European Commission seek explanation on Celtic land deals

[KingKirk 25,602]

This shit should just be dropped now tbh unless we are gonna go after something we no will get public attention like child abuse

[Ibroxholm 2,274]

Sounds like another 'common sense' decision.

[WishartsAshes 1,137]

The complaints involved the role of the Lennoxtown Initiative, a community regeneration company and registered charity which was formed in 2001.

Some of the initiative's work was funded by proceeds from the sale of land

Audit Scotland's report noted there was "insufficient evidence to say whether these were at an appropriate level or quality, or if they represented value for money".

Am I also right in thinking that a registered charity has paid £500,000 of public money and do not know if they recieved £500,000 worth of services.

[soulboy 2,518]

Am I also right in thinking that a registered charity has paid £500,000 of public money and do not know if they recieved £500,000 worth of services.

States in the report they do know all services were not provided.

Audit Scot ''Some of the services listed in the CFC SLA were not provided at all''

[WishartsAshes 1,137]

So this is what happened:

Step 1: Septic pay £493,000 for the land.

Step 2: This money is given to a registered charity, the Lennoxtown Initiative.

Step 3: The Lennoxtown Initiative then give Septic the money back in return for services for which there is no evidence.

In what way is this not fraudulent?

[The Educator 1,572]

I wonder if PZJ put in an FOI requesting the value of the undelivered services and what measures have EDC taken to recoup this money. From my own experience of SLA's with EDC they don't let money drip through their fingers, services paid for have to be delivered with funding repaid or alternate arrangements made to cover the unfulfilled services.

Due to the amount of time that has elapsed they must either have a secondary agreement in place or have made provision to recoup the cash, if they haven't they have some very awkward answers to provide if another FOI shows that they have carried out this strategy over the non-fulfilment of other SLA's they have had in place with other organisations such as colleges and so on. Furthermore when it became clear that services that were being paid for were not being delivered why didn't the end the SLA there and then, or withhold payments until services were delivered?

It would be very interesting to see what would happen if a change of attack was adopted based on a possible outcome being the removal of those responsible for the bad management of what has been going on based on any personal bias they showed in their decision making.

[bearsinbath 95]

Sad to see that some of our number seem to be taking some sort of joy from this report. PZJ to date has done some excellent work on exposing what has gone on in Glasgow and East Dunbartonshire, what needs to be done is now is to compare the contents of the report to what we know went on in reality and who was involved in the investigation and its conclusions.

Just as in the goings on involving HMRC it could be that we are approaching the time when a means to name and shame those involved must be seriously looked at. As for those in our number who champion the "nothing will come of this" mantra you are correct, nothing will come of this or the circumstances regarding the use of stolen documentation if we all took to sitting on our hands, but 'hey ho' I'm sure you all have more important things to bother with like can we sing the billy boys or add FTP at the end of every possible opportunity. Never mind lets just ignore that this was the attitude that brought about a situation where we have allowed the opposition to get into places of power to facilitate what has been going on and help cover it up.

Hear Hear Ed!!

[soulboy 2,518]

Pzj has asked for a copy of the SLA via a FOI . So it'll be interesting to see what he makes of it

[magic8ball 27,901]

They may have got away with it,God knows how ,but the awareness had been raised that the bastards have gained land at very questionably low rates and in my opinion of the whole story is that given the timescales of the coop loan repayments the intention was to sell one of these plots of land in the next 2years at a far higher rate than purchases in order to pay off the coop loans

I really don't think they will be able to do that now due to the facts exposed by pzj ,this will leave a huge funding gap for them

It isn't the result we had thought would happen but it's still going to hurt them financially

[soulboy 2,518]

They may have got away with it,God knows how ,but the awareness had been raised that the bastards have gained land at very questionably low rates and in my opinion of the whole story is that given the timescales of the coop loan repayments the intention was to sell one of these plots of land in the next 2years at a far higher rate than purchases in order to pay off the coop loans

I really don't think they will be able to do that now due to the facts exposed by pzj ,this will leave a huge funding gap for them

It isn't the result we had thought would happen but it's still going to hurt them financially

They have a £19.6 million pound loan that has to be paid back in 2019 in one go, without champions league money and unable to sell land it'll be interesting to see where they get it from to pay it back

[magic8ball 27,901]

They have a £19.6 million pound loan that has to be paid back in 2019 in one go, without champions league money and unable to sell land it'll be interesting to see where they get it from to pay it back

Aye but aye but weer pyoor debt free an aw rat

[RyanMac 185]

EDC have had to sell their main office building to recoup part of the £8M that went missing from the Kirkintilloch Initiative yet pay them for an SLA that isn't being provided!

