Finance watchdogs have launched a probe into “strained relationships” among the region’s political leaders amid concerns it could be jeopardising the effective use of taxpayers’ money.
The West of England Combined Authority’s (Weca’s) external auditors have identified a “risk of significant weakness” in its value-for-money arrangements because of the ongoing power tussle between metro mayor Dan Norris and the elected heads of the area’s four councils.
Grant Thornton is also examining a payoff to a high-ranking officer, understood to be a large five-figure sum to the former director of infrastructure who left last summer, as well as assessing other recent Weca senior leadership team departures which the auditors say could be “highly problematic” for the combined authority’s ability to deliver its objectives.
It comes as an urgent “call-in” meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee will be held on Tuesday, May 3, following the latest ructions where the leaders of Bristol, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bath & North East Somerset councils launched a bid to partially break away from Weca.
At a meeting on April 8, the four unitary authority leaders agreed to rip up and rewrite the rules governing the West of England joint committee – which oversees about £600m of funding streams that pre-date Weca’s creation in 2017, so are outside its remit – to give them greater say over those decisions.
West of England Labour mayor Mr Norris, who leads Weca, and its chief executive Patricia Greer, warned them the move, which includes developing a joint committee identity distinct from Weca, could put the entire money at risk because it would breach an assurance agreement with the Government.
Although the council leaders ploughed ahead anyway, dismissing the concerns as a “red herring”, their decision to dissolve the current arrangements and produce new standing orders has been formally called-in by Weca scrutiny councillors who will review it on Tuesday. The call-in notice says the paper could have “far-reaching consequences” and had not gone through scrutiny beforehand.
It questions whether the decision could “blur the representation and voice of the region”. On Thursday (April 28), Weca audit committee was told Grant Thornton was also looking into this and other issues.
A report by the auditors to members said: “Matters have been reported in the public domain regarding strained relationships within the West of England. “We have designated the governance arrangements impacting these relationships as a risk of significant value-for-money weakness.
“We have determined a plan of appropriate work relating to this particular risk to determine whether or not a significant weakness exists.”
It said other issues being analysed included the planned review of the joint committee’s terms of reference which “could have implications for funding arrangements between Weca and the unitary authorities”. The report said the auditors’ inquiries into a severance payment were “potentially significant” and that a “conflict” had existed over it.
It said the exit payoff was the subject of a private meeting of Weca committee in December where audit committee chairman Cllr Geoff Gollop raised “a number of concerns”.
The report said: “On the basis that she felt there were conflicts in place, the CEO did not initially involve the two statutory officers (monitoring officer and chief financial officer) when agreeing a severance arrangement.
“Because of this, the CEO commissioned external legal advice to support her decision making. The former monitoring officer considered this was not effective working.” Both the monitoring officer and the chief financial officer have since left for other jobs.
The report said Grant Thornton would assess the statutory officer “conflicts” and the decision to consult external lawyers, along with the “steps being taken to ensure that the authority has procedures to protect the interests of statutory officers and to remove any uncertainty about responsibility”.
“Conflicting legal advice was obtained by different officers at different points in the process,” it said, adding that the auditors would assess how Weca managed that conflict and what was being done to ensure “future differences are handled in an open manner”.
The report said: “Clarity is required on the rationale for proposing the severance payment and how the payment and its terms were constructed. In recent months, Weca has lost, or is about to lose, the services of a number of senior officers, including statutory officers.
“Given the expansion of its role and scale, losing continuity of this number of senior and statutory officers at this time could prove highly problematic for the proper administration of the authority and its ability to deliver its objectives.” It said the auditors would try to identify “any underlying issues contributing to the loss of key staff”.
