Dragon Interview: Council Leader on the Latest HRA Report

Published on: 23 Jan, 2025
Updated on: 23 Jan, 2025

Cllr Julia McShane

The multi-million pound overspend on housing maintenance contracts would be bad enough if fraud was not suspected as well.

Even now, nearly 18 months after staff members were suspended and sacked and investigations launched, GBC cannot even estimate of how much of the £24.2 million might have been used to pay irregular invoices raised for work that was unnecessary or had not been completed.

The Heminsley investigation report, makes little mention of the role of any councillors in the debacle but The Dragon editor asks the council leader about her involvement and how responsible she feels for what happened…

In the interview, it is mentioned that the report says that Cllr McShane was told of the 2022 whistleblowing. The report says: “We have not seen evidence that the 2022 Whistleblow was raised to members [ie councillors] as a material issue. Witnesses told us that it would have been mentioned in 1-1s [ie 1-1 meetings], and Cllr Mcshane recalled only being given high-level details, by the joint Strategic Director, Community and Wellbeing (Annie Righton) that there had been an issue being looked at but nothing more.”

Cllr McShane commented after the interview that she did not recall the term “Whistleblowing” being mentioned to her in any such meeting.