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Just to give fellow BR members an idea of how vital the income from parking fees is to some local Councils the following may be of interest! A lady, working for the North Kesteven Council, has just been sent to prison for 3 years for stealing money from the local parking fees. Her job was to count the money and she managed to steal £500,000 in 10 years and wasn't detected until there was an audit.
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I now find that this money was stolen from the income from just 8 machines in one market town. Just amazes me that nobody in charge missed it in 10 years; also amazing that from this income £10,000 a month could be stolen and there could be anything left!
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Sleaford by any chance? My folks live there and my dad reckons it explains why parking charges have gone up by about 500% in the past few years in the town. The council have been saying to themselves "ooh, we're not getting much parking revenue in, better put the charges up again". Of course, they won't go down again now.
----
Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.
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..and having read it, it's amazing that her Presley collection is valued at exactly the same as the amount she stole. If it does well at auction then it may end up being a better investment than many the council would have made.
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£5000/mth.
I guess if it's always been stolen then the council wouldn't know any different. Bit like the night porter guy who stole a fortune by keeping guests late drinks etc payments but the hotel didn't know until he had his first night off in many (was it something stupid like 32?) years.
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In a similar vein, there was the school that ordered 5 trays of doughnuts for the tuck shop every day for years. On each tray were 48 doughnuts. It was only when the delivery driver left and the new driver started delivering did they find there should have been 60 dougnuts on a tray.
Once a pattern of regular theft has been established, then it is very difficult to spot. I have to ask why was there no audit for 10 years - lax management?
--
Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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Now watch out for a statement from the relevant council along the lines of - "We are shocked and dismayed by the dishonest actions of a trusted employee. We shall immediately put measures in please to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again" Loud sound of stable door being shut!
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I'm having difficulty reconciling the statement:
It was estimated that between January 1996 and July [2005]
and
Wall stole £557,327.11.
An estimate that is quoted to 8 significant figures? Hmmm.
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11p? 11p? I want to park in this town if they collect 11p!
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No you dont - I would bet that they have machines that dont give change.
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At least she probably didn't expect housekeeping money...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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She didn't need housekeeping money - she lived at home with her parents. Now she is in prison she still won't need housekeeping money! LOL
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11p? 11p? I want to park in this town if they collect 11p!
They probably employed a hugely expensive firm of auditors to calculate (guess) the yearly amounts, and then they added compound interest on top, hence the funny total. So the actual amount the stole may well have been considerably less than the stated figure.
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A couple of thoughts :-
Firstly the sentencing judge obviously didn't believe her when she said "I'm more sorry than you could know", so he quite deservedly gave this corrupt public-sector employee 3 years porridge.
Secondly, I heard another story about a long-term government contract rip-off involving toilet paper.
It goes like this : company wins contract to supply tolet paper to all public loo's and those in public buildings. Contact based on x number of rolls per loo per month etc.
Estimate based upon each loo roll having say 70 sheets of paper.
Supplied loo rolls having only say 45 sheets of paper.
Auditors therefore discovered after 5 years they had lost £20,000 due to these facts.
Mind you it must have cost that much to employ the auditors to find this out in the first place !
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Mind you it must have cost that much to employ the auditors to find this out in the first place !
Local authorities are (or were) audited by the Audit Commission, an official body. So there would be little or no marginal cost to notice that, in fact.
There was a book on the history of the AC - the cover has a picture of a grey anonymous-looking chap in a suit carrying a briefcase, and the sub-title was "The man the grafters fear!!". It told the story of all the interesting moments in the auditors' careers, the moments when they caught someone with their fingers in the till. It wasn't very thick, IIRC.
And no, I don't know who audits the books for the Audit Commission.
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