The series of errors that led to Liverpool Council ’s chief executive issuing a public apology and its energy bill shooting up by millions of pounds is to be the subject of an extraordinary meeting.
It was revealed earlier this month that a catalogue of missteps by local authority officials has led to the city's electricity contract jumping from £10.6m to £26m just months after a controversial set of budget cuts were signed off. During a meeting of the council’s cabinet last week, it was confirmed a formal investigation had been ordered after the mayor, cabinet and chief executive were not informed of major changes to Liverpool Council’s electricity supplier which was met with a withering response from government appointed commissioners.
Now, the authority’s finance and resources select committee is to hold an extraordinary meeting to call-in the cabinet’s decision last week to agree to award a contract to Crown Commercial Services (CCS) for the provision of electricity for the period from July this year until 31 March 2023. The decision has been called-in for review by the committee chair, Cllr Barry Kushner, as “the impact of the decision on the Council’s budget and the fact that this was not made known to the Committee during the budget scrutiny process.”
