A SENIOR Torfaen council officer has been suspended pending a council and police investigation into alleged financial irregularities at the flagship data centre in Blaenavon.

The director of the Shared Resource Service, Farooq Dastgir, is currently suspended from his post and is under investigation following alleged financial irregularities.

A letter sent by the council to its employees states: “Gwent Police and Torfaen council are currently investigating a number of allegations regarding the running of the SRS.”

The Shared Resource Service, a joint project with Monmouthshire council, currently holds the data of the two local authorities and of Gwent Police and the Aneurin Bevan Health Board.

A similar letter has also gone out from Monmouthshire council’s chief executive officer Paul Matthews to staff there.

A spokeswoman for Gwent Police said no arrests have been made in relation to the ongoing SRS investigation at the moment.

The Shared Resource Service, known as the SRS, is based at Victoria House on the Gilchrist Thomas Industrial Estate in Blaenavon and opened in February.

It currently employs 120 people but there are ambitions for it to eventually employ thousands.

In the letter sent to Torfaen council employees, the council said the role of director of the SRS will temporarily be assumed by the service’s deputy director Matt Lewis.

It says temporary responsibility for SRS Business Solutions will be assumed by Monmouthshire council’s corporate director Steve Greenslade and that he will be assisted by Torfaen council’s Janine Franklin.

In a statement released to the Argus on Friday, the council said an individual it employs is part of an ongoing investigation on suspicion of alleged financial irregularities.

It said Gwent Police investigations are also continuing at this time but said it would be inappropriate to comment further until the outcomes of the investigations were known.

A council spokesman confirmed a council employee has been suspended.

Mr Dastgir’s previous roles at Torfaen council include director of technology led transformation and enabling and building tomorrow’s Torfaen.

He also worked as services manager at Capita Managed Services, completed an MSc in IT management at the University of Newport and studied at St Anthony’s High School in Lahore.