Call for Northumberland County Council to apologise to those involved in Arch investigation

Arch Northumberland was dissolved and replaced by Advance in 2018 following a string of scandals.

A number of issues were uncovered by a review into the company following the Conservative election win in May 2017.

It was believed that there was “potential for criminality” in relation to some of these matters, but following three investigations, officers at Northumbria Police felt the “threshold for criminality” had not been breached.

This was confirmed at November’s meeting of the audit committee.

Speaking at last week’s meeting of the committee, Cllr Anne Dale said the statement made by the council’s director of law and governance Stephen Gerrard should be included in the new annual governance statement.

At the time, Mr Gerrard said: “I would like to take this occasion to advise members on recent communication by police related to matters concerning Arch North East.

“This was a matter raised by Northumberland County Council in 2017. The police advised that, since 2017, Northumbria Police have undertaken three investigations led by trained and accredited senior investigating officers.

“Following the conclusion of all investigations, they are satisfied that the threshold of criminality has not been met and the evidence does not support any further police action.”

Cllr Dale said: “I just think that needs to be added in because it draws a line under all the police investigations we have had. It says it is finished, it has been looked at – otherwise we have got this mistrust.”

Cllr Lynne Grimshaw called on the council to apologise to those involved. Arch was set up under the previous Labour administration, with the alleged issues identified by the review commissioned by the Tories occurring under Labour.

She said: “Their lives were made a misery. We should send apologetic letters for those involved who have been vindicated.”

Deputy council leader Coun Richard Wearmouth replied: “I think we need to be careful about language. The police have been quite clear – it didn’t meet the threshold for criminality.”

Cllr Wearmouth added that previous reports on issues at Arch were “based on fact”.