Salford Council's internal auditor, Grant Thornton*, has discovered major problems with the financing of the Swinton Gateway which opened last summer. The Gateway, which cost over £6million, was fraught with spiralling costs and a delayed finish.
Now, in a report to the Council's Audit and Accounts Committee, the auditor has given the Swinton Gateway a `None Assurance' rating, which is the lowest possible level of financial competence...
"Serious control issues have been identified in the systems of internal control resulting in significant risk of the system being open to error or abuse and/ or significant non-compliance with controls", states Grant Thornton.
However, there are no other details given, except that there will be a `review' and `final report' this month (although there is no Gateway report attached to the agenda of the Audit Committee).
Meanwhile other Council projects that have been audited have explanations for their `assurance' levels, which range from `significant' (good) to `limited' (not so good). The Swinton Gateway is the only project examined with a `None Assurance' level and no information, except for an `Actions Agreed' label.
Last June the Salford Star revealed that the costs for Gateway had gone way over the original contract price with builders, Kier. The original £5million budget was to be paid by the Salford Clinical Commissioning Group but Salford Council picked up the tab for ongoing delays.
In response to a Freedom of Information request from Salford Star, Salford Council admitted the cost had jumped to £6.18million, paid for by a £68,000 Basic Need grant and £1.012million from the Council itself. However the Council refused to reveal any additional costs*...
"The Council is unable to confirm the further sums of money budgeted for the remainder of the project" it stated "This is considered to be commercially sensitive and exempt from release under section 43 (2) of the Act which provides an exemption in respect of information where its disclosure may prejudice the commercial interests of any person. Negotiations with the contractor regarding final costs remain ongoing and disclosure of this information at this time would be likely to have a detrimental impact on the Council's position in these negotiations."
The Star also published details of the very strange contract drawn up with Kier, whereby any liabilities/delays became the Council's responsibility rather than the builders (see previous article – click here).
Now questions need to be asked about how much extra the Council had to pay for the Swinton Gateway, and what led the auditor to conclude that "Serious control issues have been identified...resulting in significant risk of the system being open to error or abuse and/or significant non-compliance with controls"...
The Salford Star contacted Grant Thornton this afternoon but so far the auditor hasn't responded...
Meanwhile, an internal audit of Section 106 planning fees "to provide an opinion on the effectiveness of the key processes involved in the governance and payment of Section 106 agreements" has been "Delayed due to auditor involvement in investigations", and an audit into Housing Options has been "cancelled at request of Assistant Director"...
** In this year's capital budget, Salford Council has a figure of borrowing £1.233million for costs related to the Swinton Gateway
* UPDATE: 22nd January: Grant Thornton has been in contact to say that, while the company is Salford Council's auditor, it was not responsible for auditing the Swinton Gateway project; that was Salford Council itself - which kind of makes it worse...
Swinton Gateway photo by Steven Speed
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