Dear Neil, Thank you for your email. I will talk to your MP, Jim McGovern, about taking this up on your behalf. I am unable to take matters up on behalf of non- constituents. Yours, Jim From: wneilgrobertson@aol [mailto:wneilgrobertson@aol] Sent: 13 October 2014 10:31 To: Murphy, Jim (2nd Mailbox) Cc: MCGOVERN, Jim; Foulkes of Cumnock, Lord Subject: Fwd: British Council /UK DfID PAID Project in Palestine: HMGs Duty of Care to Neil Robertson Rt Hon Jim Murphy MP, Labours Shadow Overseas Development Secretary, House of Commons, London SW1 Dear Jim, We may have to disagree about the need for Scottish independence. Nonetheless, I remain grateful that some time back when you were Secretary of State for Scotland you took up this case on my behalf with UK DfID and subsequently passed on the flat denial of culpability from Mike Foster MP who was I am afraid misled by his officials who based their response on a weasel British Council memo left on file which had been supplied some years earlier by one of the rogue British Council officials - Mike Hardy - who had been named by me in the complaint I lodged in Gaza with the Head of British Council (Christine Bardsley) who shared my concern. This was a very serious breakdown in procedures for handling whistleblower complaints in British Council which at that stage did not have a formal whistleblower procedure in place until your time as the FCO Minister with responsibility for Public Diplomacy and the protocol that later bore your signature. Whether that made a difference is of course a moot point - The British Council senior management is a law unto itself it seems - but at least it was an honest attempt to deal with what is a very real problem. Sadly it has not solved historic cases. I remain in Limbo and have suffered as a consequence of their dishonesty now for well over 14 years. The contempt shown for those of us who went the extra mile for peace in Palestine and Israel is only rivalled by the callous disregard of British Council and DfID officials it seems for questions from Privy Councillors. I thought you might therefore be interested in seeing the latest round of correspondence which Im also copying to my MP in Dundee West Jim McGovern who has I think also had difficulty in getting answers about this. The issues raised could not in my view be more serious or fundamental to the constitutional relationships between Ministers and officials and the status of this very peculiar quango British Council remains an anomaly. I am copying this to George Foulkes who knows the distress the failure to get this matter resolved has caused me and my family. And thanks again for your earlier intervention even though that hit a UK DfID brick wall. neil robertson 4 Glamis Terrace, DUNDEE DD2 1NA, Scotland (UK) Tel: 01382-665586 -----Original Message----- From: wneilgrobertson To: h.kennedy Sent: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 9:51 Subject: Fwd: British Council /UK DfID PAID Project in Palestine: HMGs Duty of Care to Neil Robertson kindly make sure Helena Kennedy QC sees the mess she left as Chair of British Council - and ask her to fix it: she was lied to by her officials neil -----Original Message----- From: wneilgrobertson To: scottish.secretary Sent: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 9:48 Subject: Fwd: British Council /UK DfID PAID Project in Palestine: HMGs Duty of Care to Neil Robertson Message to HM Government: Action This Week -----Original Message----- From: wneilgrobertson To: Denise.Horsfall Sent: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 3:54 Subject: Getting Justice for Britains First New Deal 25+ Applicant in 1998 Neil Robertson of Dundee who was sent to Gaza by HM Government in 2000: Fwd: UK DfID/British Council PAID Project -----Original Message----- From: wneilgrobertson To: PUS.Action CC: Matthew.Rycroft ; John.Jenkins ; Sarah.Boardman ; helena.kennedy ; a-fernie ; privatesecretary ; pspermsec ; Ministers ; richard.cornish ; martin.davidson ; Christine.Bardsley ; kj.transitions.nz ; foulkesg ; fraud ; A-Clarkin Sent: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 2:59 Subject: Fwd: UK DfID/British Council PAID Project Dear Simon Fraser, I attach further evidence from Dr Keith Johnson who was named on my TOR in Palestine in support of my whistleblowing accounts of irregularities reported in respect of the UK DfID PAID Project and The British Council: kjohnsonnz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/apology-to-gaza.html I would also draw attention to the discrepancy between the project bar chart and the information British Council supplies to FCO about me in a short briefing note prepared earlier this year [2002] for Baroness Kennedy and for FCO by British Councils Mike Hardy over the seal of Sara Langton, Deputy Legal Adviser, British Council 1st February 2002. I would also point out that Dr Johnsons account confounds the claims made by Mike Hardy and Emma Sky at the time that his departure had been for personal reasons unconnected with