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Ken's Euro manager is axed
By Colin Freeman, Evening Standard Last updated at 00:00am on 14.10.02It is supposed to be Ken Livingstone's embassy in Europe, spearheading his campaign to keep London as its foremost city. Today, however, his new office at the heart of power in Brussels stands accused of financial irregularities and incompetence.
An auditor's investigation into "London House, Brussels" has accused the Mayor's staff of adopting some of the worst habits of EU bureaucrats in the way they have run their office in its first year.
Among the more remarkable disclosures are that the premises were burgled twice in one month, with a briefcase containing receipts of expenses among the items stolen.
Despite concern among London Assembly members about the mysterious nature of the break-ins, Mr Livingstone's office said there was no suggestion of any staff involvement.
A spokeswoman for the Mayor said: "Whilst there were some initial problems with the Brussels office, action has been taken to provide an adequate control environment."
Later, however, his office said that as a result of the auditor's investigation a manager had been dismissed.
Other criticisms raised by the auditor include staff paying a security guard in beer for working overtime, and keeping lax controls on the petty cash fund.
The report, seen by the Evening Standard, was carried out by the Greater London Authority's internal auditors. It will raise yet further controversy over the Mayor's decision to set up an office in Europe in the first place.
While its stated aim is to represent London's interests in Europe, critics have claimed that it amounts to little more than an expensive vanity mission by Mr Livingstone to push his case for monetary union. The report will be considered today at a public meeting of the London Assembly's audit panel. Its chairman, Conservative assembly member Andrew Pelling, said: "We will have to judge whether this office should be allowed to carry on at all."
He added that he would be demanding further answers about the circumstances of the burglaries today.
The auditors visited London House in April, reviewing the finances of its first five months in operation. Assembly members had already expressed concern about its spiralling set-up costs, which had provisionally been scheduled at £100,000 but ended up as £415,000. Its head of office, Anne Harradine, is paid around £50,000. Among the report's findings were:
* Receipts were not always kept for payments on two staff debit cards, including £100 for a visitors' book
* Wages to temporary staff were sometimes left off the official payroll, including a "gift of beer" to the building's security guard
* Staff would dip into petty cash for personal expenses, and the theft of the briefcase containing petty cash receipts made it impossible to assess whether the money was paid back
* The building was uninsurable because it had no alarm system.