I'm struggling to get a house from EDC, lived here all my life and money that could have went to the people of EDC is being filtered out to that mob, makes me sick.

[Mr Soprano 13,964]

They may have got away with it,God knows how ,but the awareness had been raised that the bastards have gained land at very questionably low rates and in my opinion of the whole story is that given the timescales of the coop loan repayments the intention was to sell one of these plots of land in the next 2years at a far higher rate than purchases in order to pay off the coop loans

I really don't think they will be able to do that now due to the facts exposed by pzj ,this will leave a huge funding gap for them

It isn't the result we had thought would happen but it's still going to hurt them financially

Exposed to some on here aye, but the MSM aren't touching this with a bargepole so...

[Tontospal 1,116]

EDC have had to sell their main office building to recoup part of the £8M that went missing from the Kirkintilloch Initiative yet pay them for an SLA that isn't being provided!

I'm struggling to get a house from EDC, lived here all my life and money that could have went to the people of EDC is being filtered out to that mob, makes me sick.

Mate you, and other EDC residents, are in an ideal position to kick up a stink about EDC's role in all of this.

The public should hold elected representatives and employees accountable for every penny of expenditure. It is not their money they are spending. Too many public servants forget this little fact.

[The Educator 1,572]

Have finally had a chance to read through the Audit Scotland Conclusions on issues relating to the Lennoxtown Initiative document, what a total fudge this is. To provide an example of this lets look at section 14.9.

"14.9. Was there a conflict of interest in the roles played by a senior NHS manager throughout the series of transactions between the NHSGGC, LI and Celtic? To what extent were reasonable checks and balances possible, given these roles?
Findings: A senior NHS manager, who was Head of Property Management for the Primary Care Trust / Division from November 2000, was seconded to the LI in October 2004 and served as its Chief Executive. This person resigned from the Health Board in early January 2007 and also left the LI that same month. During this period of office as Chief Executive of the LI, the senior manager was directly involved in the discussions and negotiations with Celtic on the sale of the land between November 2004 and August 2005 when the sale was concluded.

Conclusions: In paragraph 13, we refer to the limitations on our enquiries as a result of factors such as passage of time and restructuring within the public bodies concerned. As a consequence of this, limited information was available to us on the circumstances surrounding the senior manager’s secondment and tenure with NHSGGC, or how the arrangement was managed. We recognise that board level approval procedures would have been in place for key NHSGGC decisions.

We also refer earlier in this report, to the unsatisfactory levels of monitoring and feedback by the public bodies (including NHSGGC) involved in LI. Such an environment allows accusations of impropriety and conflicts of interest to be more easily made and more difficult to rebut. This has also contributed to information not being available regarding any potential conflict of interest that may have been inherent in the secondment arrangement.

It is disappointing that we have been unable to be satisfied about these matters and report accordingly. There is some evidence that a dual role existed, and there was certainly a perception of that being the case. We would always urge caution with such an approach, as the management and use of public money and assets should always be visibly above reproach. Our inability to provide clear assurance on this issue is consistent with the overall situation surrounding the way in which the public bodies concerned managed their involvement in the LI. However, our enquiries have found no evidence of impropriety in the senior manager’s role or activities."

Neither the findings or conclusion to the question posed by section 14.9 actually answer the question that the said section raised. If as in the conclusion there was evidence of a dual role you don't just write it off due to bad business management you follow it through to see who was involved and what their dual role involved. If documentation has not been made readily available to clear this point then the matter should be passed to Police Scotland for investigation into a possible misappropriation of funds. What you don't do is ignore it and shout nothing to see here and fail to seek proper evidence one way or another.

Two weeks ago we saw a decision regarding the BTC based on the non-legal point of "common sense", with this one we have a report making a judgement based on the lack of common sense. Why am I not surprised by the lack of any names attributed to having carried out the investigation, then again maybe I should be more surprised if they had after reading this 13 page waffle.

[Tontospal 1,116]

Have finally had a chance to read through the Audit Scotland Conclusions on issues relating to the Lennoxtown Initiative document, what a total fudge this is. To provide an example of this lets look at section 14.9.

