Readers top 3,400 for AssetCo, MetPro and green dirty tricks

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Last week visits to the site topped 3459 with massive interest in the fate of AssetCo, the collapsing private fire company which owns London’s and Lincolnshire’s fire engines. Two blogs attracted  over 2500  hits. A big number came from the Fire Brigades union (many thanks), but a significant minority are people picking up  the blog from three small investor sites – as speculators wonder whether to dump their shares or throw more money at it. With shares at just 3.50p at the moment the company is little more than junk stock.

A sudden rush on an older blog exposing how the environment ministry has biased its ” red tape” review of green laws and regulations to favour burdens on business at the expense of the benefits of the  law, has attracted over 940 hits. Thanks to environment campaigner, George Monbiot, for retweeting it and attracting extra trade and a  few subscriptions.

Expect now a pause in blogging as I am off  to the tranquil and peaceful delights of the Isles of Scilly for hopefully an accident free holiday ( after my fall there last time!).

Update: Now AssetCo’s financial saviour quits

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AssetCo's state of finances: Pic Courtesy:www.onenewspage.co.uk

 Scott Brown, the Australian financial whizz kid brought in to shake up the collapsing private fire company, quit AssetCo yesterday, it has just been announced.

His departure is the latest blow to the firm which owns and services London and Lincolnshire’s fire engines and provided a strike breaking auxiliary workforce in the dispute with the London Fire Brigade over shift patterns last year.

It came as shares fell to just 3.93p – a new low – which must mean the company is not long for this world.

Appointed only last October the 43-year-old was meant to help turn the company round and plan an expansion of its activities.

The official statement from AssetCo described his departure as part of ” the orderly transition in its finance area  ”  claiming “Mr Brown’s immediate duties and the finance structure is being managed day-to-day by a senior interim manager, who is reporting directly to Interim Chairman, Tudor Davies. ”

 Frankly this is balls. An orderly transition would mean that the company would already have someone  appointed in  his place – not some interim manager who probably has been appointed at the last moment.

 I talked to him  briefly on his mobile when the company was having to raise extra finance – and it was quite clear from the conversation that he saw the company having a big future – once it had got rid of hotchpotch of manufacturing firms  it acquired in the 1980s and could expand by offering its services to other fire authorities and abroad.

More to the point he is  shrewd enough to quit before it goes bust. A check on the land register shows he has a large house in Barnes, south London which he and his partner Elizabeth Hackett-Brown bought for £1.425m in 2009 with a mortgage from HSBC. He won’t want as a director  to  put that at risk if the company goes bust.

 He also is the key man negotiating with the banks – so I just wonder how well the negotiations for extra cash are going.

I have a feeling that it won’t be long before  London Fire Brigade’s shiny engines will be in the hands of the administrators.

Assetco and MetPro: Stains on London’s political masters

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Coleman and Assetco: stain on London fire Brigade

Metpro-stain on Barnet Council

Politicians at the London Fire Brigade and Barnet Council should be hanging their heads in shame for awarding multi-million pound contracts to two private contractors, MetPro and Assetco – one of which is now bankrupt and the other only valued as junk  stock .

Both scandals have featured on this site before but the situation is going from bad to worse.

An extraordinary statement from Assetco -owner of London and Lincolnshire’s fire engines and a strike breaking auxiliary force for London’s firefighters – basically admits that it does not have the cash any more to meet capital repayments needed to run its contracts with London, Lincolnshire and the Middle East.See http://bit.ly/mP5WFa .

The key paragraph reads:  “The main issue that the business is facing is the capital repayment profile not matching the long-term nature of the Company’s contracts. Whilst the Company is cash generative and can meet its interest costs, it does not generate sufficient funds to meet all the repayment of capital as currently scheduled. The banks are supportive regarding the short-term financing situation and are awaiting our proposals on a financial restructuring but in the meantime we are in breach of our banking arrangements.”

This sorry state has been brought about by its former founder John Shannon who last month was summarily dismissed by the company.

Shannon had landed the company in court facing a winding up order for millions of pounds of unpaid taxes from Revenue and Customs-something they don’t do lightly- and a huge £1m unpaid legal bill from Nabarro’s.

