Limited Company Fraudulently Receiving Public Funds
Discussion
I suspect this might be a pointless and futile battle that I'm potentially embarking on as the perpetrators of this (what I consider to be fraudulent) venture appear to have quite successfully hoodwinked all the various government bodies and other organisations who are funding them.
There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
mike74 said:
I suspect this might be a pointless and futile battle that I'm potentially embarking on as the perpetrators of this (what I consider to be fraudulent) venture appear to have quite successfully hoodwinked all the various government bodies and other organisations who are funding them.
There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
Surely you should be reporting your suspicions to, the local constabulary, the charities commission, and tax authorities, for investigation. There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
Racing Newt said:
Surely you should be reporting your suspicions to, the local constabulary, the charities commission, and tax authorities, for investigation.
I very much doubt the police would consider this to be criminal fraud.The Community Group are receiving this funding quite legitimately and are quite open about how it's being spent (i.e. 90% of it being used to pay the salaries of the three employees)
The Ltd company does have a registered accountant so again as far as any tax liabilities are concerned I'm sure they're doing everything above board.
I have contacted the various funders to offer my opinion that this funding is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently but all their websites say they can't/won't divulge any investigations and findings into cases of potential fraud, as I said I doubt they even care anyway the way public money is spaffed away on pointless ventures and white elephants these days.
Like I said I think this is more of a pointless and futile rant on my part as to how three people are getting away with being renumerated for supposedly doing around 70-80 hours work per week (renumerated from public funding) when in reality I doubt they're doing even 10 hours per week between all three of them.
Even the events diary on their very slick professionally created website shows that there are only currently two organised group activities a month taking place (so two half days a month) and I'm pretty sure they don't even take place that often as I've been at the site on the days these were supposed to be occurring and there has been no sign of activity.
mike74 said:
I suspect this might be a pointless and futile battle that I'm potentially embarking on as the perpetrators of this (what I consider to be fraudulent) venture appear to have quite successfully hoodwinked all the various government bodies and other organisations who are funding them.
There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
Welcome to Britain in the 21st Century.There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
If it's a limited company, you can find out a bit on the Companies House website for free.
See who the directors are, filed accounts etc.
Maybe a local journalist might be interested?
mike74 said:
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The NLCF and the NLHF have staff whose job is Counter Fraud. the details willl be on the websitehttps://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/about/contact-...
https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/about/contact-us/f...
mike74 said:
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
If that's what they've put on their grant application then it's permissible.mike74 said:
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
That's completely fine. There doesn't need to be an open transparent selection processmike74 said:
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
It's going to be difficult to use this reason to say the Application is fraudulent. if they've said "we need 3 people to buy a paperclip" and the Grant has been approved then, as long as the paperclip is being moved they're complying with the grant conditions.mike74 said:
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
What you potentially could do is to ask the Funders to carry out a full Post Event Assurance on this particular grant, including evidence of the work that has been completed Make sure you cc the DCMS Counter Fraud team into your request. They will then do a mini-audit of the grant. these still tend to have more holes than a tetley teabag but you never know.Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
mike74 said:
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
Again, not fraudulent. Lots of Ltd Companies get grants.mike74 said:
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
The thing that the Funders will hate most is people pestering them and the risk of any negative publicity. If you get DCMS involved it will certainly get NLCF and NLHF activated. I'm not sure who the supervisory bodies of the other two orgs are.The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
Countdown said:
The thing that the Funders will hate most is people pestering them and the risk of any negative publicity. If you get DCMS involved it will certainly get NLCF and NLHF activated. I'm not sure who the supervisory bodies of the other two orgs are.
Thanks to everyone for the replies and suggestions, in particular Countdown.I have already sent detailed emails to the fraud departments of the two National Lottery funders who seem to be the two biggest contributors, as I said they state they won't divulge the details of any investigation or findings into potential fraud.
Requesting a Post Event Assurance does sound a useful way of potentially getting them to audit the ongoing use of the funding, although these type of organisations are so profligate when it comes to spaffing away public money that your "three people to buy a paperclip" analogy is probably a lot closer to reality than satire.
Who are you referring to when you mention the 'DCMS'?
