AGENCY TO REPAY £1.4M OVER ACCOUNTING IRREGULARITIES

摘要

The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has served a demand notice on business network Social Enterprise North West (SENW) to recover £1.4m of public money after serious irregularities in its accounts were uncovered. The money forms part of a grant given to SENW to run a business advisory service in Liverpool called the Big Enterprise in Communities project (BEiC). Launched in January 2012, the project, run by SENW together with 17 supporting organisations, received £3.79m from the European Regional Development Fund, administered by DCLG. However, in July 2014, an audit carried out by the Audit Authority in accordance with European Commission rules identified serious breaches in the project's accounts. Under the terms of European grant funding, SENW is required to show how all public money has been spent, but it was unable to do so.