No sooner had these been settled by diluting the share price in a £16m offer to new investors then more grief was to follow. The share price  is now down to a junk figure of 4.65p a share –  when it once sold at 66p. Market capitalisation at £11m is now less than the value of its PFI contracts in London and the Middle East.

Yet Shannon and his former co-founder are trying to recover £1.1m from the collapsing firm while facing a counter-claim from Assetco for £8m for ” breaches of fiduciary duties”. A bloody legal battle  is on the way distracting it from its business.

 All this might not matter if they did not own all the fire engines  in the capital and Lincolnshire. But the London Fire Brigade has reacted to the crisis with breath-taking complacency. Gareth Bacon, performance management chair, believes there is no serious problem.

 Brian Coleman, who was wined and dined by Shannon as well as receiving a gift of a £350 Harvey Nicks Christmas hamper, is silent about the fate of his dining companion.

Yet consider this.Would it be appropriate for a public body to avoid paying taxes and be so reckless with its finances so it can’t repay its capital loans to banks? And for the authority to be in a such a bad way that it has had to hire financial staff to sort out the mess. Heads would roll.

Barnet Council is in a similar mess over the bust private security firm MetPro who owed £250,000 to Revenue and Customs for unpaid tax, VAT and even pay roll tax deducted from its employees.

 The fate of this company would not have come to light if it had not been so reckless by filming bloggers and members of the public without their knowledge or permission as they came to watch the council implement cuts.

But now Barnet have admitted they were UNAWARE of the financial plight of the company which got £1m of business and glowing references from them on its website  (now finally removed) and appears to have avoided any public tendering process to get the business.

There is a link to both these scandals and he is called Brian Coleman. He has been the key advocate of the government’s privatisation agenda and cheerleader for the company -particularly the disgraced John Shannon. He is also the big wheel on Barnet Council- Cabinet post for the environment- and must have had some knowledge of the bankrupt MetPro. And there is even a bit part for the complacent Gareth Bacon in all this – his division at  Dutch consultants MartinWardAnderson has made £75,000  (£12,600 a month) over just a six month period in 2010 – providing temporary finance staff for Barnet.

Can anyone do anything about this? Yes- firefighters employed by the London Fire Brigade could ask for a due diligence investigation by the district auditor Michael Howarth-Maden over the handling of the PFI contract, alleging the authority had employed a company involved in proven tax avoidance

 Similarly residents of Barnet could demand an investigation by its external auditors,Grant Thornton into the hiring of MetPro. Here the crucial question should be -how they got the contract in the first place.

It is really time action was taken – the scandalous behaviour of both firms is a stain on London’s politicians.

Wake up Red Ed, Canny Cam is running rings round you

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raise your game, red ed.Pic courtesy Belfast Telegraph

 

If I were David Cameron I would be sorely tempted to start planning now for any early election. Friday’s election results were a dream ticket for the Tories. They must have thought they had woken up in paradise. They managed to rout their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, on their core issue, electoral reform and get the electorate to blame them for the coalition’s broken promises. They destroyed much of the Liberal Democrats core base in Tory heartlands.  They actually GAINED council seats and councils when they were  already by far the largest party in local government.

In Wales, – Labour did brilliantly in South Wales – but the Tories are now in second place , having regained Mid Wales to add to Pembrokeshire and North Wales.  The only thing that marred the party was Alex Salmond’s spectacular win in Scotland, but there they can take comfort to see Labour stalled ( Labour’s vote held up but they lost seats because people turned to the Nationalists and not them).

 Only in the North where Labour’s  stellar performance did a similar demolition job on the Liberal Democrats ( some of the swings in Newcastle at 22 per cent were equivalent to old style Lib Dem by-election gains) were the Tories not in the picture.

While Labour’s 800 gains look respectable effectively they piled up votes in Liverpool , York Humberside, the North East, and the East Midlands. The victories in the South, Gravesham and Ipswich, were isolated. They failed to get back Dover, lost seats to the Tories in Dartford and Hemel Hempstead and failed to make a serious impact in Watford, Thurrock and Harlow. Gloucester, a bell weather election seat, saw its council go Tory.

