Further institutional confusion emerges around Asher Craig’s Stepping Up (SU) business. We’ve already learned how Bristol City Council senior bosses dodged their own procurement rules to hand public money over to the former Deputy Mayor’s private training company. 

When that scam got uncovered, Bristol Waste became the vehicle for subsidising the Deputy Mayor’s company instead. Including supplying an apparent £53k loan to the Slasher’s company.  A loan that the council waste company now denies making. Claiming, instead, that SU is their “debtor”. But what service was a waste company selling to a management training company? Very pricey waste disposal services?

Now WECA’s joined the party. Information from a member of the public at a WECA Audit Committee meeting reveals that a £150k grant awarded to SU was dependent on a financial guarantee from, er, Bristol Waste! However, any guarantee should have been approved by Bristol Waste shareholder, Bristol City Council and recorded on the Council’s website. There’s no record of this authorisation so any “guarantee” is unlawful under company law. 

Did anyone at WECA think to ask why Bristol Waste was acting as a “parent guarantor” for a company where a Bristol Cabinet member was a director and if it was legal? Where’s the due diligence?