Follow the Power, Sandwell: Because Money Doesn’t Approve Itself (Part 2)

Follow the Power, Sandwell: Because Money Doesn’t Approve Itself (Part 2)

In Part 1, we followed the money.
It kept turning up in the same places, like a bad penny with a lanyard.

Link to Part 1: https://shorturl.at/2NA0A

But money doesn’t move itself.
It doesn’t wake up in the morning, log into the council’s finance system, and say:
“I think I’ll go via an intermediary today.”

Money moves because people move it.

So welcome to Part 2 — where we stop pretending this is all terribly abstract and start talking about who’s actually in the room.

Power in Sandwell rarely wears a name badge

It usually wears phrases like:

• “Trusted partner”
• “Infrastructure organisation”
• “Community leader”
• “Strategic delivery body”
• “Independent intermediary”

All very reassuring.
All very warm.
All very convenient.

And nearly always attached to the same small group of organisations and individuals.

Let’s start with the obvious one

Front and centre sits Sandwell Consortium CIC.

Not elected.
Not a council department.
Not subject to the same scrutiny as either.

But somehow trusted with hundreds of thousands of pounds a year, year after year, to “coordinate”, “support”, “enable” and “facilitate”.

In plain English:
the Consortium has become a permission layer.

If you’re inside the network — doors open.
If you’re outside — you’re encouraged to “partner”, “capacity build” or “engage constructively”.

Funny how “constructive engagement” always seems to mean working with the same people who already have the money.

Now let’s add the names nobody likes adding

Because this isn’t just organisational.
It’s personal.

• Cllr Syeda Amina Khatun MBE
  Cabinet Member. Former Mayor (one-year term, before anyone emails).
  CEO of Bangladeshi Women’s Association, a council-funded organisation operating firmly within the same ecosystem.

• Cllr Suzanne Hartwell
  Cabinet Member.
  Employee of BWA / Jubilee Centre, again within the same funding and partnership orbit.

• Cllr Jalal Uddin
  Cabinet Member.
  Former Finance Director of Sandwell Consortium CIC — yes, the same Consortium receiving nearly £1m in 2023/24.

• Cllr Ragih Muflihi
  Councillor.
  Senior figure within the Yemeni Community Association, another council-funded organisation that appears regularly in the grant lists.

• Cllr Kerrie Carmichael
  Council Leader.
  Public champion of several organisations within this ecosystem and the political authority ultimately responsible for the frameworks under which this funding operates.

All declared.
All technically compliant.
All individually defensible.

Collectively?
They form something rather more interesting.

Because then there are the fixers

Every system has them.
Sandwell is no exception.

• Rezina Choudhury — operational gatekeeper at Sandwell Consortium.
  The person you speak to if you want access to programmes, projects, and “opportunities”.

• Anam Choudhury — senior figure across BWA-linked community hubs and development activity.
  The delivery-side fixer.

Two different people.
Two different choke points.
One very neat system.

Between them, they sit exactly where money, access and influence intersect.

And just in case you think this is all new…

Enter Derek Rowley.

Former councillor.
Former Mayor.
Long-standing Labour Party figure.
Key player in internal party mechanisms over many years.

No longer in office, but very much part of the political architecture that shaped who rose, who stayed, and who had influence when this ecosystem was bedding in.

Power doesn’t disappear when someone leaves the council chamber.
It just moves to a quieter room.

So how does the power actually work?

Not through grand conspiracies.
Nothing so exciting.

It works through:

• Familiarity
• Trust
• Repeat funding
• Soft scrutiny
• Gentle language
• And a shared understanding of who is “credible”

Once an organisation is “trusted”, it tends to stay trusted.
Once a person is “experienced”, they’re always invited back.

And once a network is established, it becomes very good at reproducing itself.

Scrutiny? Yes… but not too much

Because questioning organisations wrapped in:

• community cohesion
• equality
• inclusion
• wellbeing

is uncomfortable.

Nobody wants to be accused of:

• “attacking the voluntary sector”
• “undermining communities”
• “not understanding lived experience”

So questions are softened.
Challenges are deferred.
And the system rolls on.

Power loves politeness.
Especially British politeness.

Let’s be clear about what this isn’t

This is not an allegation of wrongdoing.
It’s not a conspiracy theory.
It’s not a secret cabal in a candle-lit room.

It’s something far more mundane — and far more dangerous.

It’s power concentrating through habit.

Why this matters

Because power decides:

• who gets heard
• who gets funded
• who gets forgiven
• who gets ignored

Long before a single pound is paid.

And when the same people sit across:

• Cabinet
• funded organisations
• intermediary bodies
• community leadership roles

public confidence doesn’t collapse — it just quietly evaporates.

The uncomfortable truth

Sandwell doesn’t have a voluntary sector problem.

It has a power concentration problem.

Too much influence.
Too few hands.
Too close to the political centre.

And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Next:

Part 3 – Follow the Silence

Because when the same questions keep not getting answered, that’s not accidental either.

🕷️ Stay tuned.