 If there was an election tomorrow  Ed Miliband would get the Labour vote up but in many cases it would just increase existing Labour majorities or take Lib Dem seats. And that will not be enough to win. The Tories with more Lib Dem seats to gain already have an advantage, let alone their simple but wrong narrative that the cuts are all the fault of Labour. So while Ed’s strategy to get back disillusioned Lib Dems has been a good start, it is only a start.

The party needs to do two things. Find out what the Tory’s new-found friends in the South and Midlands really want from government and the issues where the Tories are really vulnerable. Labour will not win by only talking to itself. Ask why there was success in Gravesham but not Dartford.

Labour need to up their game and go on the offensive. Polite pussy footing around and sympathy will not win elections. Unless they take the Tory narrative head on and work out an alternative and believable narrative of their own they will get nowhere.

If they don’t do this they will be written out of the  script. They needn’t just use conventional media – which is slowly dying – to get their message across, they have the whole internet at their disposal and it’s free.

So get your act together, Ed. A new nose job is not enough to get you through the door at Downing Street.

Dirty Tricks at the green ministry

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The true Conservative green logo: Replace the tree with a belching exhaust pipe.Pic:courtesy auto.howstuffworks.com

Six weeks ago I  had a particularly critical look at the antics used by David Cameron and Boris Johnson to delay tough new air pollution rules to avoid the Mayor having to pay out £300m in fines to the European Union. (see http://bit.ly/f2wB4j)

Now word via Whitehall has come to me  that a recent government initiative to curb ” red tape” to help business is about to be used as a further battering ram by the coalition to undermine  the so called commitment by both parties to a greener Britain.

My old Guardian colleague Allegra Stratton has already exposed the government’s move to incorporate all 278 environmental laws into the review (http://bit.ly/j6eVY6) . And it has  alarmed environmentalists.

Whitehall sources are telling me that the way civil servants in the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have been instructed to review the laws is extremely detrimental to green campaigners.

Effectively they have been told to concentrate on the BURDEN green legislation and regulations place on business and ignore the BENEFITS it brings to general health and well-being.

And this is from two ministries, business and energy and climate change , headed by two of  the Liberal Democrats in the Cabinet, Vince Cable and Chris Huhne.

Given the review cover issues like climate change, national parks, wild life protection, waste regulations, to name but a few areas, the only people  thrilled by this will be  libertarian think tanks like the Adam Smith Institute and the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party.

If we pursue this line of argument we would never have bothered with energy conservation, banned lead in petrol ( they  all cost money to business in the short-term) and been quite happy to keep landfill going and see animals and plants become extinct. Luckily some of this stuff – like phasing out landfill , clean beaches and air pollution, depend on  directives from the EU, so even the most brown nosed civil servant in Defra is going to have difficulty telling his political bosses it is OK to forget the benefit to the environment.

And the government seem to have forgotten that not all business will be pleased if it is successful. There are 880,000 jobs in the environment industry dependent on existing regulation.

 As Adrian Wilkes, chairman of the Environmental Industries Commission, points out: “This is a potentially major threat to the UK’s environmental industry, which lives and dies by the regulatory framework. Government intervention is a vital ingredient in the creation of the environmental markets of the future.”

So once again, just like the row over privatising the rest of the forests defeated by the campaigning group 38 degrees, the coalition has put its foot in it. Unless that is, they never really believed in the green agenda in the first place.

Why I’m going to vote NO to AV

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Putting a No Vote into the ballot box

I support progressive electoral reform. The present system does need changing. It normally delivers firm government but does not  necessarily represent the collective views of the country. The present system normally allows one party with the largest minority of votes  to implement its manifesto, but at least we have a good idea what this means when they are elected.

If we are going to move to proportional representation it will mean that we will have to trade the clarity of a manifesto for a compromise. But I am only willing to do this if the voting system – as to a large extent it does in Scotland and Wales – genuinely reflects the view of the electorate. In other words a serious dose of proportional representation.

 AV leaves us with the chance of  a botched government elected by a botched electoral system. Rather than taking into account  the votes of all the people and topping up Parliament to reflect this, it allows a small minority of people to exercise their choice twice at the expense of the majority of people who will only be able to use their first preference. In many places it won’t apply at all.

