Councillor Martin Heatley to face heat over expenses

On Monday the 7th December a Warwickshire County Council Standards sub committee meeting will take place. It is expect to discuss my formal complaint about apparently excessive travel expenses made by the last environment portfolio holder, Councillor Martin Heatley. I consider it as vital that this meeting is well publicised and that all the evidence is presented in open session.

I have been told that I cannot reveal what the investigation found out until it is disclosed at the meeting. First the meeting will discuss if any evidence needs to be kept secret. The basic complaint had been based on facts obtained using the freedom of information act. I have also obtained details of expenses claimed using the Audit Commission act. I can legally put that the information on the Internet and cannot see any need for holding the main part of meeting in private.

I can disclose that I complained based on the councillors £8,672 of travel & Substance allowances claimed in 2008/9. Mt First information request was for travel expenses on a couple of selected dates. It seemed councillor had been claiming first class train travel above what was allowed. He also seemed to claim for far greater mileages than I expected. I followed this up with a more extensive request and used my rights under the audit commission act to get a full copy of his mileage claims for 2008/9.

The councillor makes around 200 return trips at the council taxpayers expense. In my view almost all of them are for excessive distance or first class rail travel in excess of that permitted. The most remarkable claims include

Every trip from is farm to Shire Hall is 52 miles round trip.
Every trip from is farm to Nuneaton is 10 miles round trip
16 May 2008 - Bermuda village 20 miles round trip
12th August 2008 – Coventry 40 miles round trip
15th September 2008 – Water Orton – 60 miles round trip
15th Jan 09 – George Eliot Hospital – 10 miles round trip

If effect Councillor Heatley steels a few extra pounds from the taxpayer every time he goes to a meeting. This is worrying as the councillor is in charge of the resources department at the county council that manages the council’s wealth.

It is vital that the standards committee meet in public given the background. The councillor has many powerful connections and manages a massive budget at the county council. The validity of his travel claims needs explaining in public, so that the public an judge if he is fit to govern a major department of our county council.”

My investigation also show many councillors claim very little in travel expenses and it is sad that one councillor seems to have let them down so badly. I am very keen that travel expense system does not encourage excessive mileage and will fight plans to introduce a mileage rate of around 82p/mi.le at Nuneaton & Bedworth borough Council.

His farm is 16 miles from Shire Hall, 2.5 miles from Nuneaton and just the other side of the A444 from Bermuda village

The link shows the mileage claims for 2008/9

http://www.greennuneaton.org.uk/ngp/heatley/heatley_expenses.pdf

The meeting is at 9:30AM at Shire Hall in Warwick

agenda

Mileage expenses madness - 82p/mile for Nuneaton Council

Staff at Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council are having their pay and expenses reviewed as part of the single status programme. As part of the changes some staff lose an essential car user allowance but all staff will have their car mileage rate increased. What was not disclosed on the documents was the new rate, which it seems will be around 82p/mile at current diesel prices.

My comment for the press is:-

“To pay such an extreme mileage allowance to staff is not good for the council, the environment or the council taxpayer. It does not even do anything useful for the majority of staff who drive very little on council business. We need to spend the money smarter so that the quarter of a million pounds reduces staff mileage. It should also enable those who have to drive to use more economic cars.”

I attended the cabinet meeting at which I explained the proposed change and told them it would be unreasonable to pay more then the Inland Revenue rate of 40p/mile. This is also generally the rate paid by the more generous firms in industry. I proposed some of the money saved could be put helping staff when they need to replace cars to by ones that are greener and cheaper to run. I also proposed they had a few small pool cars to help those staff who only occasionally need use car for council work.

New 82p a mile staff travel allowance is an outrageously bad way to spend £242,000 of our money each year. It encourages staff to drive as much as possible. Paying a still generous 40p/mile would release around £124,000 per year.

It was shocking that the cabinet were unaware of the proposed rate as the papers to the cabinet gave no details for the proposal. They were told by the officers the rate would be 76p/mile and taken from the AA tables for a new Diesel car valued up to £16,000 driven 5,000 miles per year. This rate currently 81.88p per mile and is a stupid choice for what it costs our council staff. It is more typical for staff to have cheaper cars which do far more miles per year. The range age of the staffs cars is also far older than the AA survey which studied the cost of running a brand new car for 4 years.

http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/advice/advice_rcosts_diesel_table.jsp

New Recycling table out

The 2008/9 recycling rates have just been published by DEFRA. Overall we had a 4% drop in waste last year.

Nuneaton is working up the table but still needs to do better. Coventry is one of the worst in the country and behind every other council in the Wast Midlands region.

The case for a bigger incinerator in Coventry should now be dead.