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Let us get rid of illegal scrap dealers!

Cashless Scrap Metal Trade - Amendment to Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964


Responsible department: Home Office

Due to a significant rise in value, metal has become a much sought after commodity. This increased demand has resulted in a sharp rise in metal theft nationally. Metal fencing, gates, manhole covers and other metallic items are stolen on a regular basis. Property is raided for lead, copper and cabling. War memorials and statues have been taken. Overhead power lines are stolen at serious risk to personal safety with huge costs for replacement and major inconvenience to the public. Historically the scrap metal trade has been a cash in hand industry. This creates difficulties as there is no audit trail, making identification of individuals who may be trading stolen metal or who may be committing tax or benefits fraud, a difficult proposition. An amendment to the Scrap Metal Merchants Act 1964 to prohibit cash transactions would make payment by cheque or directly into a bank account mandatory and would be a significant component in reducing metal theft.

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Thanks

Ian Robertson

Walsall.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/406

How they waste your money

Yes approx £535,000 has been paid in extra payments to leaving staff to agree to clauses in the leaving contract not to talk about the circumstances or the reasons and issues surrounding their leaving.
This is only part of the story as the cost of various barristers ,lawyers and the  like plus dedicated officer time to try and respond to these employment tribunals runs into millions of pounds of your money.
 As followers of the press will know, there have been a number of tribunals which have been either settled at the doors of the court or lost.
 The highest profile one was Peter Francis who brought action against the former chief executive of walsall Council Annie Shepperd under the Disability Discrimination Act. ( Peter was treated dreadfully by AS and he got about £650k in compensation but refused £70K offered to try and stop him talking afterwards) Peter then ran a web site where he put his case which he did well . This is a man who brought over £35Million of regeneration money into Walsall, warned the council about deficiencies in their monitoring system... which came to light last year resulting in loss of reclaimable money from Europe of over a £Million)

A former police inspector employed by the council and brought a case of 'malfessence'... abuse of power by a public official .. which is an arrestable offence but dropped this and was given compensation plus a clause not to talk ;
an executive director left on pretext to pursue her studies... she had made a serious error in her handling of a contract and should have been sacked but took away a very healthy amount to avoid spilling the beans!
Another had a nervous breakdown but was given a gagging bribe again to avoid embarrassing disclosures: another who was in charge of monitoring progress of the Council , was concerned at how the figures were being manipulated, got sacked but at tribunal got a healthy sum to keep her mouth shut
The list does go on and on 
 Of course would not dream of making any direct accusations !!! A lot of above has appeared in the express and star .. from material in the public domain or requested under Freedom of Information Act requests... maybe it helped a bit by knowing where to look!



  I believe whatever party is running the show, the audit side of this council must be scrutinised in greater depth by the Audit Committee and with much more vigour!!

 I welcome any comments!
Ian

The cost to your council tax of gagging orders payments

The disclosure that over £500,000 has been spent by this Council in paying past employees to keep their mouths shut about issues around their leaving is an absolute disgrace... To gag what would have been embarrassing items showing incompetence sometimes of the Council and sometimes of the past employee seems just a way of avoiding the public knowing or asking questions.
One employee refused a payment of £70,000 so that they could talk about their treatment and try to clear their name after the tribunal....
so much for open Government!!!