You Heard It Here First

When I read the piece in the Daily Record about South Lanarkshire Council's amazing  generosity with public funds - I just knew I had said something about this on the blog site before.

See post dated 6 August 2012 - 'Mired in Scandal'.

So having done a quick search through the blog site archive - I discovered the following post from October 2010 which - spookily enough - predicts the very outcome and cavalier use of public money reported by the Daily Record.

Which has now been criticised of course by the nation's public spending watchdog - Audit Scotland.

Council Wars (22 October 2010)

The Herald reports today on the first casualty of the 'civil war' between senior councillors and senior officials - in South Lanarkshire Council.

See previous posts dated 08 and 18 October 2010.

So, South Lanarkshire's Executive Director of Finance and IT has decided to quit - it seems - in the wake of a series of scandals which involved:

1 claims of widespread fiddling by councillors - over travelling and other expenses

2 a gang of west African criminals somehow conning the council out of £100,000

3 a £40 million hole in the council budget - which no one noticed for months

Someone should ask the council (under an FOI request if necessary) about the terms of Ms Hardie's departure - because it's not unusual for councils to reward senior officials by boosting their severance packages - with large sums of public money.

Whether that would be justified in this particular case remains to be seen - but in the present climate the council should be required to explain what's going on - both to local council tax payers and the wider public - especially when the public finances are so tight.

"Finance director quits troubled council"

by Gerry Braiden

"One of Scotland’s most senior council officials is to her quit her post after the authority was conned out of more than £100,000 by west African criminals and amid moves by the ruling administration to have a number of top staff removed.

Linda Hardie is to retire as executive director of finance and IT at South Lanarkshire Council next April, one month after the authority said it paid cash to criminals who had posed as suppliers. The council then had to pay the same amount to the real suppliers.

It also comes weeks after the council over-estimated the scale of the cuts it faces by £40 million, sparking a row between its political leadership and officials.

Ms Hardie’s departure was confirmed by chief executive Archie Strang.

Claiming that a recent list of savings identified had not covered senior officers, Mr Strang said:

“The corporate management team knows that it can’t put all these options forward and itself remain unchanged and has been clear that there must be proposals to reduce the scale of senior management for consideration as part of those options presented to members.

“I’ve been discussing the future shape of the corporate management team and heads of service with each director. As part of those discussions, the executive director (finance and IT) will be retiring from April 2011.”

However, it is understood that Ms Hardie, who had held her post for more than a decade and who many had predicted would succeed Mr Strang as chief executive, is so far the only senior official whose position has been axed.

Pressure has been mounting on senior officials at the council following the £40m error earlier this month, with former Scottish minister and South Lanarkshire leader Tom McCabe calling for sackings."