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Coventry councillors and an officer accepted over £1000 worth of free sports tickets in six months. These included two box seats worth £270 each at Wembley to watch Coventry City in the FA cup semi-final figures reveal.
The council’s leader Cllr George Duggins and its Director of City Services and Commericial went to the match in April. The pair said they went to represent the council in their roles and develop its relationship with a “key partner.”
Others at the authority declared dinners, overnight stays, theatre tickets and even a coat in the first half of the year. The registers of gifts and hospitality received from January to June this year were revealed in papers for a meeting today, 26 September.
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Coventry councillors bagged more than £1,000 worth of freebies during City of Culture
The hospitality and gifts received by Coventry councillors and officers last year
Free sports tickets accepted by councillors and officers this year
The Wembley tickets were the highest value freebies declared, according to meeting papers. Cllr Duggins was invited by Doug King at Coventry City football club, while the director’s ticket was provided by the CBS arena.
Cllr Gary Ridley, leader of the Conservative opposition group, accepted a ticket worth nearly as much – £250 – to Birmingham City vs Coventry City in April. He was invited by Birmingham City’s foundation and said he went to represent the city at a key networking event and build links with regional groups.
The Labour and Conservative group leaders also bagged two tickets worth £35 each to the same Coventry Blaze ice hockey match in March. They were invited by the Centre for the New Midlands, and both said they went to represent the council and build links with regional groups.
Cllr Duggins and Cllr Gavin Lloyd (Lab, Sherbourne) also attended a Coventry Rugby match at the invitation of the club’s chairman in March. They declared tickets and lunch worth £70 and said they were representing the city and “providing an opportunity to discuss future plans for the club.”
Coat and conference among other gifts and hospitality
The register also showed Cllr Ram Lakha, who chairs the council’s audit and procurement committee, declared an over-coat worth £90. The Labour Binley and Willenhall councillor received it from a couple who made an appointment with him to offer birthday wishes in January, his entry stated.
Asked for clarification on this, Cllr Lakha told the LDRS he had been surprised by the gift and told the pair he does not accept these things but did not want to be rude and found it difficult to say no. He said he swapped the coat for his size which cost more and paid the difference, declaring the higher value.
He said he later told a public meeting of a trust, where one of the couple is a member, about the gift and that he believed he should repay them. He added that he gave the couple, one of whom is a reverend, £100 to cover the coat’s cost or go to their church.
Cllr Lakha also said he declared the incident in an email to the council’s monitoring officer when he later wrote a letter of support for the church. He told the LDRS these letters are routine and he would have supported it anyway as a local charity, not for any personal reason.
The final entry on the register for councillors was by Cllr Maya Ali, Labour councillor for Radford. She accepted three tickets worth £60 in total from theatre group Three Spire Guildhall in May and said the reason for accepting was in her role as a communities and neighbourhoods scrutiny board chair.
The total gifts and hospitality received by officers was less than that accepted by members. The council’s Director of Public Health and Wellbeing declared dinner and car parking at a conference to the tune of £62 from a Warwick medicine institute.
They also declared an overnight B&B stay and dinner worth £239, provided by Inclusive Cities. Both were for networking, discussing health issues and sharing best practice, they said in their register entry.
Another officer declared accommodation and dinner for a two-day event aimed at councils to discuss “lighting in the public realm.” The value for this was “unknown” and it was provided by lighting firm DW Windsor.
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