Transcript

Jeremy Sallis : Now - seven minutes past eight - Cambridge City Council must hold and independent inquiry into the loss of over £600,000 of online ticket sales, that’s the call from Labour councillors just a month before this year’s folk festival. They say that’s the only way the right people will be held accountable for what happened. We’ll speak to Ian Nimmo-Smith, the leader of the council in a second after first speaking to Lewis Herbert leader of the Labour group. Good Morning Lewis. Why do we need this independent inquiry to come, why do you think it should happen?

Lewis Herbert: £645,000 is 10% of the council tax each year, we think there’s still a chance the money is still around. We don’t think the council has done nearly enough to chase the money. Ian Nimmo-Smith himself promised an independent external inquiry [which hasn't happened], it could have been done cheaply, the council has had only one quote - from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, possibly the most expensive people on the planet to do such an inquiry.

Jeremy Sallis : We’ll talk more to Ian about that in a second. Why does this need to happen - we know what went wrong, the finance department’s advice wasn’t followed, the legal department wasn’t consulted. Why dig this all up again? Is it not just electioneering on your part.

Lewis Herbert: Well there’s no election Jeremey, £650,000 is missing and Mr Nimmo-Smith promised an independent inquiry. Our judgement is that we keep having internal inquiries because they don’t want to face up to what happened. The council showed itself to be inept, both at the beginning and during all this stuff about the inquiry we really should have been chasing this money. There was a creditors meeting in January and councillors still have not had a report on what happened at that. If they want to have further inquiries then the problem is they keep pre-judging it. Cllr Nimmo-Smith started pinning the blame on several members of staff before the inquiry happened. The council really does need to give a transparent, clear report to the public explaining what happened to their £645,000.

Jeremy Sallis : Let’s have a chat with Ian Nimmo-Smith, Leader of Cambridge City Council, who joins me in the studio. I’d keep those headphones on as Lewis is no-doubt going to interrupt you. Now why has there not been an independent inquiry?

Ian Nimmo-Smith : There are two issues here, one is pursuing the money, and yes it is a serious loss, and the other is making sure we understand what went wrong and ensuring the correct moves are made following that. Now you mentioned the folk festival going forward in July 2009, very soon, a month away, it was very important that we got an understanding of what had happened last time round so that when we were going through the planning for the current folk festival we could put in hand all the right lessons so that the plan for the online ticketing, and the project as a whole was done as robustly as possible.

Jeremy Sallis : Why was this all done in-house though, an not an independent inquiry giving answers to taxpayers as Lewis says needs to happen?

Ian Nimmo-Smith : It was a matter of timescales and cost. When we looked into it the kind of time scales we would have been working to and the kind of costs - tens of thousands of pounds were not going to be value for money, and the timescales were not going to put us in a position to ensure that future folk festivals, and in particular this year’s festival were going forward on a sound footing.

Jeremy Sallis : You spoke to me and accepted it was a mistake on the council’s part; but have lessons been learnt, and is the money being chased?

Ian Nimmo-Smith : Of course the money is being chased, and I don’t think Cllr Herbert is seriously proposing he is going to put together an independent possy to pursue the money. There are specialist firms at work on this at the moment, the police are aware and they are taking their own view on the matter, and we are getting further information from the liquidator of the firm that took our money.

Jeremy Sallis : Do you think an independent inquiry would achieve anything and is necessary?

Ian Nimmo-Smith : i don’t think that Cllr Herbert has identified anything which cannot be achieved by robust independent minded councillors. We have proposed a committee which would be shared between Liberal Democrat and Labour members and they have got a quite clear remit to follow up the additional elements such as why were the messages from finance and legal not being picked up on and should we have further responsibilities to act on there.

Jeremy Sallis : Where are we as far as getting the money back?

Ian Nimmo-Smith : There are some processes going on, there will be further reports. I would not want to attach any probabilities on the chance of substantial returns.

Jeremy Sallis : Lewis, are you confident the money will come back into the hands of the tax-payer?

Lewis Herbert: We can’t see any real effort. They put some lawyers onto this case and they should have put financial sleuths onto it. There is a possibility this money is still around, and if that is the case then it should have been chased. Councillors have not had a report in nearly six months, since the creditor’s meeting. I can’t see any evidence the council has made any real effort to get its money back.

Jeremy Sallis : OK, Lewis and Ian thanks for joining me this morning. That’s Ian Nimmo-Smith who is the Leader of Cambridge City Council, and Lewis Herbert, Leader of the Labour Group on Cambridge City Council ….