Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Temperature's rising in London ... and across the country.

There are rumblings and mumblings in other parts of the country and a number of criminal complaints actively being investigated. It is also understood that complaints have also been made against Government officials and the IPCC are involved in one due to the fact that an allegation was not investigated.

Police drop Westminster Council parking fraud inquiry
BBC News
Westminster had denied wrongdoing
Police have dropped an investigation into allegations of fraud at Westminster Council's parking unit.

The case concerned the awarding of a multi-million pound parking enforcement contract to private firm NSL Services that campaigners said was "improper".
But a Met spokesman said: "The information provided was investigated and no criminal offence was disclosed."
Group No To Bike Parking Fees (NTBPF), which made the claim, said police had not fully examined the evidence.

European Union law says contracts worth more than £156,442 must be opened to tender to any interested company and advertised in the EU's official journal.

The investigation could have been a lot more thorough. We had four people working on this case - and none of us were contacted at any stage
Warren Djanogly, No To Bike Parking Fees

Westminster's parking contract is worth about £13m-a-year and was previously being carried out by private parking firm NCP.
But in 2007 NCP was sold and broken up into smaller companies with the new firm, NSL Services created.

NTBPF alleged that at that point the contract was given directly to the new company without going through proper tendering processes.
The group has been examining Westminster Council since the authority began charging motorcyclists to park in central London.

But in an email to Westminster's chief executive Mike More, a Scotland Yard officer wrote: "Having examined the documents that the allegation has been based upon I am satisfied no criminal offences have been committed."

'Unanswered questions'
Mr More said: "From the outset we stated that we were confident this contract had been properly let by our officers and these claims were totally unfounded.
"We are pleased that police have concluded their investigation and have cleared our staff of any wrongdoing."


But Warren Djanogly, of NTBPF, said he had been told earlier this month that the case was to be passed to the Serious Fraud Office.
Mr Djanogly said: "Unfortunately it seems the investigation could have been a lot more thorough.
"We had four people working on this case - and none of us were contacted at any stage. There are still many unanswered questions."

Blog Archive


only search Neil Herron Blog