Wednesday, 3 March 2010

Brian Coleman and the free dinner conundrum

Tell me what you think. If you are the chairman of London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), how many times can a single supplier take you out to dinner before someone starts to say "That's rather a lot of free dinners and that's rather a lot of money being spent". I'm not at all sure that Public servants should be taken out at all, if they are in the position to make decisions. I can see that if a huge project has been successfully completed, that maybe a supplier may lay on a party for all concerned. This is rather different to what looks like rather cosy swanky dinners.

I was looking at Brian Colemans entries on the LFEPA gift and hopsitality register and I noticed the following entries.

14/01/2010 - Dinner at Green's Restaurant, 36 Duke Street, London SW1 - John Shannon, AssetCo
28/04/2009  - Dinner at Shepherds - estimated value £50 - Mr John Shannon, Asset Co
19/01/2009 -  Dinner at Shepherds - estimated value £40 - John Shannon
24/12/2008 - Harvey Nichols Hamper - estimated value £350 - John Shannon, Asset Co
23/07/2008 -  Dinner at Shepherds, Marsham Street, SW1 - estimated value £50 - Mr John Shannon

By my estimate that's over £500 worth of hospitality and gifts lavished on Brian Coleman in just over 18 months, by Assetco - a Leading supplier of emergency systems. Now there are two things which stand out. Firstly that is a huge amount of money. Secondly, I couldn't see another member of the authority who received any hospitality from this company. If the dinners were purely to discuss the latest innovations in integrated services for fire authorities, why was Coleman the only member present?

I'm sure all of this is perfectly innocent, but do we really want public servants, who are in charge of authorities with such huge budgets, to receive such lavish amounts of hospitality? I most certainlty don't. I wonder if Boris Johnson approves. After all, he appointed Coleman.

2 comments:

  1. Brian Coleman aka Mr Toad has GOT to go4 March 2010 at 10:50

    It is perhaps less of a conundrum than you might think Rog.

    This is what assetco do:
    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23719616-9m-for-700-reserve-strike-busting-firefighters.do

    Here's The Tory Troll on the subject

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rog T4 March 2010 at 12:12

    Yes, I had seen that, as I'm rather fond of the Tory Troll blog. It just seemed that as the gifts and hospitality have now exceeded £500, a revisit of the issues was well overdue.

    There are many mysteries and conundrums contained in the various Brian Coleman free dinner registers. I really must get up to the Town Hall and see what is in the Barnet version

    ReplyDelete

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