Over the course of three years Harlow Council has made 38 payments to a company called Harlow Occupational Health Services LTD. These payments total £46607.66. Source
These payments have been categorised as Employee Welfare/Eye Tests/Medicals/Physios/Counselling in the expense documents. One of our local councillors – Tony Edwards is the appointed trustee for this “company”. Tony also sits as the Chair of the Scrutiny Committee for the council.
A number of questions arise from these findings:
- Why are Harlow taxpayers subsidising medical bills for employees of the council? Is our beloved NHS not good enough for them? Why do we have to wait for extortionately long times to be seen by our local doctors and council employees get to skip those queues? That’s £46607.66 that could have gone to fixing some of the potholes in the town.
- Is Tony getting any sort of compensation from said company for being a trustee? How do we find out? We can’t because we cannot submit an FOI to a private company. Sure we can see the accounts at Companies House but we don’t see the breakdown of any expenses he may have claimed either.
- Is this not a total conflict of interest? Surely you’d think if we had a Scrutiny Committee on the council they may have raised this as a conflict?
Whilst this in and of itself may not be illegal it does call into question the integrity of both Tony and the council.
If you would like to pass over some information in the strictest confidence please email: whistleblower@the-harlow-sentinel.com