By Vivienne Russell | 16 April 2014
The Metropolitan Police today said it had seen no ‘credible evidence of criminality’ at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets and would not be investigating further.
Earlier this month, Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles announced that he had sent inspectors, recruited from PricewaterhouseCoopers, into the council to probe allegations of governance failures, poor financial management and fraud. Three files of material were also passed to the police for consideration.
In a statement released today, the Met said it had reviewed the files over the past six days and had also liaised with the PwC team.
It went on: ‘There is no credible evidence of criminality within the files to provide reasonable grounds to suspect that fraud or any other offence has been committed at this stage.
‘Therefore the MPS will not be investigating at this point in time and believe that it is appropriate for the material to be reviewed further by PwC and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
‘We will continue to liaise with them should their audit uncover any evidence of criminality.’
In response, a council spokeswoman said: ‘The news from the Metropolitan Police is to be welcomed and Tower Hamlets will continue to work with the auditors and DCLG.’
