SHOCKING NEWS
CALLS FOR POLICE PROBE INTO BIRMINGHAM COUNCIL’S £11M PAYMENTS TO PRIVATE HIRE FIRM
Senior politicians at ‘bankrupt’ Birmingham City Council (BCC) have called for a police investiga- tion into the authority’s relation- ship with a PH firm carrying out school contracts, found charging £200 a day to take one pupil three miles to school. PHTM reported on the MailOnline investigation last month which has now revealed that a senior official at the council worked for two years from the same community centre as Green Destinations Ltd (GDL), later at the centre of the £11m over- charging probe. Deputy opposition leader at BCC, Ewan Mackey, said there should be an “independent investigation which, if necessary, involves the police, to find out if the council was ‘awarding contracts unfairly’ and that the law was not broken when spending taxpayer money. And now Michael Gove
has
announced he will appoint com- missioners to take over BCC and will launch a local inquiry into the authority.
The Communities
Secretary said he was ‘satisfied BCC is failing to comply with its best value duty’ after it issued a Section 114 notice. The council, the largest in Europe, is currently in turmoil over various issues including PH firm GDL billing £11m over the odds for home to school transport. Senior Council official Jay Shimano was revealed to be working in the same building as this PH firm as their profits rose by 1,900% to more than £1.6m. MailOnline has revealed that Jay Shimano, whose job is to ensure school taxi safety, and his boss Sarah Norman, directed drivers at
10
2022, leaked data suggests. GDL, which was founded by Malik in 2013, recorded occasional losses and meagre
profits until the Jay Shimano and Jameel Malik
rival firms to collect ID badges from the address on Beeches Road. On arrival, it was suggested to drivers that it might be more lucrative for them to work for GDL, conveniently based in the same building, competitors claimed. Cllr Mackey also said that any investigation needs to be ‘rigorous and quick’ due to the ‘escalating financial crisis’ - as he slammed the Labour-run council. He said: “This service assists some of the most vulnerable children in the city, whose parents must be worried sick after this financial ineptitude and mismanagement.” Shimano, who was promoted from compliance officer to manager at the council’s Children and Young People’s Travel Service (PYPTS), worked at the same office as GDL - based in neighbouring Sandwell - from 2020 until at least early last year, the council has admitted. The building, where GDL still rents a room, is a two-minute walk from the home of GDL owner Jameel Malik, 45, and near Shimano’s home. Malik’s firm has grown to be the dominant school travel supplier in Birmingham since 2020. As of 2023, it charges c. £17m to run about 460 of the council’s 1,300 routes, around a third more than in
2018/19 financial year, where they bagged £83,250, according to accounts from Companies House. In 2020, their profits more than doubled to £171,900 and a year later, more than quadrupled to £769,060 as Shimano worked alongside them. GDL’s
latest
accounts until April 2022 show a profit of a whopping £1,646,700. This investigation lays bare the intimate relationship GDL had with senior council staff in charge of school transport services, as GDL became the dominant contractor. If GDL’s pricing mirrored that of competitors such as HATS, which works with BCC and other councils, analysis suggests the cost could be closer to £6m - an £11m difference. BCC said in July that all contracts were ‘tendered in accordance with the council’s procurement pro- cesses and in a legally compliant manner’.
On the use of the Beeches Road office, a BCC spokesperson said: “Previously the council’s PYPTS’s compliance team had rented a room on a few occasions in 2020 and 2021 at the Beeches Road Community Enterprise Centre in West Bromwich, for training and issuing licence badges. “The team has not used the site since early 2022 and is now based at a council office in Erdington.” Council auditors Grant Thornton declined to comment on calls for an investigation, but MailOnline understands a complaint has been made to the firm.
OCTOBER 2023 PHTM
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