Barnet, Kent, & a head of energy procurement facing fraud charge

Just to make things more appealing for some of Mrs Angry's more interesting visitors today

*Updated: 16th October, see below:

Here is a fascinating story that has just caught the eye of Mrs Angry.

A couple of months ago, trawling through our borough's online expenditure listings, Mrs Angry was rather surprised to see a lot of very large payments made to Kent County Council.

After making enquiries, it emerged that Barnet buys its energy -electricity and gas - from Kent, via its LASER energy procurement consortium. This is an enterprise set up by Kent as part of the authority's Commercial Services, and is run as a business venture supplying energy to 106 other authorities and public bodies in London and the South East, supposedly bringing savings to all members, and a dividend to Kent County Council.

Kent, of course, is yet another easycouncil style authority with a highly paid Chief Executive and a markedly private sector lookalike type of administration: in fact the CEO is not a CEO, but a 'Managing Director' - currently the redoutable Katherine Kerswell, on a magnificent £197,000 per year, as befits someone who is a recent President of SOLACE, the ubiquitous Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, whose members grow and prosper at such an astonishingly successful rate.

Members of LASER range from London boroughs - from Barking to Wandsworth, and County Councils from Buckinghamshire to West Sussex: also other borough and city councils, and police and fire authorities. Here is further information from the body's website, at www.laserenergy.org.uk :

Since forming in 1989, Laser has rapidly grown to serve a range of members including local authorities and universities.

Laser is part of Kent County Council Commercial Services. Our status as a public sector body means that we are able to trade only with public, voluntary or charitable sector organisations.

Customers

London Authorities	Barking & Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, City Of London, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hammersmith & Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kensington & Chelsea, Kingston, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond, Southwark, Sutton, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth.
County Councils	Buckinghamshire, Devon, Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, West Sussex.
City & Unitary Councils	Bedfordshire BC, Bournemouth BC, Poole BC, Canterbury City, Central Bedfordshire, Coventry City, Isle Of Wight, Medway, North Somerset BC, Oxford City, Portsmouth City, Southampton, Southend BC, Worcester City, Luton, Milton Keynes.
Borough & District Councils	Adur, Ashford, Basingstoke & Deane, Broxham, Chichester, Corby, Crawley, Dacorum, Daventry, Dover, East Herts, East Northamptonshire, Eastbourne, Elmbridge, Epsom & Ewell, Gravesham, Guildford, Hastings, Horsham, Kettering, Lee Valley Park Authority, Lewes, Maidstone, Mid Sussex, Mole Valley, North Herts, Northampton, Reigate & Banstead, Runneymede, Sevenoaks, Shepway, South Northamptonshire, Spelthorne, St Albans, Surrey Heath, Swale, Tandridge, Thanet, Tonbridge & Malling, Tunbridge Wells, Uttlesford, Waverley, Wealden, Wellingborough, Welwyn & Hatfield, Woking, Worthing.
Fire & Police Authorities	Essex Fire & Rescue, Essex Police, Kent Fire & Rescue, Kent Police, Northamptonshire Police, Surrey Police.
Universities	Cranfield, Middlesex

According to the website, suppliers to the consortium are - until 30th September 2012 - British Gas and Npower.

Sadly, Mrs Angry must report that all may not be well in the fair county of Kent, or at least within the ranks of LASER, judging from this story from Kent Online:

KCC's head of energy procurement charged with fraud

by Paul Francis

A 42-year-old man has been charged with fraud as part of investigations by Kent County Council into irregularities uncovered in one of its directorates.

Ross Knowles, of Larking Drive, Allington, near Maidstone, was charged on May 10 with two counts of fraud by abuse of position, and one count of money laundering.

He is due to appear at Maidstone Magistrates' Court on July 12.

Knowles is described on the council’s website as head of energy procurement at KCC.

Police were called in to investigate by KCC after the authority uncovered evidence of what is described in a report as "a significant irregularity" in one of its services.

According to an auditor’s report published by the council this week, the case is "significant in scale" and raises questions about the governance arrangements of the service.

KCC declined to answer specific queries in relation to the investigation.

In a statement, a spokesman said: "We are unable to comment further as the matter is subject to on-going criminal proceedings."

Friday, July 01 2011

It would appear that proceedings are continuing, and Mrs Angry will update the story when she can. Clearly this story is of interest to us here in Broken Barnet, not only in terms of the connection as our supplier of energy, but also in the illustration of the wider implications of the procurement process itself.

