Shameless Cover-Up

Well, we finally have the Audit Committee meeting agenda up on the Council's website and they are indeed discussing the Annual Audit Letter which gives brief details of the crooked goings on behind the Future Jobs Fund and which I wrote about before when they mistakenly added it to their website a bit early.

They are also discussing the full report on the matter by the District Auditor but what's this? -

"7

TO CONSIDER EXCLUDING THE PUBLIC FROM THE MEETING DURING CONSIDERATION OF THE REMAINING ITEM IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTION 100A(4) OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1972 ON THE BASIS THAT, HAVING REGARD TO ALL THE CIRCUMSTANCES, THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN MAINTAINING THE EXEMPTION OUTWEIGHS THE PUBLIC INTEREST IN DISCLOSING THE INFORMATION

8

JOBS PLAN REVIEW Report of District Auditor, Audit Commission"

Oh look, they're covering it up. I should be surprised. I SHOULD be...

There can be no possible public interest in not releasing to the public a report by the District Auditor, especially when there is clear reference to that report's main conclusions in the Annual Audit Letter which confirm serious criticisms of the Council's conduct.

The fact that JoCo has already selectively quoted from that report for his own political purposes simply adds further insult to the outrage.

I have written to the District Auditor asking that she insist on the matter being discussed in public and for the report to be made public. If she refuses to do this it can only raise questions about her political impartiality and complicity in a cover-up.

I'm Only Surprised It Took Them So Long

Well, it's finally happened.

Two of my freedom of info requests to NCC, this one and this one, have been refused on the basis that they are 'vexatious'.

It is claimed that, because I have made 22 requests in 12 months (I actually make it 19, 6 of which so far remain unanswered but we'll leave that for now) and write some of them up on this blog, my requests are 'obsessive' and are having the effect of 'harassing the authority'. They also claim that my requests are 'frequently' submitted simultaneously and often overlap.

This is of course nonsense. The 'obsessive' and harassment' claims are potentially libellous but as I'm not a premier league footballer I have to let that go. Harassment is a criminal offence and if NCC genuinely believed that I was harassing them I think I would have heard about it by now. They haven't even contacted me to dispute any of the claims on the blog, despite my invitation for them to do so if there was anything they felt was untrue.

It might be a coincidence but one of the above requests was a request for internal reports on the housing allocations scandal, something NCC is determined will never see the light of day. It's difficult to see any other exemption they could use to refuse to provide this info. Surely they aren't cynically using the 'vexatious' provisions to keep its dirty laundry out of the public eye? It would be a shame if anybody else had access to this info and were to send it on to me.

I have of course challenged their accusation via internal reviews. I suspect that, as well as the fact that I have written about it here, this will be used as further evidence of my obsessive and harassing behaviour but I'll just have to take my chances. Most of my posts are based on already available information anyway and it's better that the readers of this blog get to know about the lengths NCC will go to to cover things up.