Unanswered Questions
Friends and readers. The sleazy merger of the former Muirhouse Six Circle Project with the ever growing empire of PEP,still casts a dark cloud over this community. Pilton Sucks has lead the way in trying to unravel how this murkey merger ever came about.
Why was the former manager Jim Nichol,who was so obviously guilty of fraud ever allowed to escape proscecution? Why was he given a redundency package? or was this part of a hush money agreement? Why and who paid off the debt? and why was the management Committee which included a senior Health and Social Care Manager-Don Millar-[Criminal Justice] allowed to escape scrutiney?
And ultimatly who benifited apart from Mr. Nichol himself.We know now that the merger with PEP ahead with little or no objection and that the Six Circle Project disappeared into the black hole of PEP,only to emerge as something entirely different.
For this merger to suceed it needed to appear to be above board,which of course it wasn’t. What part did Don Millar the guardian of the statutory grant given to Six Circle play in all this? Mr. Millar seems to have emerged untouched by any of the twists and turns that took place.
This senior manager now hiding in Waverley Court had a duty to monitor the taxpayers interests,he did exactly the opposite and walked away careful not to be tainted with the sleaze to come.
So it is clear that Mr. Millar a senior manager within Criminal Justice has some serious questions to answer,and he is certainly not off the hook.
What part did the Pilton Parnership play in all this,did they in any way smooth the way for the PEP takeover with a helping cash hand. Of course everyone is aware that Councillor Macginnis was the chair of the funding panal at the time and of course co-incidently is now manager of PEP.
Did any of her fellow councillors at the time try to warn her off,we have reason to believe that former councillor Bill Fitzpatrick had serious reservations and a senior member of the council has told Pilton Sucks that he told her that,but she refused to listen.
So we know for certain that a crime of fraud was commited within the Six Circle Project by the then manager Jim Nichol. There should have been a criminal investigation was there one and if not why not? We know for certain that staff wages were not being paid,why was this not picked up immediatly?
How many people were actually involved in drawing up this merger and who was kept out of the loop? Why did the then Social Work Department not realise that their grant was being mis-used?and if they did why did they sit back and do nothing? Mr. Millar will have to answer for that.
A document has emerged recently from the a group within PEP outlining the underhand going’s on that lead up to this murkey merger. It seems that this dedicated group of people can no longer hold their silence over what went on and the effect that it had on the very vunerable client group that the Six Circle worked with.
Pilton Sucks has of course seen this document and now has it in it’s possession. It makes interesting reading,and we are now in the process of breaking down the document and getting the main players involved.
This was a very dark period in this community’s history and one that is yet to be fully explained. One thing is certain the mere fact of the secrecy involved leads to valid suspicions that this was indeed a very murkey merger.