Michael Gove says Sandwell residents deserve better

Speaking during a visit to Birmingham Energy Innovation Centre in Tyseley – as part of a tour of the West Midlands – the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said he was “concerned” at the way Sandwell Council was operating.

He said: “There are real concerns about the way in which Sandwell council has been operating.

“But we want to make sure that we look at all of the evidence before deciding what the next step will be.

“Sandwell’s residents deserve better than they’ve had in the past. We’re going to make a judgement about what the best way is of ensuring that the local authority can be in a position to provide better value in the future.”

Last month, minister Kemi Badenoch said in a written statement to the House of Commons that Mr Gove was “minded to use his powers” under the Local Government Act 1999 to intervene at the council.

Representations to the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities closed on February 11, where Sandwell Council and other individuals linked to the affairs of the Labour-led local authority can make comments.

The comments by Ms Badenoch followed a report released by external auditors Grant Thornton’s last December, which uncovered multiple serious failures by Sandwell Council in complying with its duties.

Meanwhile the Wragge Report – released in 2016 – looked at allegations of serious misconduct over the sale of land owned.

The report revealed plots of council owned land were sold at below market value, with the former deputy leader, Mahboob Hussain, found to have sold three former council-owned public toilets for £35,000 to a friend of his, two days after a district valuer said they were worth £130,000.

The Wragge Opinion, leaked last year, claimed the Wragge Report itself was full of apparent “bias”, breaches in procedures and claims of “racially motivated language” allegedly used by the investigator.