FOLLOWING last year’s MPs’ expenses scandal, all local authorities and politicians are under much more pressure to spend taxpayers’ money wisely.

Whatever the reason for the financial outlay, there is far more public scrutiny and people appear to be more interested in where their taxes are going.

With that in mind, the Review has long been studying Hertfordshire County Council's locality budget scheme.

Each of the council’s 77 councillors have £10,000 at their disposal to spend on a variety of community projects within their district or borough.

The applicant should be a community group or a local charity.

All very worthy, but as our article on this scheme suggests, it appears that it is not very well monitored at all.

Councillors initially complained that they could not “give the money away”. But now some are giving the cash to some very questionable causes.

Bushey North’s Green county councillor Steve O’Brien donated nearly £1,800 across two years so that just two children could attend Ryde Teaching Services, an after school maths and English club.

However, an application by Friends of Fisher's Field for a pond on the Bushey nature reserve was rejected by Councillor O’Brien because of a personal spat over the use of the land.

Conservative Caroline Clapper accepted a £400 application so that a Hungarian school choir could travel and perform at the recently staged Radlett Festival.

And Tory councillor for Kings Langley Richard Roberts – who heads the scheme at the county council – gave Kings Langley School pupils £350 for vaccinations ahead of a trip to Tanzania.

Thankfully no exotic grants have been awarded here in St Albans, but our investigations did lead us to another problem.

Groups like PHAB (Physically Disabled Abled Bodies), a wonderful organisation which arranges activities for children, appear to be missing out.

I would have thought the council’s locality budget scheme was set up to help groups just like PHAB.

But of its nine applications, only two were successful, netting it a paltry sum. Well, paltry when you compare it to the £3,450 Computer Friendly raked in thanks to seven of its eight applications being successful. You might even call it short change when you consider that St Albans District Credit Union was given £5,900 with four large applications approved.

Now I am not suggesting that anything untoward has gone on, but it appears no strategy is in place to stop large multiple grants being handed over to the same organisation.

Aislinn Lee gave the credit union £400 and Computer Friendly £450 but rejected PHAB; the same organisations were given £2,000 and £500 respectively by Bernard Lloyd who also thought they were more worthy than PHAB. Councillor Alan Witherick granted the credit union and Computer Friendly £500 each but rejected PHAB and Geoff Churchyard rubber-stamped donations of £1,000 and £500 to the same organisations, saving only £300 for PHAB.

The list goes on and on and on.

Even Clarence Ward’s Lib Dem county councillor Chris White doubts the validity of the scheme.

He said: “The system is not satisfactory from what we have observed has gone through – that’s something that we need to look at.”

Although all grants are monitored by the council’s legal team, councillors do not meet to discuss their successful and unsuccessful applications. It appears nobody questions the respective councillor’s decision, therefore allowing them to send pupils for private lessons or even, in the case of Welwyn Garden City South Conservative councillor Steve Markiewicz, letting them donate £1,000 to Hertfordshire Police.

When questioned by this newspaper Councillor Richard Roberts said; “If you trust your councillors, which I believe people do as that is why they were elected, then let them decide how to spend this money.”

I do trust our councillors, but I am not sure I trust this system.

I do not know how much St Albans District Credit Union wanted but, let’s say, for argument’s sake, it was after £3,500.

What happens now it has been given £5,900? Does it pay the difference back? Can it spend it on something else? Does it need to provide receipts?

You cannot blame those at the credit union who must have thought all of their Christmases had come at once when nearly £6,000 dropped through their letterbox but should this be allowed to happen?

Hertfordshire County Council needs to look at the way the scheme is policed and soon.

If the next round of £770,000 is spent in the same way, members of the public might react in a different way when a small percentage rise in council tax is announced next April.