Dear Mr Hughes,
I have read with interest the correspondence between yourself and Andrew Dismore regarding the Barnet Council Metpro Scandal. I am the author of the Barnet Eye blog, which along with other local blogs, brought the scandal to public attention. I have three questions for you regarding the scandal.
1) At the meeting of the Barnet Council Audit committee, where the report was debated, the chair of the Barnet Council Audit committee publicly stated that the Audit department in Barnet is understaffed. He stated that for an authority with a turnover of approx £1 billion, there were three full time staff + 1.5 contract resources and this was insufficient. It seems incongruous that as District Auditor, you can ignore this comment?
2) Of 9,700 vendors supplying Barnet Council, the audit committee stated that only 183 are regularly monitored. Previously only 10 were. In yur professional opinion as an auditor, is this appropriate?
3) The remit of the Barnet Council Audit report into the Metpro scandal, only addressed issues relating to Metpro. In your professional opinion, is it likely that having exposed such a catalog of failure for this one company, is it likely that there are other, possibly worse cases lurking undetected?
I would be most appreciative of a prompt response. As the government minister responsible, Eric Pickles, this week publicly declared that Barnet had serious problems, only exposed by the efforts of bloggers, I'd suggest that the best way to restore public confidence is a thorough investigation of Barnet Council by your office.
Regards
Roger Tichborne - http://barneteye.blogspot.com/
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