillors -

"Dear Mr O'Connell,

It is nearly two months since I last heard from you with regard to the complaints I have made against serving City Councillors and yet I have heard nothing further. Both of these go back as far as May yet as far as I can tell absolutely nothing has been done.

In addition I notice that complaints about other councillors appear to be making no progress and yet the Standards Committee appears to be repeatedly canceling meetings. Even if they do manage to get it together the agenda rarely seems packed. I think it is true to say that the Standards Committee have yet to hear any complaint against a serving councillor.

It is hard not to conclude that the internal regulation system for elected members' behaviour is collectively dragging its feet. At best it is utterly failing to do its duty to the citizens of Nottingham. I realise it would be politically embarrassing for the Lord Mayor, Leader and a Portfolio Holder to be investigated at the same time but I hope that this is not playing any part in the delay.

Please will you take this email as a formal complaint under Nottingham City Council's complaints procedure for the unacceptable delays in dealing with all complaints against councillors. As part of dealing with this complaint I would be grateful if you could provide an update to the cases that I have referred at least, however it would be preferable if The Standards Committee were to provide a public update on all cases. Nottingham City Council is quick to name and shame individuals when it sees fit and sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

The reference to cases that I referred concerns complaints I made in May in May about Cllr Ahmed's role in the decision to cut CEHRNN's funding and against JoCo for, ahem, 'making a mistake' when telling the call-in sub-committee that the sale of Radford Unity Complex would raise twice as much as he had already offered it for sale to a bunch of artists. In addition there is still the Cllr Grocock issue outstanding which is becoming farcical in the extent of its delay.

I can't help wondering if the agenda is to make sure that nothing is heard before the elections next year.

Update - no response by end of play Friday

Money for Old Lags

Nottgirl is reporting that Nottingham Equal has been given a grant of at least £20k by One Nottingham, although it could be up to £90k.

My money is on the latter, as this (expired) job advert for a Project Manager there offers a wage of £30kpa and this advert for 'Community Facillitators' involves 2 posts at £25k each.

I feel another Freedom of Information request coming on...

Update; unfortunately Local Strategic Partnerships are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act so that puts the kibosh on that idea. Need to have a little think...

Further note; it just so happens that Cllr Hassan Ahmed is the Chair of One Nottingham's 'Fairness Commission'.  Those coincidences just keep on piling up don't they?