The £1.2 million council house - did officers try to cover their tracks?

Remember that story about the Afghan family living in the £1.2 million house, paid for by Ealing council-tax payers?

Well it seems that the story just gets stranger with each little twist.

At first, Ealing Council appeared to argue that it had little discretion in such cases and that it was only applying national guidelines. At least, that's what Will Brooks, the senior councillor with the housing brief, seemed to be saying when he made these comments to the Telegraph:

Councillor Will Brooks, Cabinet Member for Housing at Ealing Council, said the case highlighted "some of the absurdities of the housing and benefit system".

"In cases such as this, where there are very few seven-bedroom properties, landlords will obviously seek the absolute maximum as set down by the government. This clearly puts the council, the government and taxpayers at a significant disadvantage," he said.

"The Council believes that urgent changes are needed to the LHA and in particular for the publication of maximum rent levels to be ended"

So if it's simply the fault of a bad system, why did the council then sack the housing officers who placed the woman and her family in the house and agreed to pay the exorbitant rent?

After the officers were sacked, Ealing council said that the dismissal had nothing to do with the payments to the Afghan family, claiming that the reduction in staff was part of a planned restructure. The officers disagreed saying that they had been made scapegoats because of the bad publicity, even though they were simply following the rules.

Then last week, at a full council meeting, Ealing Council leader Jason Stacey accused the officers of trying to destroy evidence before they were fired. He said:

I have to be careful in my choice of words this evening because I too have seen the statements threatening legal action so I ask three questions.

Why did the now former Acting Housing Initiatives Manager refuse to answer questions from council officers when questioned about the series of events leading to this case?

Why did the team in question begin to remove files and papers as observed by other officers including papers which had to be taken back from staff members as they were escorted from the building?

Why did staff members involved engage in the deletion of a significant number of e-mails on the day in question which was still continuing even after being challenged?

Is there any truth in this? Well if there isn't, Ealing council will be in deep shit if the case comes to court. Jason Stacey must know this. You can say what you like about him but he isn't stupid. I'd be very surprised if he'd make such statements in public without good evidence. It would be the end of his political career if he couldn't back this up.

If these allegations are true, it raises all sorts of questions about what the three housing officers were up to. If they hadn't done anything wrong, why were they trying to destroy files and emails?

And if they had been up to something dodgy, how come it took a scandal reported in national newspapers to trigger an investigation by their managers?

I hope this case does come to court. Perhaps then, those of us who cough up the money to run Ealing might get some answers.

Comments

[Monty]

If their e-mail server was backed up at reasonable intervals, which it should be in any well run outfit, then many of those e-mails should be on file.

But it does smell doesn't it?

[Monty]

Apart from anything else, they shouldn't have been forced to give her a seven bedroon house. The family should have been expected to share, two to a room. Just like other folk do. Four or five rooms would then have been ample.

[paul maleski]

SOUR WHITE CHRISTIAN GRAPES?

Afghan asylum seekers enrich European Civilization; this is why Michael Mansfield and Japati Vatfree Chakrabarti wants to put them up , in their state subsidised mansions, free of British taxpayers' expence. Ask the dogooders?