Homes in Havering Troubles Continue

It has been announced by Havering Council today that Homes in Havering (HiH) has discovered a gap in its finances. The Council is investigating the exact details with HiH to deal with the issue, and a report on the situation will be brought to Cabinet shortly.

Apparently, the Council has raised concerns about HiH’s financial position and accounting practice over a number of months. HiH agreed with the Council that a team of forensic accountants undertake an initial audit of finances at HiH in September and that an interim Director of Finance should be appointed. His report now indicates a budget gap from last year’s accounts of between £1.8 million and £2.2 million.

Further work is now underway to clarify this year’s financial position, with the Council instructing HiH to account for any and all past and present budget gaps and explain how they occurred. The Council has also instructed HiH to cease all unnecessary expenditure, whilst safeguarding services to tenants and leaseholders, until its financial position is clear.

Havering Park Councillor, Andrew Mann said "I am amazed that HiH have managed to get themselves into such a mess, to over spend £2 million pound in a year is just unbelievable, it now seems that the former Chief Executive (Stephanie Miller) jumped off the ship at just the right time (see previous story on her £87,000 pay off) along with the finance director, who resigned just a month or so ago".

He went on "The only people to suffer in all of this, is the residents, lease holders and tenants of this Borough, with all none urgent expenditure cancelled, this will only serve to have a negative affect on our tenants. The Council needs to urgent set out exactly what is going on at HiH"