Manchester Council fees rip off

 Taken from: rainy city rip off: (and well done to the persistent devil)

Manchester Licensing Accounts

Some of you are aware I have been looking at the Accounts of the Licensing unit. I have found, what I believe to be a large amount of money missing from those accounts.

I have written to the Chief executives office expressing my concerns. The letter I receive back was far from satisfactory. I have had my figures looked at by another organisation, National Private Hire Association. They agree my figures show a huge discrepancy. They also point to their formula, which they call the 250 test, which whilst simple, is brilliant. You take the gross number of vehicles, Hackney and PH, add them together, in Manchester's case that comes to 3640 vehicles. you now divide this by 250. This is the amount of working days in a calender year
This returns a figure of 14.56

Manchester Council have to administer less than 15 cabs per day. Manchester councils declared cost to do this administration is £1,750,329.00. You now divide that by 250 (days worked) and it returns a figure of £7001.
Manchester Council charge us a total of £7001 a day to administer 14.56 cabs a day. Not a bad job by any standards, I would do it I bet you would as well

This is obviously taking the P*ss, you might think,but I believe another £714,963.00 is missing from the accounts, over the last two years.

I do not want to be labelled a trouble maker, although I probably already am, but I must take this further. I am meeting advisor's later this week and I believe the next step will be to place this before the Local Government Ombudsman.

The question is, how long is it since these figures were looked at in Stockport? With our "dear leaders" looking to pat themselves on the back more and more, and set themselves up on bigger and better committees such as TfGM (Transport  for Greater Manchester) these people need more scrutiny over the money they collect and spend.

Salford licensing in £100k fraud investigation

A police officer and two town hall workers have been arrested in connection with a £100,000 fraud investigation.
The probe centres on the licensing department at Salford council.
One worker Jane Nugent, was arrested on suspicion of fraud at her home in Swinton.
Miss Nugent was principal licensing officer for the city until she took voluntary redundancy from her £30,000 post in January. She had worked in the department for several years.
Her boyfriend, Bury-based PC Graham Fox, has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and placed on restricted duties by Greater Manchester Police.
The probe into Miss Nugent relates to an alleged fraud of more than £100,000 involving credit and cash transfers over a number of years.
Another council worker Gareth Robinson, from Radcliffe, a support assistant in the licensing department, was also arrested in a separate investigation. Mr Robinson was arrested on suspicion of fraud and has been suspended by the council.
It is understood the investigation into Mr Robinson centres on alleged misuse of a credit card amounting to about £7,000.
The licensing department is responsible for issuing licences for taxis, street traders, pubs, and dealing with fixed penalty notices.
Councillor Ray Mashiter, lead member for environment, said: "During one of our regular accounting reviews we uncovered some financial irregularities. As a result we contacted the police and our internal audit team has been supporting their investigation into this matter.
"As this is an ongoing investigation it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage."
In a statement Greater Manchester Police said: "A 43-year-old woman and 25-year-old man have been arrested by detectives investigating the theft of cash from licensing services at Salford council.
"Both have been arrested on suspicion of fraud and the man has additionally been arrested on suspicion of burglary.
"A 48-year-old man, a serving GMP officer, was also arrested on suspicion of money laundering as part of the investigation.
"He has been placed on restricted duties and the matter has been referred to the IPCC."
All three have been bailed pending further inquiries until August.

OUR VIEW: All of Greater Manchester Councils should carry out an immediate audit of their own licensing units, many have not produced detailed and understandable accounts for years!!