Canbedone Productions, which received the grant in 2011 for a film that was never made, have failed to provide independently audited accounts despite repeated requests.
In a new development, the States’ own annual accounts recently revealed that, after failing to make any progress, the Economic Development Department was planning to use public money to pay for the preparation of the film company’s accounts.
However, following questions by the JEP, that move has now been scrapped after the States Treasurer Richard Bell decided that it would ‘not be value for money’.
Treasury Minister Alan Maclean – who, as the then Economic Development Minister signed off the grant – said that since concerns had been raised about States grants generally, the whole process had been ‘tightened up’, with the new Innovation Fund offering loans, rather than grants.
‘Where there have been issues is around the management of the grant, but I think that with Canbedone the principle behind it, to attract investment, was right at a time when unemployment was rising,’ he said.
‘Part of what EDD does to support industry does carry an element of risk, and it’s about how they managed that risk that has been picked up on.’
An investigation carried out by the Public Accounts Committee in 2013 found that the contract for the grant was ‘poorly written and executed and left the Jersey taxpayer exposed to undue risk’.
The committee also examined Canbedone’s records at Companies House which showed ‘a long list of payments to individuals involved in the planning of the project’, including payments for flights and hotels, and concluded that ‘the grant from Jersey was possibly digested in quite lavish running costs’, with ‘no clear indication as to whether monies have been expended in Jersey as per the ministerial decision’.
They also found that the grant was not paid from budgeted funds, but from ‘a windfall surplus’, and recommended that if the project was delayed beyond 30 September 2013, the company should be required to hand the money back.
Last year hundreds of young Islanders went to auditions at the Town Hall in the hope that they would be chosen to star in the film, Crystal Island, which they were told would be shot at Hamptonne in St Lawrence over the summer.
But in June the States was told that a multi-million investment by UK supermarket company Tesco had been withdrawn and the promises made by director Keith Cavele – along with an ‘A-list’ star – failed to materialise.
It also emerged during a Public Accounts Committee hearing last March that the company had changed its name to Ship of Light Ltd, thereby annulling the requirement to comply with the terms of the EDD grant – to make a film in Jersey, employing local people and companies.
In August last year Senator Maclean said that according to the producers, the ‘Hollywood blockbuster’ they had promised – initially called The Knights of Impossingworth – would be worked on as a television series along the lines of the popular Game of Thrones fantasy drama.
Senator Maclean also said in a statement to States Members that the grant conditions applied only to pre-production work, that these conditions had been satisfied and the file ‘closed’.
But speaking to the JEP in October, Economic Development chief officer Mike King said that the Treasury had requested external audited accounts, at EDD’s expense, and that the department was ‘not writing this one off’ and would be ‘working hard with all parties to bring the pre-production investment to fruition’.
The intention to continue to chase independently audited accounts for Canbedone, at EDD’s expense, was restated in the States financial report published last month, signed off by States Tresurer Richard Bell and Chief Executive John Richardson. The report states: ‘The Economic Development Department have agreed to fund the preparation of audited accounts for Canbedone Ltd and they are in the process of being prepared.’
However, when asked earlier this month why EDD were footing the bill, Senator Maclean said that the Treasurer was in consultation with the Internal Audit department about the ‘cost and benefits’ of the exercise. ‘Originally, there was no requirement for audited accounts under this contract – it was only when all the public interest occurred that it was suggested that it might be sensible to have audited accounts,’ he said.
The minister added that since issuing his statement to Members last year he had not had any communication with the film company or its director. ‘The point is that the idea of the grant was to attract opportunity to the Island, not to make a film – that would have cost millions,’ he said.
KEITH Cavele – the man behind Canbedone films which was given £200,000 of taxpayers’ money to make a film which never happened – must be feeling pretty smug this morning.
Islanders who footed the bill for a grant he was given for preproduction work on his Knights of Impossingworth film will never know how their money was spent.
The Treasury had planned to ask taxpayers to shell out once again and pay for audited accounts to be produced in a bid to restore some sense of accountability to a situation which has been so poorly handled. The proposed expenditure was even included in the 238-page 2014 States accounts, tucked away on page 96.
The JEP contacted the Treasury and Economic Development to question this further drain on the public purse, but did not receive a response.
After a number of fruitless follow-up calls repeating the newspaper’s request and the submission of a Freedom of Information request, we were finally told that paying for the accounts ‘would not be value for money’.
If only that circumspection had been employed when the decision was taken to hand the film cash over in the first place.
What we do know from previous inquiries into the fiasco by the Public Accounts Committee is that much of the money was paid to individuals involved in the planning of the project and spent lavishly on flights and hotels.
The PAC also reported that there was ‘no clear indication as to whether monies have been expended in Jersey as per the ministerial decision’. And they also said that the contract was ‘poorly written and executed and left the Jersey taxpayer exposed to undue risk’.
The truth may be worse than that. Government sources have told the JEP that civil servants responsible for the signing of the agreement pulled the wrong contract off the shelf.
So where are we after the latest twist in this deeply unsatisfactory saga?
The answer is the same as it has been for too long.
Alongside eye-watering payouts to sacked senior civil servants, a lack of accountability over the Les Galots development grant and the failure to protect the taxpayer from exchange-rate fluctuations when buying the new incinerator, the whole thing remains a mess which smacks of top level incompetence.
And while Mr Cavele and his chums are feeling smug, the real scandal is that Economic Development chief executive Mike King and some members of his department have got away with this appalling state of affairs scot-free.
Surely this is no longer the Jersey way?