In my own seat, Herts South West, for example, Tory David Gauke, was returned with 54.9 per cent of the vote, so AV will be irrelevant here. And if it was just below 50 per cent, it would be second preferences of an independent, BNP and UKIP candidate in that order, that would have been redistributed.

In East Ham it is more pronounced with ex Labour minister Stephen Timms being returned with 70 per cent of the vote –  a majority of 27,826-the largest in the country. No AV there and 30 per cent of the  electorate ignored. Similarly  foreign secretary William Hague had 62 per cent of the vote in Richmond, Yorkshire and Gordon Brown would be unaffected in Kirkcaldy with 64.5 per cent of the vote. And also for that matter David Cameron, Dominic Grieve and John Hayes (all 58-61 per cent).

It would have made a difference in Watford (Tory gain from Labour) and won with only 34.9 per cent of the vote because all three main parties were close (the Lib Dems came second) and the bottom three shared only 5.6 per cent of the vote. But why should  your second preference  count in Watford but be barred in next door Herts South West?

Supporters of AV say it is a step in the right direction towards full PR but I wonder whether it could make matters worse. And I am afraid that the performance of Nick Clegg and Vince Cable in government does matter. They got elected on a manifesto that they stood on its head as part of the negotiations to get power, particularly in the grotesque way they pledged to abolish student tuition fees but instead tripled them.

I think they are unaware of how damaging this has been to politics-confirming the view that people will cynically promise anything to get elected  but can’t be trusted in government. No doubt at the next election they will pledge to defend the NHS and then proceed to abolish it once they are in power. Clegg has actually left people believing he is a serial liar ( reports on the doorsteps in Dacorum include people saying they will never vote Liberal Democrat again ).

They also failed in negotiations with the Tories to use a referendum to offer the public a full choice for electoral reform. So the choice is only first past the post versus  bastarised PR – AV. We are not even given a chance to vote on the system used by Scotland or Wales.

 I have been disenfranchised by these shenanigans so I will stick to the present system and wait for a government to be elected that will offer real choice for electoral reform.

We filmed bloggers and Barnet residents for Tory council-Private security chief

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 Update: Barnet bloggers have called for full independent public inquiry into Barnet Council’s handling of the MetPro contract.

They say:

The only way that trust can be restored in Barnet Council, following the MetPro debacle, is to hold a full public inquiry. We the undersigned call on Nick Walkley, CEO of Barnet Council, and Lynne Hillan, Council Leader, to immediately engage an independent investigator, enjoying the confidence of Barnet residents, to look into the relationship between MetPro Rapid Response/MetPro Emergency Response and Barnet Council. We demand to know what Barnet Council asked MetPro Rapid Response/MetPro Emergency Response to do and what Barnet Council has done with any information about residents it has had access to as a result of MetPro’s work. Contact for more details: Vicki Morris vickimorris@btinternet.com

Did Barnet authorise the filming?

 

Or did the private security firm do it?

A former director of  a security company now bust with £400,000 debts – has  admitted that he equipped his security staff with security cameras so he could film protestors,bloggers and  residents – who came to Tory Barnet council’s meeting which approved cuts.

A scoop by Georgia Graham – a reporter on the Hampstead and Highgate Express  –  following up exclusives on this site and by Broken Barnet -(See this link to Broken Barnet for the latest story http://bitly.com/i13ngn )  got an admission from Kevin Sharkey, one of  the directors of MetPro. See http://bit.ly/frWGO1

In an interview today with me, he said: “Our staff normally wear clothing  with cameras so we can document what is happening for both sides. It is normal practice at football matches and where there are large crowds.” He said he was doing the filming for people’s safety and for his own staff’s safety to make sure nobody was hurt.

” In this day and age nobody would act without authorisation and we were asked to do this by Barnet Council. We were preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. In the event nothing happened unlike at Camden and Haringey councils.”

 He  said the main reason why people could not watch the meeting was because they had arrived late and said that he knew people who were there were up ” tricks ” to get other people into the chamber which would have breached fire regulations.

” We know what tricks people got up to like saying they were going to the toilet to free a place and then coming back.”

He also amounted an extraordinary defence of the ” dire state ” of his company – saying he was an employee not a director – despite being registered at Companies House as a director.

