Stoke-on-Trent City Council overhauls procurement as RDA releases withheld grant

Stoke-on-Trent City Council has promised to overhaul its procurement procedures after a number of controversial council contract awards “damaged the council's image” and led the local RDA to withhold part of its funding to the council's regeneration arm.

According to the Sentinel, the council's newly-appointed head of procurement Laurence O'Neill last week told the council's transformation and resources overview and scrutiny committee that the present system at the council was fragmented, lacked standard processes and needed a “complete overhaul”.

The proposals include the earlier involvement of councillors in the procurement process, the provision of training for councillors and officers in procurement techniques to enable them to oversee the process and paying more attention to researching the impact of procurement decisions. O'Neill also said that the council should ensure, where possible, that small and medium-sized local firms are considered for council contracts.

He said: "The procurement team is actually very good, but it has been tarred with the brush of some things which have happened in recent months. We need to put in place a proper process across the council, which requires us to have a structured approach to procurement.”

Last year, Regional Development Agency Advantage West Midlands withheld £511,046 of funding from Stoke-on-Trent council due to concerns over the procurement procedures of the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership (NSRP), for which Stoke-on-Trent Council is the accountable body. AWM finally released the money last month after NSRP agreed to address procurement issues over the engagement of consultants identified by an audit and independent review by KPMG. The council insisted that no deliberate wrong-doing had taken place.

In March this year, Staffordshire Police began an investigation into the award of the contract to  demolish the former Westcliffe Hospital site, which was re-tendered following an internal investigation which found that the correct procedures had not been followed. The meeting also heard that the council had paid a company £3.2 million for building maintenance over the past three years without tendering for the work


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