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Monday 5 December 2011

Mr £410,000 CHELSEA CARE .....STEVEN FORBES EXPOSED


The Dame shines a light....thanks to an 'insider'
 
Some time ago the Dame posed the vital question “why was consultant Steven Forbes paid £410,000 by the Council over a four year period?”. The Dame’s assiduous researcher/walker disgraced ex Mayor 'Bazza' Phelps can now reveal all.
Some five years ago it became evident, with people living longer and wishing to stay in their own homes, that the Council would become responsible for obtaining decent home care services for older and disabled residents. A senior officer was duly hired to do the job. Sadly, she proved unequal to the task and chaos reigned. Enter the Forbes Hewlett consultancy. 

 Left: Half a million £ man Forbes

Although Steven Forbes was not appointed as a member of staff, he was given the title of “Director” within the Health, Housing and Adult Social Care business group. His role was to sort out the problems within the Home Care service. It was also at this stage that the concept of Chelsea Care was revived.
As “commissioner and purchaser” [i.e. identifying residents’ needs and then finding companies able to meet them], Steven Forbes’s role was to “commission” home care services, including from Chelsea Care. So for the 15 months when Chelsea Care was dysfunctional, he was the person at the Council overseeing this shambles while at the same time failing to organise the Council’s internal home care commissioning structure. 
So a senior officer from a different Council business group was parachuted in for a couple of months. He sorted out the mess and then returned to his day job. 

Residents, however, were now paying not ONE , not TWO, but THREE people to do this ONE job – justified on the grounds that all Executive Directors have a budget for consultancy advice as and when they feel it is needed.
But the problem did not end there. With growing realisation of the fiasco that was Chelsea Care, Cabinet members decided that the ideal person to sort all this out was Steven Forbes! So in November 2010 he became interim Managing Director of Chelsea Care Limited. 

In January 2011 he was forced to go cap in hand to the Council for further funding to keep Chelsea Care afloat. Despite all the signs now indicating that the Council should cut its losses and close Chelsea Care and contrary to officer advice, the Cabinet decided that Forbes was their man and gave him the money. 
Two months later the organisation collapsed – leaving the Council with a loss far greater than the £300,000 of taxpayers’ money that they are prepared to admit.
And the epilogue? The incompetent Council officer who could not do her job remains in post, while both her boss and the officer who finally got the internal structure to work are to go, both victims of the Tri-borough folly. Mr. Forbes has thankfully now also gone, but has resurfaced in the neighbouring London Borough of Brent.




13 comments:

  1. Palmer's Scrutiny Committee was working overtime!!

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  2. Is this one of his 'secret' photographs?

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  3. This is a very serious exposure by the Dame. It is now clear that the Scrutiny Committe Report by Cllr Palmer into Chelsea Care was (at best) economical with the truth.

    It is well known that Palmer is Cllr Cockell's chief gofor. And Cockell was under pressure from residents from the start not to waste tax payers money on risk business ventures that should be left to the private sector.

    Putting two and two together, it seems that Cockell instructed Palmer to do a whitewash job in his scrtiny report.

    This is a case of corruption. What a pity that the Standards Committee is also an organ of Pooter and incapable of doing its job.

    More corruption.....

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  4. Kensington Resident6 December 2011 at 06:50

    The Labour councillors always said that there were huge hidden costs in the Chelsea Care scandal and hinted that losses were nearer to £1 million and not the £300k declared by the council.

    Creative accounting is one thing, but deliberate efforts to hoodwink voters is a much more serious matter. No wonder Director of Finance Holgate was squirming at the Scrutiny Committee meeting called to discuss Chelsea Care

    Now the Dame has unearthed £410k to add to the declared loss of £300k.

    The next revalation cannot be far away. When will the Tory councillors wake up and get shot of Cockell?

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  5. Cllr Buxton is keeping a very low profile. She took the credit for setting up Chelsea Care in 2008 and made much of the PR at the time.

    But this pathetic "do gooder" should not be allowd to escape the blame.

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  6. At the Cabinet Committee meeting last month Cllr Ahern and Cllr Buckmaster (Deputy Chairman of the Scrutiny Committee and Chairman of Kenisngton and Chelsea Conservatives)argued strongly for an Independent Report by the auditors into the whole Chelsea Care mess.

    Cllr Cockell, sensing danger, ruled this out of order as a "waste of taxpayers money". Now we know why.

    Cllr Ahern failed to take his cabinet colleagues with him. Not a good sign for a person who himself aspires to be Leader

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  7. Funny how the stupid and ignorant decide what is a waste of tax payers money.

    Cllr Cockell thought that it would be waste of money to pay for an audit to find out how £1 million of tax payers money was wasted on Chelsea Care. This is the same man who is spending £100 million to tart up Holland Park School: £1 million of spending on education that is not creating one single extra school space

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  8. It is the "school of stupidity" 7.01.

    Cllr Buxton was keen to save money when she set up Chelsea Care and therefore decided NOT to do market research. Failed businessman Cllr Cockell thought this was a good move and allowed the venture to proceed when he sanctioned it at Cabinet in September 2008.

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  9. Twister Cockell wrote to an angry resident about Chelsea Care and said that "it was not my decision - it was a Cabinet decision"

    Scumbag

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  10. So there has been a cover up over Chelsea Care, orchestrated by Cllr Cockell

    The pathetic "Scrutiny Report" by Cllr Palmer which was presented to the Scrutiny Committee in October. But the author (Cllr Palmer, Cockell's gofor) was stangely absent from the meeting.

    Politicians are devious. K&C councillors are exceptionally devious. Cockell and Palmer between them had clearly decided that the best way to handle a cover up report was for the author to absent himself at the Scrutiny Committee so that questions could not be asked and the truth established.

    A good move, because the probing Cllr Foreman (Notting Barns Ward and a shrewd City Lawyer)would have made mincemeat of the pathetic Palmer. Foreman is no fool and knows a crooked ball when he sees one.

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    ReplyDelete
  12. https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/leicester-news/revealed-latest-salaries-leicester-city-2652407

    ReplyDelete
  13. The corrupt Steven Forbes is now pimping out Leicester City Council in his role as Strategic Director of Social Care and Education!

    ReplyDelete

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