Conservatives Killed ARCH but can’t deliver best value with its replacement ADVANCE Northumberland.

Arch, the Northumberland County Council owned company who’s reputation was poisoned by Northumberland Conservatives in their campaign to win the Local Government elections in 2017 was not scrapped as described in Councillor Peter Jackson the Tory leader’s manifesto. It was simply replaced by their own company ADVANCE Northumberland.


Unlike the very successful company ARCH who even delivered a rural Grant system on the governments behalf due to infighting among the Tories the company ADVANCE has been shown to fail in all its endeavours and lost £4m during 2018-19.


Following that failure they should have been able to drive improvements through the simple art of planning for success, but their plan failed in its aims and they were caught out by their external auditor, who has told the public in his letter to the Council and the company that they have not delivered best value for their taxpayers and do not allow their audit process any independence and act in the same manner as its parent the Council.


Its also believed by many that when the company changed from ARCH to ADVANCE the Tories in their infinite wisdom forgot to protect its Directors and indemnify them from responsibility in the event of losses. The ducking out of top Tories from the Board of Directors including the Leader and his Deputy who’s joint aim it was to ‘scrap ARCH’ shows there may be some truth in those beliefs.


The auditors letter has been reproduced for this article and the link to companies house placed below so you the taxpayer can view the high profile bailouts.


The question has to be: will the next Labour Council choose to scrap ADVANCE?

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11161983/filing-history