Monday 13 July 2015

Sandwell's Shafting of Sport England - Part 2

In my earlier blog, "McVittie Takes the Biscuit", I set out how the comrades at Sandwell Council managed to shaft Sports England for £152,800 of which £105,000 was earmarked to pay Mr Richard McVittie £35,000 a year for three years. Mr McVittie is the partner of Richard Jones, the son of Cllrs Olwen and Ian Jones and brother of Cllr Stephen Jones. Richard Jones seems to be already receiving remuneration via Cllr Olwen Jones's and Cllr Elaine Costigan's social fiefdom, the highly secretive alleged community organisation "Wednesbury Celebrates" [sic].

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/mcvittie-takes-biscuit.html

Since the publication of my last blog neither Cllrs Olwen nor Elaine have sent me a copy of the Wednesbury Celebrates accounts. They are receiving public funds for their "activities" but are seemingly reluctant to make any figures, er,  public.

Readers to my earlier blog will know that Sports England failed to send me the supporting documents for the "Sport Wednesbury" application but they have now done so. I won't burden you with them all in detail but will provide you with a handy summary!

Although this grant application was allegedly in the name of the "independent" Wednesbury Celebrates it was actually prepared at taxpayers' expense by Sandwell Council. The free-spending comrades went into great detail about the role of the "Sports Activator" and set out a detailed job description although they conveniently forgot to mention the "family relationship" of the person they intended to appoint to Sport England.

They then attached no less that FOUR letters of support form, er, themselves - Sandwell Council! Firstly there was one from John Middleton, the Director of Public Health. Secondly, there was one from sports-mad Cabinet member, "The Cipher" Paul Moore. Then the third one was Hussain's old mate, Adrian Scarrott - the "Director of Neighbourhoods", no less. And fourthly, Gemma Ryan chipped in - the "Assistant PE and Sports Strategy Manager" for her Labour masters.

Just in case, Sport England had not got the message, Labour wheeled out its big gun - or at least water-pistol - in no less a person than Adrian "Invisible Man" Bailey MP!

There were TWO letters of support from Wednesbury Water Polo Club. The first was signed by one Karen JONES (any relation anyone?) and the second was signed by the great man himself  Cllr "Peeping Ian*" Jones even though his extended family was directly going to benefit with Mr McVittie scoring £35K a year!

Correction  14/07/15 - the letter from "Karen Jones" was from the Midland Water Polo League. The Committee "President" of the League is a certain Mr Ian Jones......

Addendum 16/07/15 - I am informed that the said Karen Jones is indeed the daughter of Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones and sister of Richard Jones. I wrote to Cllr Ian Jones asking to confirm this but he has declined to respond so far

Just to keep things in the family, Richard Jones is shown on Sport Wednesbury documentation as the "coach" for the Water Polo sessions for which I assume he is also remunerated.

And there is more, since Wednesbury Celebrates also wrote to Sport England with the letter being signed by one "Cllr Olwen Jones" although she too failed to mention that her extended family were directly going to benefit from the grant.

"The Black Country Consortium" (whoever the f*ck they are) then chipped in to help the sleazy socialists and perhaps Sport England might have questioned why their letter of support was addressed to one "Richard Jones, Sports Wednesbury". Yes, of course - that is the same Richard Jones who is the son of Olwen and Ian and partner or, er Richard McVittie who was to be paid so handsomely from the bulk of the grant monies.

Addendum 16/07/15 - Although Sandwell Council staff wrote the bid at taxpayers' expense Richard Jones also solicited and obtained help and advice from Mr Simon Hall of the Black Country Consortium who has kindly confirmed that neither he nor the organisation were informed of the identity of the "activator" at that stage. He did confirm, however, that he himself used to work for Sport England......

And then Sports England didn't notice the Sport Wednesbury Activator Partnership Agreement (prepared at public expense?) where the partner "Sandwell Sports Council" was represented by its Chair - Cllr Ian Jones (yes, you know the family tree and the McVittie link again).

Then to cap it all, even Wednesbury Rugby Club chucked a letter in - signed by Labour Councillor Peter Hughes!

Still you might say, the highly-experienced Mr McVittie was nominated for one award and WON another at the mutual masturbation session that is Wednesbury Community Awards Night and so he must have been doing a grand job getting the Wednesbury lard arses to go and play rounders with Costigan etc. (Such a shame that there was another outbreak of "Turdy's Disease" in the Borough and these morons could not even spell the name right on the wonderful certificates!)


But hang on a minute? By some strange magic Mr £35k per annum McVittie has suddenly managed to submit the belated "first six months monitoring report" to Sport England after saying he has had difficulties completing it! His apologia is set out below but to save you the trouble the project has been, like most things in the socialist paradise, sh*t so far and £35k a year McVittie is whining about "lack of support" etc etc. I am crying in my beer as I write. He even moans about lack of facilities even when various bodies allegedly offered free space as part of the ramped-up "bid" that Sport England fell for.

About the only success story is an event run by The Albion Foundation (see blogs passim) into which Sandwell Council is already paying huge sums whilst the last accounts show that the wealthy WBAFC paid in a nice round figure ie ZERO! At least this time Labour are (mostly) shafting the lottery fund rather than the taxpayer!

Sport England say they will be closely monitoring this project - let us hope so as Sandwell and Wednesbury Labour have had their pants down already!




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* If you want to know more ask Sandwell Council about it spying on its own staff.....

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