Thurrock News

No more scrutiny on Vertex contract

7:50am Saturday 20th March 2010

HOPES for a committee to look into Thurrock Council’s contract with Vertex have been dashed.

Labour councillors Carl Morris and Marion Canavon demanded a task and finish group should be set up to look at the council’s 15 year contract with Vertex.

The Gazette revealed in November that the Tory-run council had forked out £13.5million in additional costs since the contract was set up in 2005.

At a Performance and Improvement Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting last Tuesday the cross-party committee rejected the suggestion of a task and finish group.

Cllr Morris said: “There are a number of issues that concern us with the contract and we need some comfort. I want to be reassured if we have made some errors then we should look at them. It is a lot of money to spend over a strategic partnership.”

Cllr Canavon added that they “needed to be reassured it was best value.”

Cllr Rob Gledhill, Thurrock’s Cabinet member for corporate governance said at the meeting: “The term overspend is not a term that should be used. I will challenge officers and I think the money has been well spent. Yes there has been a spend but if it had not have been Vertex it would have been spent anyway- we still have best value, £13 million is a lot of money but it has been well spent.”

Committee chair Diane Revell used her casting vote on the cross party committee to reject the call for the task and finish group.

After the meeting cllr Morris said: “We are pleased the council has finally admitted the flaws in the Vertex contract and accept that it’s a very poor deal for council taxpayers. The council has also accepted there were few, if any check and balances on the 556 occasions of so called “one-off” spending over five years totalling around £14Million.

“This is an extravagant amount of tax-payer money and it is very worrying cllr Gledhill can conclude that it was “money well spent” without an investigation.

“We are not reassured by such breathtaking complacency, especially when so much of our money is involved. We strongly feel an investigation is still in the public interest but we’re left to ponder what the Tories have to hide.

“It’s clear the Council have been reckless in its approach to this contract and want to keep it under wraps”.

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