Financial Irregularities
The chief executive of the PDC was John Collinson, former property director of the Black Country Development Corporation. He was suspended from his post in June 1995—and he resigned in September—after it was reported by the Public Accounts Committee that he had spent over £9,000 of the corporation's money on his own private expenses during visits abroad, though he did repay the money.
The committee also censured the corporation for "poor stewardship of public funds" and said that it had "lost control over the expenditure of public funds". However one of the companies that had been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee complained that its report contained errors and not all the evidence had not been considered. Following this, the National Audit Office, which had provided much of the evidence for the report, admitted that some of the involved parties had not been spoken to directly. Following a spell during which David Woodhall was acting chief executive, Collinson was formally replaced in early 1996 by Geoff Timbrell who had been the head of property at the London Docklands Development Corporation.
Read more about this topic: Plymouth Development Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word financial:
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)