by Trevor Bevins, Local Democracy Reporting Service
Further controls are being put in place following the scandal which resulted in eleven sackings of temporary staff contracted to Dorset Council.
Millions of pounds of public money is thought to have been spent improving safety standards without proper controls – or knowing whether the work carried out to council buildings represented value for money.
In some cases jobs were being carried out at rates which were many times the cost which might have been expected.
In recent weeks the council has said that it hopes to reclaim at least a million pounds from contracts with a police investigation still continuing.
Dorset Council leader Cllr Nick Ireland says further measures are now being put in place to tighten the controls around how officers can spend council money – a move which he says will make it more difficult for spending to take place without proper authorisation.
He says the changes come as a result of an internal audit which discovered the problems.
“This is essentially putting in place controls which were missing, it’s ensuring that the current SAP system (finance) has those controls in there: it will, probably, require a bit of changing culture; some things won’t be easy to spend money on as has been on the past, which was, of course, the problem,” he said.
Said finance portfolio holder on the council Cabinet, Cllr Simon Clifford: “This is a big first step to putting some of the compliance issues behind us, but it is just a first step and there’s still a significant way to go.”
He said he believed there was already a change attitude taking place with many officers becoming more aware of the risk of acting beyond their delegated powers with more coming forward if they had concerns.
“I believe it shows that people are looking, and I am grateful they are looking; and that it shows there’s a culture change which I hope will filter down through the organisation so that we don’t find ourselves in this position again,” he said.
“We are getting there but there’s still a long way to go…
“What we had in the first place was beyond disappointing, it was shocking, and we’re putting that right, and I’m grateful to everyone who is contributing to that.”
Finance portfolio holder Cllr Simon Clifford