I'm sure when the Community Group was first set up over 4 years ago some time and effort did go in to getting it up and running and making some improvements to the site (using contractors) by the 3 "employees"... but now with minimal use of the site by organised user groups and little to no ongoing maintenance and improvements being made to the site I completely fail to see how they can justify 3 people being paid 70-80 hours per week to run this group and manage the site.
mike74 said:
Thanks to everyone for the replies and suggestions, in particular Countdown.
I have already sent detailed emails to the fraud departments of the two National Lottery funders who seem to be the two biggest contributors, as I said they state they won't divulge the details of any investigation or findings into potential fraud.
Requesting a Post Event Assurance does sound a useful way of potentially getting them to audit the ongoing use of the funding, although these type of organisations are so profligate when it comes to spaffing away public money that your "three people to buy a paperclip" analogy is probably a lot closer to reality than satire.
Who are you referring to when you mention the 'DCMS'?
I'm sure when the Community Group was first set up over 4 years ago some time and effort did go in to getting it up and running and making some improvements to the site (using contractors) by the 3 "employees"... but now with minimal use of the site by organised user groups and little to no ongoing maintenance and improvements being made to the site I completely fail to see how they can justify 3 people being paid 70-80 hours per week to run this group and manage the site.
DCMS = Department for Digital, Culture, Media, & Sport.I have already sent detailed emails to the fraud departments of the two National Lottery funders who seem to be the two biggest contributors, as I said they state they won't divulge the details of any investigation or findings into potential fraud.
Requesting a Post Event Assurance does sound a useful way of potentially getting them to audit the ongoing use of the funding, although these type of organisations are so profligate when it comes to spaffing away public money that your "three people to buy a paperclip" analogy is probably a lot closer to reality than satire.
Who are you referring to when you mention the 'DCMS'?
I'm sure when the Community Group was first set up over 4 years ago some time and effort did go in to getting it up and running and making some improvements to the site (using contractors) by the 3 "employees"... but now with minimal use of the site by organised user groups and little to no ongoing maintenance and improvements being made to the site I completely fail to see how they can justify 3 people being paid 70-80 hours per week to run this group and manage the site.
You're correct, I'd forgotten they won't share investigation details. The Lottery Distribution Bodies tend to bend over backwards to protect grant applicants.
If they do a PEA properly then they should be checking invoices and payroll records. Again it doesn't stop any fraud but at least it makes sure they're paying tax. (Unless they've set up another company which is invoicing the Community group for "Consultancy Services")
Proving fraud will be like nailing jelly to a wall. The best thing you might be able to achieve is that this organisation is put on a watchlist and gets subject to extra scrutiny. Two other things you could do are
1. Submit FOI requests asking about how many grants have been awarded to the Community Org and ask to see the "Grant report Forms" i.e. they will have had to submit a report about what they achieved with the money. If you can prove this is false then NLCF/NLHF will have to claw back the grants.
2. Write to your MP. Nothing makes DCMS panic than an MP suggesting they've been defrauded.
Hope that helps
Countdown said:
DCMS = Department for Digital, Culture, Media, & Sport.
You're correct, I'd forgotten they won't share investigation details. The Lottery Distribution Bodies tend to bend over backwards to protect grant applicants.
If they do a PEA properly then they should be checking invoices and payroll records. Again it doesn't stop any fraud but at least it makes sure they're paying tax. (Unless they've set up another company which is invoicing the Community group for "Consultancy Services")
Proving fraud will be like nailing jelly to a wall. The best thing you might be able to achieve is that this organisation is put on a watchlist and gets subject to extra scrutiny. Two other things you could do are
1. Submit FOI requests asking about how many grants have been awarded to the Community Org and ask to see the "Grant report Forms" i.e. they will have had to submit a report about what they achieved with the money. If you can prove this is false then NLCF/NLHF will have to claw back the grants.
2. Write to your MP. Nothing makes DCMS panic than an MP suggesting they've been defrauded.
Hope that helps
FOI was something I'd considered, I know for sure there are definitely 3 paid employees... a supposedly full time ''Site Manager'' (him) and a supposedly part time ''Education and Events Officer'' (her) and an ''Admin Assistant'' (their mate)You're correct, I'd forgotten they won't share investigation details. The Lottery Distribution Bodies tend to bend over backwards to protect grant applicants.
