Scrutinising the accounts

 

On Monday 3rd March 2025, I attended the meeting of Gateshead Council's corporate resources scrutiny committee. On the agenda (at Lib Dem request) were the accounts of the council-owned Regent Funeral Services and whether or not there had been a beneficial return to the council, despite the company's eight years of losses which anyone can read about in the company's accounts lodged with Company's House.

Council Leader Martin Gannon has publicly stated that the council has benefitted significantly from RFS as many of the services used by the company are bought from the council itself. We want this claim to be closely examined because the provision of these services comes at a cost to the council. We had something of a breakthrough on this however. I asked for a further report to come to the committee outlining the costs to the Council of providing each of the services used by the company. This was agreed by the committee. It means we can scrutinise the details and arrive at a figure for the actual net benefit to the authority. That should make for interesting reading.

Photo above: Chris Ord, Ian Patterson and Paul Elliott at Monday's scrutiny committee meeting. We have 5 members on this committee. Ron Beadle had to leave part way through the debate because of another commitment and I was behind the camera!