#FollowThePower #Sandwell #SandwellCouncil #LocalPolitics #PoliticalInfluence #Governance #Transparency #PublicMoney #VoluntarySector #CommunityFunding #Accountability #PowerStructures #BehindTheScenes

Legal Notice & Disclaimer

This blog is based solely on publicly available documentation, including Companies House filings and Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council financial data.

All commentary represents opinion, analysis and satire, written in the public interest.

No allegations of wrongdoing are made against any individual or organisation.

Readers are encouraged to verify all information independently using original source documents.

Follow the Money, Sandwell: The Consortium That Ate the Voluntary Sector

Follow the Money, Sandwell: The Consortium That Ate the Voluntary Sector.

You know that phrase “the voluntary and community sector”?

The one that conjures up images of plucky volunteers, borrowed kettles and heroic biscuit tins?

Well… let’s talk about what it actually looks like in Sandwell when you follow the money.

Spoiler alert: it’s not the church hall raffle.

Once upon a time, there was a Consortium…

At the centre of Sandwell’s community-funding universe sits Sandwell Consortium CIC — an organisation that markets itself as a helpful co-ordinator, facilitator, enabler and general good egg.

In practice, it now looks suspiciously like a parallel commissioning arm of the Council, only without elections, scrutiny committees, or awkward things like public accountability.

Over just two financial years:

• 2022/23: ~£759,000
• 2023/24: £901,893

That’s over £1.66 million of public money.

Not for filling potholes.
Not for cutting grass.
Not even for directly delivering most frontline services.

But for… support.
And coordination.
And advice.
And other wonderfully flexible words that can mean absolutely anything you want them to.

But wait — it gets better

Sandwell Consortium doesn’t sit alone at the top of the money tree.

Look a little wider and you find the same familiar names cropping up again and again:

• SCVO
• Citizens Advice
• Black Country Women’s Aid
• Brushstrokes
• Murray Hall
• Kaleidoscope
• Ideal for All
• St Albans
• And a growing cast of “infrastructure” bodies

Different logos.
Different mission statements.
Same small club.
Same revolving door of six-figure grants.

This isn’t diversity of provision — it’s concentration of funding, year after year.

Now let’s add politics to the mix (because of course we should)

Here’s where things become… interesting.

Sandwell Consortium’s history and operation are not politically neutral. Over time, it has been closely intertwined with people who:

• Sit (or have sat) in Cabinet
• Shape funding frameworks
• Influence partnership structures
• Oversee the very grant systems that benefit Consortium-linked organisations

Entirely declared. Entirely “within the rules”.

But if this were the private sector, people would be muttering words like “capture” and “cosy arrangements” into their coffee.

In Sandwell, it’s called partnership working.

The red flags aren’t exactly subtle

When you actually read the grant spreadsheets — line by line, payment by payment — Sandwell Consortium lights up like a Christmas tree:

• Very high total funding
• Multiple large payments
• Repeated payments in the same periods
• Near-identical descriptions reused again and again
• Money coming in from several different directorates
• Very little publicly visible performance reporting

In fact, when scored against standard transparency and risk indicators, it sits right at the top alongside other “too big to question” organisations.

At some point, a charity receiving this level of funding stops looking like voluntary sector support and starts looking like an outsourced council department with a nicer website.

And meanwhile, the rest of the sector is told to be grateful

Small groups are encouraged to “engage”.
New organisations are advised to “partner up”.
Communities are reminded to go through the “proper channels”.

Translation:
If you’re not already inside the ecosystem, good luck getting in.

Because when millions are locked into a tight network of “trusted partners”, there isn’t much left — except consultation exercises, pilot schemes, and photos for the annual report.

This isn’t about one organisation

Let’s be clear: this is not about whether Sandwell Consortium (or any other named organisation) does some good work. Many do.

This is about system design.

A system where:

• Intermediaries are paid millions to manage grants
• The same intermediaries sit at the centre of political influence
• Cabinet Members are embedded in recipient organisations
• Scrutiny is weak
• Outcomes are vague
• Accountability is blurred

All wrapped up in the warm, comforting language of community, co-production and partnership.

Lovely words.
Awful governance.

The question Sandwell should be asking

Not:
“Is the Consortium doing good things?”

But:

Why has so much public money, influence and decision-making power been concentrated in the hands of so few organisations, so close to the political centre of the Council?

Because when you follow the money, you don’t find chaos.
You find structure.
And when you follow the structure, you find power.

Next up: mapping the spider’s web — names, money, roles and relationships — all in one place.

Stay tuned. 🕷️

#FollowTheMoney #Sandwell #SandwellCouncil #VoluntarySector #PublicMoney #Governance #Transparency #PoliticalInfluence #CommunityFunding #Consortium #Accountability #LocalPolitics #TaxpayersMoney #PowerAndMoney

Legal Notice & Disclaimer

This blog is based solely on publicly available information, including Companies House filings and Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council financial data.

All commentary represents opinion, analysis and satire, written in the public interest.

No allegations of wrongdoing are made against any individual or organisation.

Readers are encouraged to verify all financial information independently using original source documents.