If they do a PEA properly then they should be checking invoices and payroll records. Again it doesn't stop any fraud but at least it makes sure they're paying tax. (Unless they've set up another company which is invoicing the Community group for "Consultancy Services")
Proving fraud will be like nailing jelly to a wall. The best thing you might be able to achieve is that this organisation is put on a watchlist and gets subject to extra scrutiny. Two other things you could do are
1. Submit FOI requests asking about how many grants have been awarded to the Community Org and ask to see the "Grant report Forms" i.e. they will have had to submit a report about what they achieved with the money. If you can prove this is false then NLCF/NLHF will have to claw back the grants.
2. Write to your MP. Nothing makes DCMS panic than an MP suggesting they've been defrauded.
Hope that helps
It would be useful to try and gain further information on just exactly what hours, what duties, and what remuneration are involved with these three positions.
I'm guessing an FOI request would need to be aimed at the funders rather than the Community Group themselves?.. As being a private Ltd Company they are under no obligation to comply with an FOI.
mike74 said:
I'm guessing an FOI request would need to be aimed at the funders rather than the Community Group themselves?.. As being a private Ltd Company they are under no obligation to comply with an FOI.
Correct.Basically you should try a two pronged approach; the first one direct to their Counter Fraud team and the second via their FOI team 9which will be part of their Legal or Governance dept). The people dealing with the FOI will then also raise it with the Grants team. If you tell DCMS they will also be asking the team that awarded the grant to look into it and make sure it's legit.
There is some legal rules surrounding FOIs so it's much harder to NLCF/NLHF to dismiss it out of hand or to ignore it..
In short, the more of a fuss you kick up (by different channels) the more likely it is that somebody will take a closer look at the Organisation and start asking them awkward questions.
mike74 said:
I suspect this might be a pointless and futile battle that I'm potentially embarking on as the perpetrators of this (what I consider to be fraudulent) venture appear to have quite successfully hoodwinked all the various government bodies and other organisations who are funding them.
There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
Just out of interest, if a large percentage is going towards salaries, where is the rest going? There's a "Community Group" in my local area which was set up in 2017, they are entirely funded by public money.
When they were first set up I assumed they'd get perhaps £5k-£10k for a few new signs, equipment etc, but how wrong was I... they're in receipt of ongoing funding to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds at a time!
The funders are mostly the National Lottery Communities Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Welsh Govt Communities Funding Scheme and the Sustainable Development Fund.
The large majority of this funding is going towards paying the salaries of 3 "employees" who run this group.
These 3 "employees" just happen to be the husband and wife who applied for this community group funding in the first place and a mate of theirs... there was no open and transparent selection process for appointing candidates to fill these 3 positions at the time the group was created.
I'm very familiar with the site where this Community Group is based (it's publicly accessible and I walk there every day) and I'm also qualified and experienced in the nature of the work involved in running just such a site... and in no way does it justify or require 3 employees, one supposedly full time and two supposedly part time.
One person working perhaps 20 hours per week at the very most would easily be enough to manage a site and project of this size and scale both in terms of practical work maintaining the site and admin work organising user groups, partner groups, contractors etc
Of the 3 employees who supposedly work for this group none of them even do any practical work on site, it's done by either volunteer groups or contracted out to other public or private bodies (who probably also do this contract work for free because they've also been hoodwinked into believing this is a "Community Group")
I'd assumed this Community Group was set up as some kind of charity or Trust but I've recently discovered they're actually a Limited Company complete with a number of directors.
I can only assume these directors are either mates of the three "employees" or just typical well meaning but niave and gullible do gooders because they certainly don't seem willing or capable of carrying out the typical roles and responsibilities of a company director in terms of ensuring the company is being ran in an efficient and effective manner.
Other than contacting the various funders to express my opinion that the money provided is being used extremely inefficiently if not actually fraudulently is there any more I can do?
The way public money is spaffed around these days I doubt any of the funders will even care whether their money is being used wastefully or fraudulently.
codenamecueball said:
Just out of interest, if a large percentage is going towards salaries, where is the rest going?
They have made some improvements to the site in the 5 years the Community Group has been in existence (all work carried out by contractors) the cost of this work probably adds up to no more than 10-20% of the total funding they've been granted in that time period.But the work to organise and carry out these improvements in no way requires 3 people working 70-80 hours per week for 5 years to facilitate said work.... As I said, Countdown's analogy of 3 people to purchase a paperclip really is closer to reality than satire.
I wish I could give more details of the type and level of work and activities that have taken place at the site just to illustrate what an utter piss take the whole thing is but it would probably be rather outing.
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