Senior staff member suspended after Lyme Green committee meeting

10:50am Thursday 17th January 2013 in News By Matthew Taylor

Senior staff member suspended after Lyme Green committee meeting Senior staff member suspended after Lyme Green committee meeting

A SENIOR member of staff from Cheshire East Council has been suspended from work pending further action by the Lyme Green staffing sub-committee.

The suspension follows a meeting of the committee last week, which was set up in the wake of the council wasting £800,000 on a recycling plant near Macclesfield that they did not have planning permission for.

Sub-committee chairman, clr Howard Murray, said he wished to make it ‘crystal clear’ that the act of suspension is considered by the Council to be a neutral act intended to protect all parties.

One of the committee’s duties is to consider the recommendations made in an investigation report by a Designated Independent Person (DIP).

Councillor Murray went on to say: “I realise than many people are now demanding to have sight of the report by the DIP. I understand their interest.

“However, a report by a DIP is specifically exempt from Freedom of Information requests and there are other legal requirements that severely limit its distribution.

“I cannot say the report will never be made available, which is for others to decide, but any form of release at this time would at the least be very unhelpful and may well jeopardise the legal process we are following.”

He added: “It should by now be clear to most people that the sub-committee has been diligent, fair and effective in the handling of this task.

“If the time, effort and expense of getting to this point is not to be wasted then the sub-committee must be allowed to conclude its work – and this includes the exhaustion of any related appeals, unhindered and without distraction.”

Comments(10)

Edward Hunter says...
7:05pm Thu 17 Jan 13

The person suspended was named on the BBC North West News at lunch-time yesterday as Lisa Quinn, Director of Finance and Business Services. The Portfolio holder of Finance at the time of the Lyme Green fiasco and should have been seeing where money being spent was Michael Jones; the current leader. Why is he getting off scott free?

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Deep Throat II says...
8:50pm Thu 17 Jan 13

Totally agree Edward - why does the politician responsible for waste management resign, but the politician responsible for finance remain as council leader? Surely the buck (or 800,000 bucks) stops with him? If he didn't know that the council was spending that srt of money unlawfully, why not? Was he asleep on the job?

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Edward Hunter says...
12:21am Fri 18 Jan 13

There is a rumour going round that the Leader may not be hanging around too long as he is looking to get a Westminster seat after turning round the failing Cheshire East!

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Deep Throat II says...
6:29pm Fri 18 Jan 13

Ahhh, but is he turning it round to face the right direction though??

No doubt some Tory selection committee somewhere will see just what an adept politician he is. After all, being responsible for finance, he managed to let £800,000 slip out of his fingers into a hole in the ground in Macclesfield, at the same time he has overseen cuts to road maintenance that now need £25m to put right, cuts to buses everywhere, cuts to caring for old or disabled people, cuts to housing benefit, cuts to the terms and conditions of the lowest paid council staff but increases in pay for the highest paid. And still he manages to neatly sidestep blame for any of this!

I can see a bright future for him in Coalition government in Westminster!

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Edward Hunter says...
5:03pm Sat 19 Jan 13

Considering his company gave money to Labour in July/August 2001 as Sanderson Knight Properties ( check it out on his register of interests ) he would definitely suit coalition.

http://www.powerbase
.info/index.php/New_
Labour:_Donors

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Deep Throat II says...
1:17am Sun 20 Jan 13

I have often been puzzled when it is claimed he knows a lot about finance and that he was a merchant banker. Setting aside the obvious crude joke that it is Cockney slang, he has only ever been a recruitment consultant and then a landlord. Hardly the financial background one would need to manage the finances of a large local authority. Calls into question what else is not quite as it seems with Mr Jones.

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Edward Hunter says...
11:19am Sun 20 Jan 13

So he is responsible for hiring the people that brought and is still bringing the country to its' knees with their financial ineptitude.
A recruitment consultant is essentially paid big bucks to poach staff from one firm to go to another.
Strange why no local newspaper has looked into Cllr. Jones past financial claims or are they frightened he will sue with his supposedly mega - bucks fortune?

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Deep Throat II says...
11:27pm Sun 20 Jan 13

Commerzbank decided that they wanted to set up a proprietary trading bank in London. Rather than buy out a smaller boutique or seek to merge with or buy an existing bank, they decided to pay Varela Webbe Jones a fortune for each trader recruited. They also paid handsomely to poach entire trading desks. Mr Jones made millions from it. Disappointing to seem then, that the bank was left in such dire straits by the teams created by his effective recruitment techniques that the bank was nearly driven into the ground within 5 years, and within 7 had abandoned proprietary trading. Many other companies in the Jones / Sanderson Knight empire were launched, only to seemingly disappear by the time got around to filing accounts. And its nice to see that in terms of financial innovation, Mr Jones was ahead of the likes of Starbucks, Amazon and others by registering parent companies in Ireland, the British Virgin Islands etc. So not only does he get to keep his financial dealings secret in those jurisdictions, but avoids paying corporation and other taxes too, Just the sort of man you want "managing" the director of finance of a large local authority with a budget running into the hundreds of millions.

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chapelonthelane says...
7:09pm Wed 23 Jan 13

I am delighted that so many of you are aware of Michael Jones business activitieas which have been a source of concern to me for some time.
At a recent meeting he attended, his comments that he was a magistrate and it was his job to lock people up.........he didn't clarify if this was before or after they had been found guilty was arrogance at its very best. When someone asked him if there was something underhand going on within CEC, his reply was'absolutely not and do you know why? They aren't bright enough!' Anyone that has 16 companies dissolved against their name is not a suitable person to be leader of a council or to have any say in a buget running to millions of pounds! All this information needs to go to the national press asap instead of staying local.

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Deep Throat II says...
4:15pm Sun 27 Jan 13

I still can't understand how others have yet to see through the disguise. Still, we get the government we deserve, I suppose.

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