Well the case against Naz Malik of AWEMA fame has now concluded and he was found not guilty of two of the three charges levelled against him, the jury being unable to reach a verdict on the third. On the third charge the Crown Prosecution Service has just decided there is insufficient likelihood of a conviction to proceed with the case and a formal Not Guilty verdict on that charge too has been declared by the Crown Court Judge.

A number of interesting things have cropped up during the case. By his own admission Naz Malik did not complete his accountancy training - yet he became a senior finance officer in the NHS in Wales and apparently was a Principal Auditor no less. Despite this financial background, during the case Naz couldn't recall what he had spent £5K on in Ikea just a few years ago - it was put to him it was a kitchen, but he couldn't remember. He seems to have accepted financial practices at AWEMA that would have no place in an office tea fund. The financial and managerial practices at AWEMA were frankly a joke.

We know that concerns about AWEMA were raised on numerous occasions over many years but nothing concrete seems to have been done until too late by either the trustees of the charity, the Charity Commission or the Welsh Assembly Government. I can't help drawing an analogy between the Rotherham child abuse scandal where concerns were raised there for many years too, but fear of being branded racist prevented their proper examination. For many middle managers it would be the kiss of death for your career if such an accusation was to be levelled against you - even if you are entirely innocent.  In addition, Naz and his family had extremely strong connections to Welsh Labour. In my opinion, being of Asian descent AND "in the club" in Wales, he was almost as invulnerable as Clark Kent - indeed I doubt kryptonite or Lex Luthor would have had any affect on him. 

Much has been written by others who understand the machinations of Welsh Labour politics and its hangers-on far better than I do. Now that the criminal case has concluded I hope more can and will be written by them about AWEMA and the relationships of the Malik family to the Labour Party in Wales especially. AWEMA was the ethnic minorities South Wales based charity whose principal objective was stated as to promote equality and diversity for the benefit of the Welsh public.

The inept financial and managerial processes at AWEMA have been well covered in the press recently and there is much more detail about these in the reports linked to below.

http://wales.gov.uk/docs/caecd/publications/120209finalawemareportdated8Feb.pdf

http://www.senedd.assemblywales.org/documents/g1099/Public%20reports%20pack%20Monday%2022-Oct-2012%2014.00%20Public%20Accounts%20Committee.pdf?T=10

But they included such things as:

The CEO (Naz) had two Directors reporting to him, one of whom was his daughter - a clear conflict of interest.
There was some evidence that ABOMA (the Board of Trustees) had considered and approved salary increases to the CEO’s daughter, but there was no evidence of any challenge by ABOMA. Naz was present at the ABOMA meeting and as an ABOMA member was part of the decision-making process in respect of this matter and did not disclose the obvious conflict of interest he had. (His daughter’s salary in 2008 was £20,469 which increased several times to the level of £50,052 by 2011).
The CEO had no oversight of the key financial processes within AWEMA. There was no “month end” process in order for him to sign off key reconciliations or accounts and, more significantly, during the external audit inquiry they were unable to have sight of any bank reconciliations.
The CEO played a minimal role in the management of the financial processes within AWEMA and instead relied on his Finance Director.
One of the fundamental failings identified during the external audit review was the absence of a set of statutory audited accounts for the year ending 31/03/2011.
Naz sent an email to the Chair of the AWEMA board in January 2012 setting out “potential benefits that I may have had in the past". These were summarised as follows:
Gym Membership – Between January 2009 and January 2011 at a total cost of £2,120, a two year membership of a gym was offered to all members of AWEMA’s staff (four members of staff at the time, three members of staff took up the offer). Got to laugh at this one - was it Naz, his daughter, and daughter-in-law that made up three of these?
Rugby and Cricket Tickets – tickets for Rugby Internationals (three occasions) and cricket matches (one occasion) were purchased and offered to all staff and volunteers. Total value £800.
On one occasion a penalty notice regarding a CEO’s car parking offence was issued. AWEMA paid the cost of this (£110)
The audit investigation showed that whilst declarations of conflicts of interest were made at ABOMA meetings, there was no conflicts of interest register nor a gifts and hospitality register (for gifts/hospitality given or received) in place for staff within AWEMA.
The CEO was also a Trustee  so sat on the ABOMA board. This was highly unusual and gave rise to conflicts of interest, particularly as the CEO had executive responsibility for leading the organisation, which conflicted with his role as a Trustee for providing independent oversight and scrutiny. This conflict increased over time as members of the CEO’ s family were employed or volunteered within AWEMA.
The CEO had not been subject to a performance appraisal since 2006. The audit investigation was unable to obtain copies of any management accounts produced by AWEMA. They were informed that they had not been produced for some time and were unable to establish when the last set may have been produced.
There was a complete lack of oversight of the financial processes and controls within AWEMA by the CEO.

Considering how much public money flowed through AWEMA's offices, it is hard to believe how it took so long for this organisation to be closed down.

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On the website LinkedIn this week Naz has the following information posted:

Naz Malik's Overview

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