by Damian Hockney
First Published: Thursday 17 July 2008, 11:51

One of Damian Hockney's boasts when he was a London Assembly Member was that he and his colleague Peter Hulme-Cross in the One London Party group voted against Mayor Livingstone's measures more than any other group - he opposed the Olympic bid, opposed the Tory-supported extra resources for Mayoral advisers. Above all, he was scathing about the LDA and at one point called for it to be scrapped entirely, although he believes that a reformed LDA could offer great possibilities. So why is he so supportive of the former Mayor over the Forensic Audit Panel which has just reported its findings on waste at the LDA?

On 10th May, just after the appointment of the Forensic Audit Panel, I wrote on this site: "Something serious must come at the end of this audit. It would be extraordinary if we were to hear vague comments when the time comes about systems not being right, and the accompanying promises to 'improve monitoring...achieve better reporting models...greater transparency'."

Whatever you think of the former Mayor, and however partisan you might be about the Lee Jasper affair, there is little new from this panel of Conservative Party grandees and nothing that justifies lurid headlines which are not simply a repeat of their election campaigning. Mr Jasper said he was "gobsmacked" to listen to the Panel skirt the issue of his own involvement - the excuse of leaving it to the police is an effective admission from a 'Forensic Panel' that it has found nothing in its forensic study to implicate him. Or that it was not forensic. Take your pick. This is no surprise to any of us who were the first to investigate these matters, long before they became an election issue. It is indeed a scandal that millions may have been frittered away, but how many more times must the same thing be said? It's action we need not re-hashed political campaigning.

The idea that apologists say "ah but he is under investigation by the police" is increasingly hollow. If the forensic panel had uncovered anything, its members would undoubtedly have informed the police and publicised the fact, even if through leaks. What they have 'uncovered' is inefficiency in government. Welcome to the real world campaign that many of us have been fighting for years. And thanks for nothing for inexpertly setting the cause back a decade by using it as a political pawn and allowing those who might be responsible to be able to simply claim that it is all a put-up job.

LANDFILL THE CARCASS
The Panel talk about "massive misspending" and "ineptitude", but these and other comments are almost a carbon copy of what the London Assembly Economic Development Committee said nearly two years ago. The Panel have also effectively discounted corruption and said that those who did what they did acted using the powers they had. All this and more were already known. As this is a piece of advertising for the new Tory Mayor, "where," as the old US ad slogan would have it "is the beef?" It's a tired old piece of much-chewed carcass. It needs to be landfilled, not constantly recycled.

Even the press release on the GLA website is misleading and political spin. Savings of £7.7 million do not represent 10-15% of the 'overall' GLA Budget. That is a percentage of the smallest part of the GLA family, the spending on the GLA at City Hall. The 'overall' GLA family Budget is well in excess of £10 billion. The release barely mentions the City Hall aspect and refers mostly to the LDA part of the GLA family (whose budget alone is around half a billion).

GANG OF FOUR
The former Mayor issued a letter about the Panel which, if accurate in every detail, is a very damaging blow to its credibility. Only a dyed in the wool Tory apologist howling about Red Ken and "millions spent on disabled gay and lesbian fill in the rest" can miss the point: it lacks credibility for a Gang of Four Tories to look into a highly charged political area like this and pronounce guilt of some form or another. It may appear to be a wizard wheeze in a world where the media lines up on one side or the other and 'scandal' and 'police' are used in the headlines. But it really is also very dangerous and irresponsibly tribal.

And the use of high sounding words like 'forensic'. Forensic? Really. Was this really intended as irony of the old East European school? The audit was a breakneck canter through a few figures and media comment since December 2007, with a report at the end featuring little new. Suggestions about giving the London Assembly more power are all very well, but did any of the Panel ask why their fellow Tory colleagues failed to support moves by others to introduce these when we all had the chance during the review of GLA Powers recently? The Tories even opposed us when we forced a vote to try to scrap an increase in spending on mayoral advisers. They actually voted against a simple motion, thus supporting the increased spending on them and adding to the powers of the Mayor. No doubt the Panel knew all this, as a forensic study would have revealed it.

Those who say this report is an important step in making things right at the LDA are living in a partisan dreamworld populated by nightmare diversionary Red Ken headlines. You are in power now, not Mr Livingstone. Get on with the job. This report is the first diversionary step in clearing the way for much more spending on just a different type of waste/investment.