 He put the blame for the collapse on his partner Luigi Mansi saying ” he  was running the company and he is going to have pay back a lot of money for a long time.”

 ” Me, I haven’t got a penny to my name and I am living in rented accommodation. I am part of the community myself. I was working 130 hours a week to keep the company going but it owed a lot of money in tax.”

Barnet Council yesterday insisted that it had not ordered MetPro to do this. In a statement the authority said:

“MetPro has gone into liquidation and the council has terminated its contract.  At no point has the council ever authorised security staff carrying lapel cameras. 
 “Unlike some other London boroughs, the setting of the budget in Barnet at cabinet and council was held with the public present and at the advertised time and place. Every resident who arrived at Hendon Town Hall by the start of the meeting had a place in either the public gallery or the overflow room.”

Whoever is right this is a damning indictment of local democracy at Barnet Council. They have employed people who are equipped to film people at a public meeting. They have banned bloggers and residents from filming, tweeting or recording their own council against the  advice of Eric Pickles, the communities secretary. They also have paid over £275,000 to a private security firm that has ended almost owing all that in unpaid tax. They either don’t know what they are doing or don’t care.

London firefighter firm recruiting Brits for UAE military support

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A UAE Hawk jet -part of Assetco's training programme. Pic courtesy http://www.militaryimages.com

The company that owns  and maintains London’s fire engines  is  recruiting British firefighter instructors to train the military in the United Arab Emirates.

They are offering tax-free salaries of £46,812 a year  for  British recruits just as Abu Dhabi has joined the Saudis to help Bahrain’s  rulers  put down dissent among pro democracy demonstrators in Bahrain in the most brutal way. Reports have included torture of nurses, removal of people from intensive care units so they can be left to die and intimidation and possible murder of hospital surgeons. See this Sunday Telegraph report  http://bit.ly/fNNvug

 UAE jet fighters are  also preparing to join the coalition of the willing against Colonel Gaddafi in Libya. They are planning to send 12 fighters and are blaming their civil unrest on the Iranians.

AssetCo, the  troubled fire privatisation company, is hoping to get £40m out of a £120m deal with the  Gulf State’s armed forces to boost its profitability. It has been facing severe problems in Britain, including having to raise £26m from investors and through a  share placing. Revenue and Customs has issued a winding up order against AssetCo seeking at least £4m and they have to pay off a debt to the state-owned Lloyds TSB.

The deal was one of the last negotiated by former chief executive, John Shannon, before he resigned after a huge row  with the rest of directors over the share placing.

 Now they are  desperate to recruit  trained staff so they can fulfill it. The advertisement promises a company car, free medical cover and flights home to Britain. See here. http://bit.ly/ftpdZi

The Telegraph report on Bahrain atrocities, the AssetCo contract and job advertisement can be seen together here. http://bitly.com/i4yYFk 

Matt Wrack, general secretary of the FBU, has written to David Cameron, to protest about the deal.

He said: ” The clampdown in Bahrain has resulted in a significant number of protestors being killed. The clampdown, including martial law, is supported by armed forces from Saudi Arabia and from the UAE.
… I hope you will make it clear that it is not acceptable for them to take British public money, and also to assist the armed forces of the UAE … I hope you will insist that any company which takes on such work in future, does not also undertake work for military clients involved in the suppression of democracy.
May I remind you that, in 1963, fire hoses were turned on school age civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham Alabama. Ever since that deeply alarming moment, fire services have sought to maintain an independent role as a result of their humanitarian responsibilities. We now have a UK firm providing an essential aspect of our emergency service which has close commercial links to a brutal and anti-democratic military. All the talk from politicians about support for democracy in the Arab world is so much hypocrisy if they allow UK public services to operate in this manner. AssetCo and its directors clearly have no regard for the humanitarian role of our service, and are only in it for profit.   ”

It seems extraordinary to me that a  foundering British company is poised to make millions out of Middle East  misery and recruit desperate British people to do it.

Revealed: The £400,000 debts of Barnet’s blogger banning private security firm

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MetPro's fine lads: Owed £20,000 in unpaid wages

Documents filed by Mike Solomon, the liquidator of MetPro Rapid Response, the private security company accused of covertly filming and monitoring the borough’s bloggers, reveal that it went belly up owing over £400,000 ten days ago.

