Council spends £16,000 on rent probe – to be told no action is to be taken
Wednesday 16th March 2011, 11:04AM GMT.
A Shropshire council has forked out more than £16,000 for a probe into unpaid rent at a historic town hall – only to be told by external auditors no further action should be taken.
Telford & Wrekin Council chief executive Victor Brownlees today said the review carried out by KPMG into rent at Dawley Town Hall had only confirmed the findings of the authority’s internal audit.
Lost rent for the town hall is thought to have totalled £29,500 after an electronic “sticky note” was put on the hall’s file to say “no rent is to be charged” to the occupants at the time, Telford Stage School.
Council chiefs ordered the authority’s audit committee to undertake an internal review last year following claims Telford Stage School had not paid a penny in rent in the eight years it occupied the town hall from 2002 up to March last year.
But the council was forced to draft in external auditors after two members of the public raised questions over the lease.
In a report to the council’s audit committee, it was revealed the bill from KPMG was £13,720, plus VAT. Mr Brownlees said: “A statutory process has to be followed and there is a cost attached to this.”
Michael McDonagh, of KPMG, said following the report: “I do not consider that it is in the public interest to take any action to seek to recover or collect the rental payments under the second lease.”
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So this reporting of the incident is mis-leading as the head line implies that T&W have wasted money again where in actual fact in the last sentence of your article they had to do it due to two questions raised by the public maybe the headline should read “PUBLIC make council waste £16000…” cheers whoever you two are
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Well said Vamperic!
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Thank you Vamperic for the clarification. It was NOT the Council that asked for the external audit – but, unfortunately it does have to pick up the cost.
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yeah but the point is about the head line really…
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Sorry, a Freudian slip on my previous comment, it should be ‘winners’ although maybe winers isn’t too far from the mark
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hear hear……all they seem to do just latley is waste money…
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Hmm, have you missed the point i wonder?
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Perhaps , if some bright spark hadn’t put the “no rent payable” note on the system in the first place, we wouldn’t have lost the £16,000 for the auditors and the £28,000 rent money…more council farce…Brian Rix would have a field day if still alive.
Members of the public should be questioning things like this. How can we throw away £28K and then another £16…madness!
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