Bristol City Council officers broke the rules on awarding contracts for goods and services more than 200 times to the value of £69million last year, a report reveals. That is more than double the previous 12 months and has prompted external auditors to tell the authority to address the issue “as a matter of urgency” because it could be a sign of “irregularities” and an increased risk of fraud.
There were 203 occasions in 2021/22 where re-tendering procedures were not followed correctly, officially called procurement breaches, which equates to 14 per cent of all contracts awarded by the authority – almost one in seven. That compares with 94 breaches to the value of £14million the year before, about 11 per cent of total contracts.
The council says an effective and transparent breaches process is in place to detect when regulations are not followed and that more training and a procurement policy, which the organisation does not currently have, will be introduced. Auditor Grant Thornton’s interim value-for-money 2020/21 report, presented to audit committee members, said: “The overall level of breaches in both years is higher than we would expect and the increase and final value in 2021/22 is of some note.