FAT CHANCE
The audit has rightly attacked waste, but has not really identified how this could be avoided in future. If those people had "the powers" to do what they did with public money, what is to stop others doing the same again. The idea that it's all OK "because our man would never do something like that" is patronising and lacks credibility. If it is serious, the administration must now ask government to surely change the law and grant it less power. Make it completely autonomous from the Mayor. Fat chance. It is indeed what I suggested over two years ago during the review of GLA powers.

Labour's Deputy Leader on the London Assembly John Biggs rightly points out that high risk projects are just that. Is the new Mayor saying he will not use LDA funds to undertake any of these high risk projects? One Mayor's waste is another Mayor's investment and job creation. If the Mayor is not going to use LDA money on high risk projects, then he needs to come clean about it. If he is, what further procedures will be used to avoid the misspending of money? If the vague suggested shift of focus of the LDA is to have any meaning, then it must include moves to strip it legally of the powers which the Panel says have permitted perfectly legally officials to use money in a way which they categorise as misspending. They must propose an amendment to the Acts relating to the LDA and GLA. And specify it.

But the main problem with all this is actually for the inquisitors themselves and for the new administration, and for what they claim to be there to do. It is clear from attending Assembly meetings that the new Mayor and most of his advisers are not adept at handling opposition, accountability structures, comment or criticism. That might just be early days and some confusion about what the job entails. With the interesting exception of Kit Malthouse who clearly understands administration and the democratic process, they are uneasy with being challenged. The Panel has obscured by its blatant political nature the real need to hold to account, and has simply confusingly bypassed the institutions which are supposed to be there to do so. I have always had the greatest admiration for Patience Wheatcroft. Her piece on the London Olympics not long before she left the Sunday Telegraph was an outstanding summary of the situation - it was one of those rare columns that actually forced me to write and say thank you. But this is a missed opportunity for all involved.

BREAST BEATING
On the Assembly, I was often criticised for my stance on scrapping the LDA. It was for me the nuclear option for a body which was clearly disfunctional for much of its life. The truth is that it is a misshapen device for dealing with the issues it could tackle. But it could be made to work very well if clearly directed and the detail (but not the direction) divorced from politics. The Panel has effectively reinforced the politicking at the LDA at just a time when it could be a major agent for tackling (for example) the serious issues of the five disadvantaged boroughs and the stubbornly high unemployment rate for London. It could outside of politics attempt to find out why this situation exists. And propose solutions. There is a lot of breast beating about these problems among politicians but no serious work ever seems to be done on finding out the reasons.

Millions are 'misspent' by local authorities of all colours and it is here where the really dangerous impact of this supposedly forensic and independent panel may have a corrosive political effect on government everywhere in the UK. Any single new administration in any town hall can watch and see this thinly disguised bit of partisan politics dressed up as a 'forensic audit'. With accompanying cheerleaders in the press.

Using this precedent, are we now going to have these "independent" panels packed with the new party in power's cheerleaders everywhere else, appointed after the town hall election night clamour has died down and the speeches about working together have been read out staccato? Using public money on advisers who have been handpicked outside the rules of procurement (the very type of thing which inspired the appointment of a Panel in the first place)? Why not set one up now about the decision by the current Mayor to appoint, in headline jargon "illegally" a firm of auditors who are (again headline jargon) "cronies" of members of the Panel. Why not set one up about Poole Tory council's disgraceful waste of public money spying on its council tax payers in the recent "sickening scandal" (headline jargon)?

SHOW TRIAL
It's like we adopted a new currency in London on May 1st - One Old Mayoral Crony = 1 New Mayoral Contact...you use the terminology of your tribe to describe each other's.

Following the International Court example over Milosevic, had the former Mayor and LDA officials deigned to appear before the Panel, would the microphone have been switched off by the judge/chair when they made inconvenient points during the show trial? Would the info be leaked by the Tory Panel to smear them in compliant media..."Exclusive - Red Ken and cohorts confess in independent fair hearing"?

Had I been in the former Mayor's position, would I have gone along to be quizzed by the Gang of Four plus hired hand of same. Frankly, I should think I might be worried that I would be shot "while trying to escape".

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