It has been recommended by investigators Nottingham City Homes should be brought under the full control of the city council to "put right" a series of potentially unlawful payments. Millions intended for the benefit of council tenants had been wrongly transferred over several years to the authority's general fund in a bid to prop up other services suffering from financial constraints.
Towards the end of last year the 'unlawful treatment' by the council of money intended for Nottingham City Homes' tenants and housing stock was uncovered. It totalled almost £15m and two external investigations have just recently uncovered many millions more may have been misspent.
Now up to £40m of ringfenced money, from Nottingham City Homes' Housing Revenue Account (HRA), could have been spent on 'non-HRA activity' and 'without full consideration' of the legally-binding ringfence, according to the reports released on Tuesday (April 26). The reports, conducted by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and investigator Richard Penn, state just over £22m had been misspent by the council since 2014/15, while NCH misspent £17.1m.
