General News
ARA: A joint investigation between the Assets Recovery Agency, Thames Valley Police and the Serious Fraud Office has led to a confiscation order worth nearly £41m - the largest believed to be secured under criminal proceedings to date.
The order is the result of a serious fraud case involving Gerald Smith, who is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence after being found guilty to the misappropriation of funds belonging to a software dot-com company, Izodia plc in September 2006. Dr Smith has been ordered to pay £40,956,911 within 12 months.
Press release ~ Serious Fraud Office ~ Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 ~ Proposed merger of ARA with SOCA
Ofwat: Ofwat has published its proposals to fine Southern Water a total of £20.3m for deliberately misreporting information prior to October 2005 and because poor processes & systems meant customers received poor service. Customers also missed out on the payments they were entitled to because of these service failures.
Ofwat notes that the company took prompt action once it discovered the misreporting. It reported the situation to Ofwat and the Serious Fraud Office, initiated its own investigation and co-operated fully with Ofwat's investigation. The company's new management has ensured customers received payments they were entitled to and is also returning money to customers who paid higher bills than they should have done.
Press release ~ Notice of Ofwat's proposed variation of its proposal to impose a penalty on Southern Water Services Limited - GSS ~ Southern Water Services ~ The guaranteed standards scheme (GSS)
HL: Grant Shapps, Shadow Housing Minister, has released his report Roughly Sleeping which disputes the government’s national street count figure. The current system requires Local Authorities to provide a rough sleepers estimate, but when any number between 0 and 10 is recorded the number is then automatically reduced to zero by central compilers, thereby dramatically underestimating the number of people sleeping rough each night.
Jenny Edwards, CEO of Homeless Link, the national umbrella organisation for frontline homelessness agencies in the UK, said: “The time is ripe to move on from debates about street count statistics to look at ending the evil of street homelessness for good……. . We call on the leaders of all political parties and all local authorities to produce plans to show how they will end rough sleeping and set an example for the world to follow."
Press release ~ Roughly Sleeping (see ‘related files’ link) ~ Homeless Link: Action Plan to End Homelessness ~ HL: Unlocking Solutions - Developing Move On Plans ~ Mayor of London - Draft Housing Strategy ~ National Alliance to End Homelessness ~ CLG – Homelessness
WYP: West Yorkshire Police is warning people across the county not to fall victim to an ongoing laptop computer scam. People - often students near to university campuses - have been approached in the street and offered a laptop computer for sale at a bargain price.
They are shown a real laptop and go to the cashpoint to draw out money. However, when they hand over the cash, they are given a laptop bag, which, once the sellers have left, they discover contains worthless items such as bottles of water or catalogues to give weight to the bag.
Press release ~ West Yorkshire Police ~ OFT - Scams ~ Consumer Direct - Scams ~ Scams and swindles - FSA Money made clear
DH: NHS staff will this week be able to watch some of the worlds leading health experts live online at a unique international clinical summit in London. The summit will bring together leading figures from a wide range of clinical specialities and backgrounds from the UK, US, Canada and Europe.
Discussions will focus on sharing their experience & learning with NHS staff and stakeholders who are involved in shaping the future of the NHS through the Our NHS, Our Future review. Keynote speeches from the event will be broadcast live from 14.20-19.00 on Wednesday 21 November.
