“Council business belongs out in the open, where residents can keep a close eye.” Council Leader, Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell.

Not Hornets words, but those of the Dear Leader Himself, and all very honourable. It is important that where public money is spent, in a publicly funded organisation, serving the needs of the community, and it should be committed to fairness, openness and transparency in all activities.

And so the council bleats on that it does. All's good then.

But then that got Hornet kind of wondering...........

On the councils own "transparency" page there is a link showing the expense claims of the Dear Leader and the Great Architect, you can see for yourself here.

The Great Architect has been recently exposed in Private Eye (Hornet blushes) and the Kensington Chronicle (Hornet blushes again) as having so-called urgent papers being couriered to him while he is on holiday in Thailand. The council website says the cost of Moylans courier was £880 over a 12 month period.

A K&C resident informed Hornet (who doesnt mind being unmasked), David Padua, sent in the revelation that the council website is referring to just four courier drops, when there were in fact over 20. The cost also, isn't £880 in a year, it is over £1400, and the total cost over the last 3 years is closer to £4100.

So much for transparency in spending!

Mr Padua has also supplied to Hornet the excuse reasoning RBKC provided as to why the website says £880 when the invoices say over £1400 for the same period. The council says the website information "is accurate as it is as per the cash ledger used by the council to pay invoices. The date on the invoice or the date of the service may be different from the day the invoice was paid and entered into the ledger"

So thats alright then.

When the council say "These costs totalled £880.02 in the year October 2008-October 2009." what they actually mean is "these are the ones we paid during this time but may not actually reflect what Moylan has cost us"

Quite how that can be called transparency is anyones guess.

More coming soon on the external payments made by the council.