"14.9. Was there a conflict of interest in the roles played by a senior NHS manager throughout the series of transactions between the NHSGGC, LI and Celtic? To what extent were reasonable checks and balances possible, given these roles?

Findings: A senior NHS manager, who was Head of Property Management for the Primary Care Trust / Division from November 2000, was seconded to the LI in October 2004 and served as its Chief Executive. This person resigned from the Health Board in early January 2007 and also left the LI that same month. During this period of office as Chief Executive of the LI, the senior manager was directly involved in the discussions and negotiations with Celtic on the sale of the land between November 2004 and August 2005 when the sale was concluded.

Conclusions: In paragraph 13, we refer to the limitations on our enquiries as a result of factors such as passage of time and restructuring within the public bodies concerned. As a consequence of this, limited information was available to us on the circumstances surrounding the senior manager’s secondment and tenure with NHSGGC, or how the arrangement was managed. We recognise that board level approval procedures would have been in place for key NHSGGC decisions.

We also refer earlier in this report, to the unsatisfactory levels of monitoring and feedback by the public bodies (including NHSGGC) involved in LI. Such an environment allows accusations of impropriety and conflicts of interest to be more easily made and more difficult to rebut. This has also contributed to information not being available regarding any potential conflict of interest that may have been inherent in the secondment arrangement.

It is disappointing that we have been unable to be satisfied about these matters and report accordingly. There is some evidence that a dual role existed, and there was certainly a perception of that being the case. We would always urge caution with such an approach, as the management and use of public money and assets should always be visibly above reproach. Our inability to provide clear assurance on this issue is consistent with the overall situation surrounding the way in which the public bodies concerned managed their involvement in the LI. However, our enquiries have found no evidence of impropriety in the senior manager’s role or activities."

Neither the findings or conclusion to the question posed by section 14.9 actually answer the question that the said section raised. If as in the conclusion there was evidence of a dual role you don't just write it off due to bad business management you follow it through to see who was involved and what their dual role involved. If documentation has not been made readily available to clear this point then the matter should be passed to Police Scotland for investigation into a possible misappropriation of funds. What you don't do is ignore it and shout nothing to see here and fail to seek proper evidence one way or another.

Two weeks ago we saw a decision regarding the BTC based on the non-legal point of "common sense", with this one we have a report making a judgement based on the lack of common sense. Why am I not surprised by the lack of any names attributed to having carried out the investigation, then again maybe I should be more surprised if they had after reading this 13 page waffle.

I haven't had a chance to read the report but that section is very poorly written and leads to more questions than answers, which is no surprise as Audit Scotland do not have a great reputation.

Relying on them to uncover anything shows how desperate we are.

[dummiesoot 15,990]

I haven't had a chance to read the report but that section is very poorly written and leads to more questions than answers, which is no surprise as Audit Scotland do not have a great reputation.

Schooling, I blame the schools

[soulboy 2,518]

A bloggers take on the report

https://jmcgookin.wordpress.com/2015/11/26/the-lennoxtown-mystery/

[soulboy 2,518]

tweet from pzj

John Stevens ‏@pzj_1 Nov 25

I can confirm that a Barrister will be reviewing the Audit Scotland report in the coming weeks

[ritchieshearercaldow 22,123]

Got to hand it to PZJ, he does not surrender.

Good man.

[Tontospal 1,116]

tweet from pzjJohn Stevens ‏@pzj_1 Nov 25I can confirm that a Barrister will be reviewing the Audit Scotland report in the coming weeks

Great move. A decent barrister will tear the report to shreds and that's my view before reading it.

[Tontospal 1,116]

Schooling, I blame the schools

Yes and don't forget the links between the Scum's academy and St Ninians High School in Kirkintilloch, which falls under EDC

[The Educator 1,572]

Yes and don't forget the links between the Scum's academy and St Ninians High School in Kirkintilloch, which falls under EDC

Care to expand on this one?

[Bad Robot 21,138]

Got to hand it to PZJ, he does not surrender.

Good man.

the man deserves a medal for his hard graft and perseverance

[Tontospal 1,116]

Care to expand on this one?

From wiki

St Ninian's High, in partnership with Celtic F.C. is at the forefront of a groundbreaking sporting initiative, the first of its type in Scotland. This allows the Celtic boys, who are pupils in S2 to S5, to combine intensive coaching sessions with a programme of studies based on continental methods, where everything is monitored including behaviour and homework

I am not highlighting any wrongdoing, just pointing out their relationship with an EDC school.