*Updated 16th October:

For some reason, this post is one of the most revisited of all the Broken Barnet posts: never a day goes by without some local authority landing here in search of information about this story. Maybe it's because of the rather lovely picture of Mata Hari - but more probably the continual visits are due to the lack of notification and information given to the many members of Laser by Kent County Council, as observed by a report in the Local Government Chronicle in August:

Former Kent officer 'used fees to buy Jaguar'

4 August 2011 | By James Illman

"The former Kent CC energy procurement officer charged with multiple counts of fraud used “unauthorised management fees” to buy himself a Jaguar car, details of the charges against him have revealed.

Ross David Knowles of Larking Drive, Allington, who has yet to enter a plea, is alleged to have committed the crimes while holding a senior post at Local Authority South East Region (LASER), the council’s wholly owned energy procurement business, which has more than 100 local authority clients.

Mr Knowles faces two counts of fraud and one of money laundering for alleged crimes carried out between August 2008 and January 2011. He has since left the council.

The charge sheet said: “You [Mr Knowles] dishonestly abused that position [head of energy procurement for LASER] intending thereby to make a gain for yourself by negotiating an unauthorised management fee with Centrica of 0.04p per kWh of energy supplied and diverting that commission into your own bank account, in breach of section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006.”

A second fraud charge related to an “unauthorised management fee with npower of 0.05p per kWh of energy supplied” also in breach of section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006.

There is no suggestion of impropriety on the part of the energy companies.

The third count related to alleged illegal transfers made by Mr Knowles. One of the alleged transfers was made “for the purchase of a Jaguar motor vehicle”.

Mr Knowles will appear in Maidstone crown court on 2 September.

The council’s annual governance statement revealed police were called in to investigate “a significant irregularity” in one of its service areas towards the end of 2010-11.

The statement said: “As a live case under investigation by the police, further detail cannot be provided, but the case did bring to the fore questions about the governance arrangements of the service concerned.

“The council immediately commissioned an external review to ascertain the specific control failures that gave rise to the issue, and is seeking to commission a wider governance review of the service area during 2011.”

A Kent Police Authority statement later confirmed: “Ross Knowles of Larking Drive, Allington was charged on 10 May with two counts of fraud by abuse of position, and one count of money laundering”.

According to its website, LASER has 106 local authorities with more than 60 full-time staff.

The council declined an offer to comment on whether or not costs resulting from the alleged fraud could have been passed on to customer authorities but said it had contacted customers about the alleged fraud.

LGC contacted more than 10 council customers of Kent’s energy procurement service last month but at the time none were aware of the legal developments

The former Kent CC energy procurement officer charged with multiple counts of fraud used “unauthorised management fees” to buy himself a Jaguar car, details of the charges against him have revealed.

Ross David Knowles of Larking Drive, Allington, who has yet to enter a plea, is alleged to have committed the crimes while holding a senior post at Local Authority South East Region (LASER), the council’s wholly owned energy procurement business, which has more than 100 local authority clients.

Mr Knowles faces two counts of fraud and one of money laundering for alleged crimes carried out between August 2008 and January 2011. He has since left the council.

The charge sheet said: “You [Mr Knowles] dishonestly abused that position [head of energy procurement for LASER] intending thereby to make a gain for yourself by negotiating an unauthorised management fee with Centrica of 0.04p per kWh of energy supplied and diverting that commission into your own bank account, in breach of section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006.”

A second fraud charge related to an “unauthorised management fee with npower of 0.05p per kWh of energy supplied” also in breach of section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006.

There is no suggestion of impropriety on the part of the energy companies.

The third count related to alleged illegal transfers made by Mr Knowles. One of the alleged transfers was made “for the purchase of a Jaguar motor vehicle”.

Mr Knowles will appear in Maidstone crown court on 2 September.

The council’s annual governance statement revealed police were called in to investigate “a significant irregularity” in one of its service areas towards the end of 2010-11.

The statement said: “As a live case under investigation by the police, further detail cannot be provided, but the case did bring to the fore questions about the governance arrangements of the service concerned.

“The council immediately commissioned an external review to ascertain the specific control failures that gave rise to the issue, and is seeking to commission a wider governance review of the service area during 2011.”

A Kent Police Authority statement later confirmed: “Ross Knowles of Larking Drive, Allington was charged on 10 May with two counts of fraud by abuse of position, and one count of money laundering”.

According to its website, LASER has 106 local authorities with more than 60 full-time staff.

The council declined an offer to comment on whether or not costs resulting from the alleged fraud could have been passed on to customer authorities but said it had contacted customers about the alleged fraud.

LGC contacted more than 10 council customers of Kent’s energy procurement service last month but at the time none were aware of the legal developments."

In fact Knowles attended Maidstone Crown Court on September 20th to plead not guilty to two offences of fraud by abuse of position, and one of transfering criminal property between August 12th 2008 and January 6th 2011. The case will be heard on March 19th next year.