Exposed-East-Riding-Council-Rathlin-Energy-In-It-Together

Exposed; East Riding of Yorkshire Council & Rathlin Energy – In It Together?That there is a link between Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited and East Riding of YorkshireCouncil now appears to be indisputable. However, whilst we are not stating that an ‘oldboys network’ is running rife through the Council in the form of Simon Taylor, Andy Acum,Councillor Nigel Pearson and Councillor Stephen Parnaby it does seem slightly odd thatdespite all the evidence of Rathlin Energy’s poor work practice at the well site known asWest Newton A, including 16 breaches to permits and Health and Safety Executiveinvestigations that took 15 months to complete, Activists and Residents concerns aredismissed whilst Rathlin Energy are allowed to carry on, with the council’s full blessing, todrill a gas field that is decimating the lives of Residents and destroying the environment.In 2001 Taylor Syms Public Relations was registered, Company Number 04244506, withCompanies House. Simon Taylor is listed as the Managing Director whilst amongst otherlisted directors you will find Matt Stephenson and Andy Acum.On 20 April 2006, following the resignation of William Syms in 2005, Taylor Syms PublicRelations officially changed it’s name to TAS Communications Ltd. The name was‘creatively’ composed using the initials of the company’s directors, Simon Francis Taylor,Andrew John Acum and Matthew James Stephenson.On 21 December 2008 TAS Creative Ltd started life, Company Number 06777740, withKelly Todd, Simon Taylor’s then girlfriend, listed as one of only two directors, the otherbeing Gemma Clark.TAS Communications went into voluntarily liquidation on 06 February 2009 leaving a longlist of creditors who were owed, in total, nearly £350,000. Included amongst the list ofthose TAS Communications were in debt to was East Riding of Yorkshire Council, £1,225,Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs,£231,409.31 and the Chartered Institute of PublicRelations local government group, £4,828.08, which seeks to “promote standards ofprofessional excellence in this field”.

Amongst the list of employees owed “pay in lieu of notice and redundancy payments” canbe found Claire Acum, wife of Andy Acum, £2,538.44, Kelly Todd, £2,462.52 and GemmaClark, £3,000.00. Bearing in mind of course that Kelly Todd and Gemma Clark had bothbeen directors of TAS Creative Ltd since 21 December 2008.Several reasons were cited as to why the company voluntarily liquidated, including, MrTaylor said, “having picked up the bad debts of clients such as Westbridge Homes andWright Group, which both went under owing the company significant amounts and otherorganisations that were struggling to pay their bills.”No mention of the above two companies can be found on the Liquidators statements andthe only Westbridge Homes that can be found on Companies House listings is aWestbridge Homes of Beverley, currently still trading and, as at their last statement ofaffairs, showing a profit. However, what is included in the list of monies owed to TASCommunications was a Director’s Loan of £117,806.36, and a statement “an agreementwas reached whereby a percentage of the debt would be paid over a five year period. Theloan repaid totals £26,366.15″. The Director in question was none other than Mr SimonFrancis Taylor.On 14 January 2009 TAS Creative Ltd changed its name to Mercury Design & MarketingLimited, thereby severing all links with their previous company TAS Communications; thechange was registered with Companies House on 30 January 2009. In 2009 things beganto get ever so slightly messy for East Riding of Yorkshire Council as news broke in the HullDaily Mail and Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column of a slightly less than transparentcontract awarded to Mercury Design and Marketing Ltd.ERYC advertised for “an interim Communications Manager (maternity cover)” at a salaryof £38,575.00. The application process saw a shortlist comprising 6 high calibrecandidates. On the day of the interviews a surprise announcement was made to theinterview panel that Chief Executive Nigel Pearson would be joining them. It was reportedin Private Eye that “at the end of the day he [Nigel Pearson] declared that none of thecandidates was suitable, overriding protests from his colleagues”.As oppose to re-advertising the vacancy and finding a ‘suitable candidate’ for the role acontract to run the press office for a monthly remuneration of £5,333.00 was awarded toMercury Design and Marketing at almost twice the cost to us the tax payer.Interestingly both Simon Taylor and Andy Acum have had close relations with East Ridingof Yorkshire Council: • Simon Taylor was the former Head of Communications and Public Relations for East Riding of Yorkshire Council and is self proclaimed as “one of the country’s leading local government communications experts”. • Andy Acum former Senior Marketing Officer and “multi-award winning” Marketing Manager at East Riding of Yorkshire Council was also the Editor of East Riding News, East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s newspaper.