The biggest creditor is Revenue and Customs who are owed a cool £245,611.57, for unpaid tax, national insurance contributions, corporation tax and VAT.

 The company which took over £275,000 from the council taxpayers of the Tory borough to provide security and was used by the  council leader, Lynne Hillan,  to enforce a ban on bloggers filming or reporting the council’s big cuts meeting, could have been involved in tax avoidance.

The break down of the figures show that over £139,000 owed  is in PAYE and national insurance contributions and another £99,000 is VAT.

Employees are also owed over £21,000 in unpaid wages – and are top of the list to receive £8800 in payments if any money can be raised.

 The two directors of the company Kevin Sharkey and Luigi Mansi have put themselves down as creditors – saying they are owed £92,500 for loans they gave to the company. Other unpaid debts include £3400 to  their accountants, Bond Partners, the address where the company was last registered and a £4972 credit card debt to Barclaycard.

Total debts are over £400,000 while assets are just three motorcycles valued at £11,850; computer and office equipment worth £475 and security uniforms worth £1400. As a job lot Mr Solomon estimates he could sell them for £6000 plus a goodwill sum of £13,500 for anybody wanting the business.

The scale of the scandal raises questions about the due diligence employed by Barnet Council in appointing them in the first place, particularly as records show that voluntary liquidation involving the same directors has happened before. There could be a case for an investigation if a complaint was made to the district auditor about how the council tendering procedures handled their original appointment.

Since Barnet have been unable to answer a lot of questions from the public about this whole unhappy saga – may be they will feel they have to co-operate with auditors. Or may be not.

Private security firm that banned bloggers goes bust

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gone bust Pic courtesy MetPro Rapid Response Ltd

The row over  Barnet Council’s ludicrous decision to defy Communities

Some of the fine lads working for MetPro, the blogger busting co. Pic courtesy: Reasonablenewbarnet.blogpsot.com

Secretary Eric Pickles and ban bloggers and film makers from covering their cuts meeting has taken an extraordinary twist.

In order to enforce the ban the Tory council used MetPro Rapid Response – the council’s main private security contractors – to stop some residents and bloggers from entering the public gallery to see the council vote through cuts.

See footage on Broken Barnet website here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3CsC7wrNg

Full story on Broken Barnet website. Link is http://bitly.com/i13ngn Mrs Angry also reveals that the company may have done covert filming of residents and may be monitoring Barnet bloggers and this blog. The council says it is ” not aware” of any blog monitoring.

The company  has received £275,889  for work from the  council taxpayer according to Barnet’s documents released on the Openlylocal website.  See http://bit.ly/eitGCW

It has also  received glowing tributes from the council. On MetPro’s website they quote Barnet Council as saying: ” MetPro has removed all of our safety worries at work thanks to their rapid response officers here in our building.”

 But now the company has just gone bust and is being run by a Liquidator, Mike Solomons, who according to the law firm handling the liquidation, Beavis Morgan, has put Barnet’s security staff contract up for sale.

Closer investigation of the MetPro has revealed some extraordinary facts. Its two directors, Kevin Sharkey and Luigi Anthony Mansi appear to have run a  string of companies which have gone bust before.

 The address of the firm until recently was a rented  multi million pound mansion in Totteridge Lane, Barnet owned by the  brothers Cyril and Edward Frey, aged 86 and 89, and a former lawyer from Finer and Company predecessor of Finers, Stephens, Innocent ( the firm defending the Wikileaks founder). The Land Registry entry confirms that the three owners can be contacted through them, though the law firm which handles multi million pound estates, says it does not manage the property.

Contrary to the glowing references from Barnet, its staff have received libellous comments on a security officers chat site. They are not surprisingly  hardly popular with a string of Barnet bloggers.

All this suggests that Barnet Council may  have more to answer than banning bloggers – and some explanation is required about what is going on and how this firm got the contract in the first place.

A Council spokesperson said: “Barnet Council is urgently reviewing MetPro Rapid Response’s position and will be liaising with the liquidators involved.”