John Stevens · @pzj_1
8th Sep 2015 from TwitLonger
The Desperate Lies Of East Dunbartonshire Council
The problem with deceit is that you everything must fall into place and you also have to have a good memory to cover previous deceit.
Everyone knows that Audit Scotland are probing the payments received by Celtic PLC for a Service Level Agreement. This was reported again by the Kirkintolloch Herald only last week http://www.kirkintilloch-herald.co.uk/news/local-headlines/probe-into-east-dunbartonshire-council-and-celtic-deal-almost-at-an-end-1-3874540
Now East Dunbartonshire Council have a problem. I posted on a previous occasion that Mr Thomas Glen from EDC and also a Director in the Lennoxtown Initiative told a then sitting Member of Parliament that EDC had no record of the CFC SLA. Despite Mr Glen knowing very well that he knew all about this SLA as Director of the Lennoxtown Initiative the ''Charity'' that had the agreement with Celtic PLC.
Now Mr Glenn is very prominent when The Sunday Post came calling for a quote when they ran the story of the CFC SLA. http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/scotland/probe-into-celtic-s-8m-training-ground-1.871622
Let us quote him in full ''“The Council provided £68,377.20 in September, 2013, to support the delivery of this agreement. We fully support Audit Scotland in any responsible monitoring of the public pound.”
You see above Mr Glen states that EDC only stepped in once to provide the CFC SLA payment that the Lennoxtown Initiative had no money to pay.
This is consistent with this Freedom of Information request received very recently. The question and response is below.
1. Why did the Council pay a payment of an 'agreement' of another limited
company? The Lennoxtown Initiative was a separately incorporated company
limited by guarantee and members (of which the Council was one) were only
obliged to pay an amount not exceeding £1? Did the Council take on all the
Lennoxtown Initiative charity's debts & outstanding obligations or just the
Celtic SLA one?
Response: The decision taken by the Council to meet the one off costs for
the final payment was made to ensure the continued provision of access to
facilities and support for local clubs using the Celtic FC Lennoxtown
training facility. The Council did not take on all of the LI debts and
outstanding obligations
What you will note from the above is the sentence ''The decision taken by the Council to meet the one off costs''
That ties in with Thomas glen and his statement '' “The Council provided £68,377.20 in September, 2013''
At this juncture I want to provide you with another question asked to the EDC on the reason they felt obliged to make any payments to the CFC SLA when they had no agreement with CFC PLC.
The question and response provided below.
Previously the Council said it had not seen and had no copy of the
Celtic Service Level Agreement. Is this still true? Does the council now
have a copy of the Celtic SLA? If so I would like a copy of that agreement
which has placed an obligation on a public authority, yourselves the
Council.
Response: Under section 17 of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act
2002, I can confirm that East Dunbartonshire Council does not hold a copy
of the SLA.
So we can clear up the controversy surrounding EDC ''sight'' of such agreement that they felt obliged to pay. They never seen anything.
Back to my original point. Thomas Glen from EDC and the Lennoxtown Initiative only stated that EDC covered one payment, confirmed by the ''one off payment'' by the response to a FOI request from EDC.
This is the most duplicitous response by a man entrusted with public money. This is bordering on concealment and deception.
Let us see what actually happened when the Lennoxtown Initiative who CFC PLC had the agreement with and which no Public Body despite it being paid by public funds has ever had sight off.
Lennoxtown Initiative ran out of money in 2011. This is brilliantly highlighted in The Football Tax Havens https://footballtaxhavens.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/lennoxtown-initiative-charity-was-insolvent-in-2011-yet-celtic-sla-continued-to-be-paid-for-last-4-years-edc-picked-up-charitys-500000-tab/
Now this extract from that post https://footballtaxhavens.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/li-2011-accounting-policies-bankrupt-staff-sacked.png details how EDC picked up the bill from 2011 for a Service Level Agreement they admit they had no sight off and which they claimed they made only one ''final payment''.
Please note the figures or public funds EDC made available to the Lennoxtown Initiative they now claim as a debt to the EDC. How EDC plan to recoup this public money from a ''mothballed'' Charity with no visible means of repayment is beyond my comprehension.
Please bear in mind that by 2011 the Lennoxtown Initiative was ''mothballed''.
The sums of public money made available to a ''mothballed'' charity was £242 526.
Now lets examine again the EDC statement '' “The Council provided £68,377.20 in September, 2013'' (Thomas Glen) and the FOI response ''The decision taken by the Council to meet the one off costs for the final payment''
The £242 526 which the EDC gave to Lennoxtown Initiative and is now a ''debt'' so called with no visible means of recovery, went in bulk to Celtic PLC service level agreement they had no sight off. Not one final payment to cover costs that the Lennoxtown Initiative could no longer meet but the following payments were made.
2011 £48,671
2012 £49,706
March 2013 £49,706
And finally in the same year £68,377.20 in September, 2013
That is a staggering ££216,460 out of the £242 526 which EDC gave from public funds to a ''mothballed'' Charity to enable this ''mothballed'' charity to continue to pay for an agreement which no one from the public or EDC has ever seen one line of a sentence of.
What are EDC covering? One thing is sure this information is known by Audit Scotland and at this point it must be pointed out that their report into this is due out. What that report will contain and how this was allowed to happen without any Public Body having sight of an agreement will be very interesting indeed.
One thing is certain, a Mr Glen will have be doing somersaults of sorts to explain his comment to the Sunday Post that only one payment was made by the EDC. Perhaps Mr Glen may end up before a committee to fully explain his comments and what he actually knows.