the project and The British Council. I was like Dr Johnson contracted after responding to the advertisement placed in The Economist by British Council on behalf of UK DfID in January 1999 - and I too expected the duty station to be Jerusalem as advertised. The suggestion by British Councils Legal Advisor and Mike Hardy, and then used to mislead UK DfID Ministers and FCO and Baroness Kennedy, that Mr Robertson was employed for 2 weeks by the British Council is not sustainable as well as being quite obviously ridiculous. The inception mission was in any case disrupted by Sky and Hardy after the first leg of 7-24 February (more than 2 weeks) and the second leg 3 weeks in April 2000 was blocked in for the end of the Inception Period as is now confirmed in Dr Johnsons copy of the project bar chart to overlap with a UK DfID inspection mission. These dates are attached as well to my Terms of Reference. It is also erroneous for British Council to suggest in their briefing note that my role was Team Leader to the PAID Project. That role belonged to Dr Johnson. My role was Team Leader Public Finance as would be perfectly evident if anybody had bothered to go back and look at the project documentation I was supplied with in July 1999 by Andrew Ferguson before he resigned from British Council and Mr Hardy and Ms Sky started meddling. The responsibility to assist the Fiscal Committee was also mine alone at that point rather than being a team brief as Hardy and Sky - neither of whom were selected or qualified for that role - subsequently tried to suggest. In his fax letters to me from Cairo Mr Hardys omission of any reference to my background as an Assistant Secretary in a Finance Ministry in Lesotho and with the IMF suggested strongly that he hadnt even seen my CV when he attempted to re-allocate duties after arriving with Emma Sky for a few hours overnight in the wake of the crisis that she had single-handedly engineered for him by her aggressive attack on members of the team. Subsequent information provided to me under the UK Data Protection Act which was then just coming into force revealed that my suspicions over misappropriation of funds - by Hardy and Sky - were more than justified. It is in my experience almost unprecedented to discover an admission on British Councils files that a project was indeed non-existent while UK DfID files revealed that around £195 K had been invoiced to UK DfID and a project vehicle had been bought by British Council before HM Consul General Robin Kealey stepped in to suspend the project after complaints from one of the Palestinian Ministers Dr Al-Masri who was tipped off by Keith. That was shortly before the Second Intifada - so British Council is lying about that time-line too - and it wasnt with the agreement of the Palestinian authorities either: they were mightily pissed off with Hardy and with Sky. It is also not true to say that Mr Robertson believes he was sacked from his role as Team Leader (sic) to the PAID Project - I am pretty shocked and stunned to find that being said behind my back on British Councils file and for that smear to be repeated externally to UK DfID to prevent my re-employment - and it is also not true to say the [Mr Robertson] has, since March 2000, shared his grievances and unsubstantiated accusations with a large number of public figures. I was very careful to go through appropriate channels given the sensitivity of this situation. Indeed that precluded going to my MP until after I had discussed this with the Privy Councillors. I have subsequently amassed a considerable amount of documentation using DPA and FOI in the face of a wall of silence from British Council and UK Government. That has substantiated every accusation that Ive made. I now continue to hold you (as Permanent Secretary of FCO) formally responsible for delinquency by British Council. Your predecessor Sir John Kerr (now Lord Kerr of Kinlochard) was on BCs Board of Trustees along with Sir John Vereker then Permanent Secretary of UK DfID and Michael Bichard then Permanent Secretary of DfEE/DWP (who retired on a pension of £120K - and now lectures OAPs on working for their pension in The Lords). I note with some appreciation that my letter of 10 November 2003 Subject: Public Administration Institutional Development Project, Palestine addressed to Sarah Boardman on FCOs Levant Desk was copied by her on 17 November 2003 to someone in UK DfID called Sarah Newton with a message: I do not know the history to all this but grateful for any light you can shed on this/any guidance on what we might say. I think DfID paid for the PAID project, as it were. In response, however, UK DfIDs Sarah Newton (copying in UK DfID Palestine desk officer Martin Rapley) gave her what was then the standard UK DfID line worked out by Rapley and Mr Fernie: Sarah I recommend you reiterate the point that DFID has already made to Neil Robertson that this is a contractual issue between him and the British Council. Therefore it is not appropriate for Government Department