Medway Renaissance bites back

It would seem the organisational assassination caused by Cllr Alan Jarrett chucking the abacus out of the proverbial pram at the last budget meeting has received a response from the organisation which he so lambasted.

Brian Weddell, who so 'incapably' ran the Medway Renaissance for a whole six years, without any slur or indignation I might add, has written to challenge the badly timed attack to Medway Renaissance and by default his reputation as a manager of people

You may remember at the time this blog challenged the political stupidity of highlighting such fiscal incompetence at the same time as you are trying to present yourself as a good steward of tax-payers money.

Challenging the Tory accusation head on, Brian stated;

"It is worth noting that the team was disbanded in March 2011. It seems odd that questions over the building programme have come to light one year later as the accounts should have been settled by the end of the Summer 2011"

Councillor's are required to maintain the highest standards in office. This attack on an organisation, which by association was managed by staff who have professional reputations in industry and public service, may warrant a referral to the Standards Board.

Alan Jarrett's speech to the chamber inferred he was misled on multi-million pound projects by officers and staff at Medway Renaissance; clearly this position is under dispute from previous staff members of the organisation so attacked.

Given the sums of money involved we do need to understand where the problem lies; for if it does lie in the Council, which I suspect it does, we will need to review our financial control and those Councillor's responsible for it, to ensure it does not happen on future projects

The letter is also damning because by implication it states that Cllr Jarrett may have given a false justification for his multi-million pound budget in late February, which as this blog stated at the time, not only failed to challenge the £5.9m of outstanding Council tax but also failed to justify the brutal cuts to front line services.