Droylsden West Councillor Ged Cooney's Son Fined for Possessing Cocaine

In this weeks Tameside Advertiser, hidden away in the named and shamed column was an interesting nugget of information about a "Simon John Paul Cooney, of Parvet Avenue, Droylsden was fined £400 with £125 costs for possessing cocaine". Would this be the same Parvet Avenue in Droylsden where the Labour Councillor for Droylsden West, Gerald "Ged" Cooney lives?

Cooney, who claims a £31,998 allowance for his work as a councillor including special responsibility allowances for his executive cabinet position for "learning and achievement" and the Greater Manchester Pension Fund Panel. This figure excludes any external bodies not paid for by the council such as being a member of AGMA's board for Housing and Planning or for his position as Chair of the New Chater Housing Trust. In his declaration of interests, he states that he works as a joiner for Manchester City Council. He isn't, he's actually been sidelined as a union branch secretary for UCATT.

It couldn't have come at a worse time for Councillor Cooney as InTameside revealed yesterday that Tameside ranks as the worst authority in Greater Manchester for education and the fifth worst nationally. Not only do we have one of the third deadliest hospital in the country, but we now have one of the worst education systems too. To say that health and education are supposed to be Labour's strong points, they are heavily letting down the people of Tameside.

It would appear that Councillor Kieran Quinn needs to reshuffle his cabinet. Cooney has clearly failed his remit in his executive cabinet position responsible for the boroughs schools. He position is untennable, not with the poor Ofsted results, but the fact he can't control his own children living under his roof. If he can't control his own kids, how is he expected to instill the discipline needed to take control of our under-performing schools?

New Charter's Top Brass Ripping You Off

In Tameside's public sector, we have a revolving doors policy where staff often leave to take "voluntary redundancy" and come back as a contractor or as a consultant. Take this example of our local housing association New Charter and their former Business Development Director, David Rigby who decided to take early retirement to take advantage of a pensions loophole. He then boasts that the Chief Executive, Ian Munro will be instantly employing him again on a consultancy basis. So in effect, there has been no money saved. Just those at the top get to line their pockets and rip off the taxpayer.

And where is the procurement? Didn't Mr. Munro seek to tender the services which are already available in-house via newly appointed PR consultant Bob Clowery, who formerly worked for the Tameside Reporter? Or was it just a leg up for one of his mates?

Just a week before he left, he sent this blasé email:

From: David.Rigby@newcharter.co.uk
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:15:35 +0000
Subject: News of my departure may be greatly exaggerated...
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
I’ve been offered and accepted a good deal on early retirement from New Charter.  But because of a looming change in the law on pensions, I will leave on Tuesday March 30th.  Yes, that soon...

Sadly, my impending status doesn’t yet give me access to pensioners specials on lunchtime menus!

It’s hardly an immediate separation, though.  I have been asked to manage the next series of BBC One ‘Neighbourhood Watched’ for both New Charter and Aksa Housing Association in a personal capacity.  The prospect of having the Group in more than two-thirds of the series is a good one.  Ian Munro our Group Chief Executive has also asked me to work on a number of other projects for New Charter, again on  a consultancy basis.  And I may as well offer my services elsewhere...

With the speed of all this I am unsure of all arrangements, but I can always be contacted by my home email address david.rigby5@btopenworld.com.

Like a sorry politician, I am “planning to spend more time with my family”, but I may not be able to keep away from work!

You maybe thinking that this goes on quite a bit in the private sector. Maybe it does, but it isn't right where public money is involved. New Charter is funded via grants from the public sector and tenants paying rent. It's those tenants paying rent who are on low incomes and struggle to pay their way as it is. It's this sort of scam/fraud whatever you want to call it is pushing up the rents of social housing tenants and the Labour controlled New Charter should hang their heads in shame.

This just goes to show that Housing Associations need to open themselves up to freedom of information laws. Currently, New Charter doesn't accept FOI requests.

To see New Charter's board then click this link. It is full of Labour councillors who also get an extra few grand as an allowance for the privilege.

You can find David Rigby on LinkedIn and Twitter where he now describes himself as a "Housing Communications Consultant".

Note: This subject was also raised on the Tameside Eye blog.