Following the furore from Private Eye, Hull Daily Mail, Yorkshire Post and campaign group Hulland East Riding Taxpayers Alliance an external enquiry was undertaken by the District Auditor,Mark Kirkham, at the request of the Leader of the Council, Councillor Stephen Parnaby. Details ofthe events were revealed, following a Freedom of Information Request (FOI), by the Auditor thatthe Council had broken its own rules when three quotes for the contract had not been obtained.With a council spokesperson stating in response to the FOI that “Quotations were sought but onlyone written quotation was received by the council from Mercury Design and Marketing in relationsto a temporary contract to run the council’s press office”.In the report Mr Kirkham described policy director Steve Button’s explanation for onlyobtaining one quote from Mercury as “unconvincing“. He also said Chief Executive NigelPearson had misled a councillor in an e-mail by stating discussions with the PR firm onlystarted after no appointment was made from a shortlist of external candidates who hadapplied for the advertised vacancy.In fact, the auditor’s report revealed Mr Pearson had met with a Mercury Marketing andDesign representative two days after the job had originally been advertised andsubsequently received a draft proposal from the company three weeks before the jobinterviews took place.During the inquiry into the contract allegations against Leader of the Council, CouncillorStephen Parnaby, were also investigated.Councillor Parnaby was, during the time of the awarding of the contract, listed on MercuryDesign and Marketing’s website as delivering communications training to councils startingat £1,750.00, plus VAT, for half a day. The courses were to be delivered alongside SimonTaylor. However, on 01 October 2009 a letter, marked Private and Confidential, fromSimon Taylor to Stephen Parnaby refuted this strongly stating that “as we both know, youhave never worked for or have any business connection with the company…. I have tosay that the reference to you can only be put down to over enthusiasm on our part inmarketing the courses – none of which have ever been delivered. We should never haveused your name in this way and we can see now how this has been misconstrued.”The letter starts “Dear Steve”; for a formal letter to a Council Leader we can only commenton the very informal and friendly salutation. Interestingly despite not being listed at thetime as one of the directors of the company Simon Taylor signs himself as “ManagingDirector”.Mr Kirkham, District Auditor, accepted Simon Taylor’s letter as proof that no courses hadbeen delivered and no money had changed hands between Mercury Design andMarketing and Councillor Parnaby.The cost to the tax payer of bringing in the external auditor amounted to £10,435.In 2010 the contract reached a ‘successful conclusion’ when Ann Woodward wasappointed as Head of Performance and Strategic Partnerships. However, as Private Eyerevealed once again in their Rotten Boroughs section all was not sweetness and light inthe corridors of ERYC as Ms Woodward had unfortunately aired her dissatisfaction with

the council’s handling of this matter on her very public Facebook page. The offendingposts were quickly removed!Now fast forward to 2012 and look who pops again; oh yes, none other than Mr SimonTaylor, but this time working for Rathlin Energy (UK) Limited in charge of ‘communications’.On 31 December 2014 Simon Taylor became a director at Mercury Design and Marketingwho include on their website in their list of achievements: • Working directly for five of the ‘big six’ energy firms • Dealing with two of the country’s most difficult onshore planning applications, co- ordinating all communications and stakeholder communication (See What Went Wrong at West Newton A for Communities of Holderness Against On Shore Drilling's section on communications and stakeholder interaction for our opinion) • Delivering services for two Italian and Norwegian oil and gas companiesHowever, not content with just Mercury Design and Marketing on 04 June 2015 MercuryEnergy and Public Sector Services Ltd, Company Number 09623182, is added to MrTaylor and Mr Acum’s portfolio of companies. With their website now showing the loftyheights these people have reached as being: • Mr Simon Taylor – Group CEO • Kelly Taylor (formally Todd) – Managing Director Consumer • Andrew (no longer ‘Andy’) Acum – Managing Director Energy and Public SectorThe energy side of Mercury lists the following amongst it’s successes: • Scottish Power Hatfield – onshore gas storage cavern • Third Energy Ebberston Moor EDS – gas well in National Park • Third Energy Ebberston Moor Pipeline through National Park • Drax – extension for biomass co-firing • E.ON Whitehall – onshore gas storage caverns • Rathlin Energy – new gas well • Rathlin Energy – new gas well • Gassco – Langeled subsea pipeline for Statoil Hydro / GasscoWe, at Communities of Holderness Against, can only leave you, the reader, to draw yourown conclusions. During many hours of research we have reached ours.