|
|
 |
| |
‘Wall of silence over skip scam’
Report over flat clearances to be kept secret
A TOWN Hall report investigating alleged theft, corruption and negligence by council workers providing services for the elderly and vulnerable will be kept secret, borough officials said yesterday.
Senior politicians demanded a report from the housing and adult social care department in February after a six-week New Journal investigation revealed that antiques cleared from the flat of a dying 92-year-old woman by council staff were on sale in a nearby antique shop days later.
The report is expected to question the ability of one the council’s highest profile departments to protect residents and especially the elderly from chronic abuse and exploitation – but will never be seen by the public, an official said for the first time after the report was completed yesterday.
When Dorothy Robinson’s Gospel Oak flat was cleared as she lay ill in a nursing home in January, officials said her possessions “had no value” and had been “disposed of in a skip”.
But neighbours later found a distinctive Victorian step commode – last seen in her flat – in a shop in York Way.
And former council workers have since told the New Journal that the clearance of was part of a long-running scam through which council staff made up to £1,500 per week from the property of council tenants who died, fell ill or disappeared.
The council had surrendered Mrs Robinson’s Parliament Hill Mansions’ tenancy on her behalf after assuming control of her financial affairs and declaring that she had no next of kin – despite the fact that her niece lived in Camden and her grandson, Jonathan Pendrill, met her at Christmas, two weeks before her flat was cleared.
Mrs Robinson died in a Cricklewood nursing home ten days after the flat clearance.
Although council officials initially claimed that an inventory of all Mrs Robinson’s valuable items had been made in accordance with council procedures, when the New Journal asked to see it they admitted that it did not exist.
Council officials then said that clearance staff handed in valuable items found in council properties as a safeguard against corruption – and that none had been declared at Mrs Robinson’s flat.
But when the New Journal asked how many valuable items had been handed in from the 1,200 properties cleared last year by council staff, including those from the homes of elderly tenants who died unexpectedly, a week-long search of council records produced a list comprising a dog, a goldfish, and a hearing aid.
Although the “review of procedures and protocols” was handed to councillors yesterday, press officials said no-one from the housing or social care departments would discuss it and the report was not for the public.
Cllr Martin Davies, the Conservative boss of Adult Social Care, and Cllr Chris Naylor, the Lib Dem housing chief, who jointly ordered the review, would not answer calls or return messages.
A council press official said yesterday: “We cannot discuss any active investigation by internal audit for operational reasons.”
Press officials had promised briefings on this over the past four weeks athough none has yet occurred. |
 |
|
|
|
