By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
Cotswold District Council’s leader Mike Evemy has refused to reveal the identity of a councillor mentioned in a counter fraud probe, saying they’ve done nothing wrong.
A counter fraud investigation was launched in October last year after whistleblowing concerns were raised over procurement at the authority.
The Liberal Democrat-led council awarded more than £80,000 worth of work to companies with alleged undeclared links to officers and a councillor.
A counter fraud and enforcement unit looked into allegations that three companies were engaged outside of the contract rules, according to a report presented at the most recent audit and governance committee meeting.
The concern was that three firms were targeted due to undeclared relationships/connections by those officers and the councillor involved in their procurement.
One of three cases the unit looked into related to the commission of rebranding work for the council.
Of the three proposals received one was a recommendation from a councillor but the one which won the work was recommended by a council officer.
The report says the appointment of that firm was on the basis of an evaluation of quotations and proposals received from the three companies.
However, the evaluation was not in accordance with the council’s procurement processes.
There was no award criteria specified, evaluation was undertaken by a single officer and was not checked independently prior to the award of contract.
A contract exists which has been signed by the company but it was not signed by the District Council.
The authority’s legal services, finance and the wider corporate leadership team were not consulted on the procurement of that firm’s services.
Rob Gibson, who was a Conservative candidate during the previous District Council elections, asked a public question about the counterfraud investigation at the cabinet meeting on October 16.
“Clearly it is in the public interest that the identity of this councillor is disclosed,” he said.
“Please can you confirm if this councillor is a sitting member of this cabinet?”
Council leader Mike Evemy (LD, Siddington and Cerney Rural) refused to do so and said he believed the councillor has not been found to have done anything improper.
“I’m not going to disclose the name of that councillor,” he said. “I don’t think it is necessarily in the public interest.
“I don’t think that person has been found to have done anything improper so I’m not going to disclose the identity of that councillor.”
Mr Gibson thanked Cllr Evemy for the reply. He said members of the council have to act within the Nolan principles of standards in public life.
“In the findings of September 30, it was clearly highlighted that there was fault with this member,” he said.
“In the public interest, short of actually pursuing this further with a public information request, I find it strange you are not prepared to disclose who the councillor is.”
Cllr Evemy said he did not believe the report identified fault with the councillor.
“I don’t think there was a complaint, as far as I understand, against that member,” he said.
“So, obviously, as a member of the public you can write to our statutory monitoring officer who sat two seats away from me to get a formal response because the member’s code of conduct is something she oversees.”
“I’m not aware that there was any finding of fault against any councillor.”
The council has previously told the Local Democracy Reporting Service they will not be commenting on the identity of the officers or councillor involved.
The council’s leadership team has reviewed the findings from the investigation and internal controls around procurement will be strengthened.
They have agreed an action plan which includes updating the contract register to reflect actual values for services provided by all suppliers and mandatory training for all staff.