I sent this email at 11.40pm last night because I got frightened reading a presentation for a Cllr briefing session on Thursday about something called the Savills report on £ for homes
I always avoid sending emails after 9pm, when you are tired you make mistakes but after
1/
reading the presentation I had to say something before Thursday
The email was to Council officers & other members of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee who have been asking for a mysterious report written by @Savills about how we finance existing & new home
See background below
2/
Why the fear on my side?
Croydon Council went bankrupt in part because it did not manage the finances related to the subject of this report
How did opposition Cllrs at Croydon miss this or fail to stop it?
What am I missing & do not understand?
2/
What we were sent was clearly not something produced by @Savills but it was claimed to be a presentation used to make strategic decisions
Having produced similar presentations in my past I was surprised how skimpy & poor it was
Look at financial years in part of presentation!
3/
The report is confidential (not sure why) so I have blanked out sections in my email
But my email ended
"I really really hope that this is not the presentation the Council have been using to make decisions with"
But then thinking about after I went to bed I thought this cannot
4/
be the real presentation but Potemkin version designed to keep O&S quiet & with all of the interesting stuff stripped out
It is only 10 pages long but is about spending more than £400 million over 30 years
So I was thinking which was worse?
a. That this was the real report
5/
or
b. This was a basic summary purely for O&S consumption
I decided last night that I hoped it was b
Because if not it would be truly frightening, that major decisions are being made based on such basic presentations
6/
The term Potemkin comes from Grigory Potemkin, one of my favourite historical characters
Nothing to do with Tower Hamlets but the historical analogy was apt
7/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_…
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