officials to enter into further correspondence about this case with him. This is of course an outrageous abdication of responsibility for the proper stewardship of public funds and well-documented whistleblower concerns reported by me in Gaza Strip and while there are indeed serious contractual issues at stake here - and I am still waiting to be paid - this serves to deflect attention from the more serious issue of British Council corruption. I would point out incidentally that the suggestion in Mr Hardys weasel memo that British Council only ever employed me for two weeks is patently absurd. His suggestion too that Mr Robertson believes he was sacked from his role as Team Leader (sic: I was Team Leader Public Finance) to the PAID Project is perhaps understandable after my Data Protection Act request revealed that Mr Hardys BC MENA DATS in Manchester had sent an internal memo to their Accounts Department in London in July 2000 requesting a rejournalling of accounts on the basis that Mr Robertson has been sacked (sic) - information that was not shared with me until I invoke DPA. This same British Council smear was also repeated by Sky and Hardy to UK DfID whose desk officer Charlotte Pierre passed this on to staff in East Kilbride in 2002 in a successful attempt to block a further job application for a post with almost identical terms of reference and Jerusalem duty station following revived interest in the PAID project following the Intifada. That post was on the UK DfID payroll attached to The World Bank in EJ and I now want The UK Civil Service Commission to reopen investigations under the Civil Service Recruitment Code in response to the complaint I lodge with both them and with UK DfID in respect of irregularities with that post. A further very disturbing aspect of this reply was not just that it has led to years of distress for me but also that it was based on an email to UK DfID dated 19 July 2002 from Mike Hardy one of the two rogue British Council officials who were named in The Protected Disclosures I made in Gaza to the Head of British Council. This is procedurally indefensible. It also misled Ministers. Hardys email to Martin Rapley and Stephen Chard is headed Subject: Our telephone conversation of yesterday and was in response to a letter from George Foulkes MP - a former PUSS at UK DfID who was at that point a Scotland Office Minister of State. He wrote to Clare Short on 17 July 2002 enclosing a letter from me. The summary sent to the Private Secretary went on however to assert wrongly (based on a short briefing note that Hardy supplied to UK DfID and earlier in 2002 had also supplied to British Council Chair Helena Kennedy QC and FCO after I had contacted Rt Hon Ming Campbell QC MP (who was then also a British Council Trustee and a Member of the Commons Security and Intelligence Committee given the potential sensitivity of the situation I had faced in Gaza) that this was merely some sort of contractual dispute instead of being a direct attack on the Middle East Peace Process and the fiscal integrity of Palestine by a couple of British Council insiders (Emma Sky and Mike Hardy) who seemed to have been milking the Palestinian situation for years and years unchecked - and seemed very anxious not to have auditing by our team. Forensic auditing of the documentation I obtained subsequently - through recourse to the UK Data Protection Act and FOI - confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt that Hardy, Sky and McGowan had perpetrated a fraud. Having ousted the Project Director (Dr Johnson) and myself (as Team Public FInance) Sky and Hardy appointed themselves to these roles for which they were not qualified and attempted to play off PNA officials against one another with the lure of an additional post at Ministerial level and indeed secured a budget increase from UK DfID to finance this even though the Palestinian Ministry of Finance and legislature had warned against this kind of black-box corruption by bilateral donors which they had associated with particular PNA Ministries. A briefing note from Sky to Hardy stating how she had tried to play Nabeel Shaath off against Abu Sharia really stinks. Anyway Simon Fraser: the day of reckoning has arrived. My message to The British Government is to honour your Duty of Care to me. I need the £39K balance of the £45K fee we agreed 15 years ago paid with interest; and perhaps then we can have a more balanced discussion about how HMG intends to make good the 15 years of career damage it has caused me through your negligence in dealing with this matter more professionally. I have not worked since. I have also asked DWP to rescind my benefit sanctions. I also want consideration given to prosecution of Sky and Hardy under the UK Theft Act so that this kind of corruption never happens again. neil robertson 4 Glamis Terrace, DUNDEE DD2 1NA, Scotland (UK) Tel: 01382-665586
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 18:24:15 +0000
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