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Serving GLA officials and Ken Livingstone's former race adviser, Lee Jasper, are today condemned in an official report by the district auditor into the City Hall scandal.
In the report, published today, the auditor, Mike Haworth-Maden, finds that Mr Jasper's behaviour in channelling grants to organisations run by friends and business associates was “inappropriate” and that “the standards expected” of a GLA officer “were not followed”.
The report focuses on four projects, the 1990 Trust, the Black Londoners' Forum, Afroice and the National Assembly Against Racism, which received a total of £730,000 of taxpayers' money. Mr Jasper resigned in March last year after the Standard revealed that he had channelled £100,000 to the 1990 Trust while having an apparently close relationship with Karen Chouhan, who was its company secretary.
Leaked emails between Mr Jasper and Ms Chouhan, whom he addressed as “darling”, stated he wanted to “honey-glaze” her, “whisk [her] away to a deserted island beach”, and “let [her] cook slowly before a torrid and passionate embrace”.
Mr Jasper failed to declare his friendship with Ms Chouhan, as GLA rules require, before recommending that her organisation be funded.
Mr Haworth-Maden finds that City Hall “could not demonstrate that [it] had achieved value for money” from the funding of any of the organisations and reports there was no “documentary consideration” of whether value could be achieved.
He finds that the 1990 Trust was given its grant “without having gone through the required competitive procurement process set out in the [GLA's] contracts code of practice” and there was “no documentation” to explain why this had been done.
He finds that audit trails were “incomplete” and monitoring was “not sufficiently robust”. He says Mr Jasper had a “conflict of interest” that was not declared, as the rules required.
The auditor finds gaps in the GLA's records, saying that City Hall could not even “locate its copy of the funding agreement with the 1990 Trust and had to obtain a copy from the organisation”. He says that the GLA “has been unable to locate any documentation to demonstrate the proper monitoring required by the funding agreement”.
On the National Assembly Against Racism, which received £230,000 while Mr Jasper was its secretary, Mr Haworth-Maden finds that “a proper and timely declaration [of interest by Mr Jasper] was not made”.
He is critical of a “fact-finding exercise” into the scandal conducted by the GLA's director of finance and performance, Martin Clarke, which found no wrongdoing. The auditor says the fact-finding exercise showed “weaknesses... in particular with regard to the conclusions reached”. The auditor condemns the GLA's governance arrangements as “not as they should have been.”
Mr Haworth-Maden finds no evidence of corruption in the grants to the four organisations his report covers. However, police investigations into six other organisations exposed by the Standard are continuing and four arrests have been made.
The Standard's investigations identified 13 organisations run by associates of Mr Jasper that had received a total of £3.5 million but had delivered little or nothing in return.
Mr Jasper was unavailable for comment today.
Reader views (9)
Why is it that some people seem to be able to get away with practically murder and normal citizens are locked up? Millions of pounds have disappeared from London's taxpayers and nothing is done to the people concerned except to maybe say they had "conflicts of interest" and maybe had taken actions that were "inappropriate", but perhaps not dishonest? Can someone please let me know what the difference is?
- Jonathan Montmorency, cooden, uk
@Val Daniels, Mijas Costa, Spain
I think Kimberly is pulling somebody's leg.
- Prj45, London
Faye, you obviously don't understand the political system. The electorate don't select a prime minister that's the political party's job for better or worse.
There have been plenty of other PMs that were not "voted in" as you call it e.g Jim Callaghan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, John Major's first term.
- Peter, Sheffield
What a pity Londoners didn't kick the odious Livingstone right out of town instead of just out of office and then we wouldn't have to continue hearing his sickening nasal whinging.
- R.F., Yorks, UK
#Kimberley, London
Where have you been for the last month? Do the names Brian Coleman and Ian Clement ring any bells, and this is in the first year.
- Val Daniels, Mijas Costa, Spain
I am so relieved Boris is our wonderful Mayor now and has cleaned up City Hall after the disaster that was Ken. Nothing like this would ever happen now.
- Kimberley, London
And let us not forget who was London's Mayor when this was going on - politically correct Red Ken Livingstone. Livingstone spends all his time thess days nitpicking Boris Johnson's performance as mayor, using every opportunity to denigrate him. HIs pitiful nasal whining on LBC is nothing but total negativism born out of a resentment that Londoners kicked him out of office. The only pity is it didn't happen years ago. Think how much Londoners could have saved!
- Des Hatton, Reading
Yet more sleaze and corruption. Don't think it ends with the GLA...There's plenty of the same thing happening at local councils levels.
Read "Rotten Boroughs".
- Mark H, London England
What? A corrupt British politician? Whatever next!?! A PM that wasn't voted in? Surely not.
- Faye Collins, London
