Sea Cadets Association capital expenditure (FOI)

​​​​Request

The Sea Cadets Association were allocated some £600.000 as capital towards a new HQ and all but approx. £150,000 has "disappeared"?

£450,000 has been used, taken, maybe illegally misappropriated etc. ....therefore please advise ...Could you please supply information where every pound of this MISUSED £450,000 has gone and

1. Who authorised various payments?
2. Who were the persons, companies, architects, surveyors, Charitable Trusts or otherwise who received payments for their services etc. out or from this allocated capital sum allocated to the SEA CADETS?
3. Who signed off these payments and the dates please?
4. Have scrutiny or the AUDITOR GENERAL investigated these misused funds and if so, what were their conclusions?

Response

The first part of the response details where all payments have been made from 1995 to 2014.

The sum of £600,000 was allocated in the 1995 capital programme to the Sport, Leisure and Recreation Committee for the relocation of the Sea Cadets. That capital allocation subsequently became part of the responsibility of the Minister for Education, Sport and Culture.

The data which is available from 1995 to 2002 is held on an obsolete financial accounting system and therefore only provides the amount which was spent year on year and not details of individual transactions. 

Retention of financial documents is only for ten years so nothing is held prior to 2005.

In 2002, a new financial accounting system was introduced.

The following information has been extracted from that system for the expenditure made by the Education, Sport and Culture Department (ESC) or their predecessor from the funding identified for relocation of the Sea Cadets.

Total spend between 1995 and 2004 is £192,737.

The remaining budget of £407,263 was transferred from ESC to Jersey Property Holdings (JPH) in 2006 in accordance with P93/2005, which formed Jersey Property Holdings as the body to manage States Properties, see the link below for rationale of this decision.

Jersey Property Holdings establishment decision (size 74.9kb)

A period of exclusivity was agreed between the public and St Helier Ports Services Limited for the company to develop proposals for the site and lodge a planning application in support of the development.

St Helier Port Services Limited were paid £225,334 in 2014 in relation to the recent Port Galots scheme and the disbursements made by them to third parties are:

In addition to the above costs of the Port Galots scheme, payments totalling £55,750 were made in 2014 to the Jersey Maritime Trust. 

These payments were in relation to setting up and operating the trust. They were funded from two sources:

• £41,200 from the £600,000 allocation for the Sea Cadets capital budget
• a further grant of £14,550 from JPH's revenue budget for ongoing activities of the trust

Both amounts were solely in relation to the Port Galots proposals. However, if an alternative solution is proposed either on this or a different site the Trust is likely to have a role in the operation of the facility.

The total expenditure can be summarised as follows:

Responses to the numbered questions within the request are set out below.

1. payments detailed below were made in accordance with ministerial approval and under the relevant financial directions
   
2. the recipients and the dates of the payments have been provided where the information is available in the table below
   
3. the recipients and the dates of the payments have been provided where the information is available in the table below. The request for who signed off various payments is being refused under Article 25 Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011. See the link below
   
4. the link below (the financial directions report) is the report provided by the Public Accounts Committee which mentions the funds relevant to the Sea Cadets. See page 25. All internal audit reports are required to be sent to:
   

         • ​the relevant Accounting Officer(s);

         • the Comptroller and Auditor General under the public finance law; and

         • the Chairman of the Audit Committee (who is independent to the States of Jersey