The draft Statement of Accounts originally published in July, which set off a furore once people spotted the words ‘written-off’ in the section dealing with the Olympic Stadium loan:
The version being considered by the Audit Board/Investment and Accounts committee meeting on Wednesday :
Did they think no-one would notice?
Long-serving councillor Conor McAuley (Custom House) has devoted his September ward report to the Stadium loan write-off. The report is worth reading in full. But here is the conclusion:
The Mayor and one or two other councillors are arguing that an ‘impairment’ is not a ‘write off’ but they are contradicted by the very next line in the accounts which states that these charges are subsequently written off.
I am appalled not only by the loss itself but by the fact that we had to study the annual accounts to find this information.
Such a fanfare was made about the original investment, one might think that the Council was seeking to bury the loss
It tends to remind me of the £4.3+ million lost in the Council’s investment in 2012 in the London Pleasure Gardens project that was supposed to animate the Silvertown Quays area south of the Royal Docks. The Council lost every penny of this investment and it even had to pay the winding up costs of the company.
As I understand it, Newham’s Overiew & Scrutiny Committee has never looked at this loss, so I doubt their commitment to look at the Stadium debacle.
The Council’s draft accounts will be discussed further at the Council’s Audit Board on 27 September. It could be a difficult meeting.
That final sentence is a masterpiece of understatement.
forestgatedotnet 
saund like bad graps form him