WIRRAL Council is preparing to publish details of all contracts with its suppliers following criticism from the Audit Commission.
The move is a bid by its leadership to open up the authority to further public scrutiny after the council was warned its tendering process for its multimillion pound highways contract could have left it facing “substantial damages”. The report was produced by the Audit Commission after being called in by the council’s chief executive last year after concerns were raised by whistleblowers.
It followed the 2008 tendering process for Wirral’s highway and engineering services – the Highway and Engineering Services Procurement Exercise or HESPE.
The Audit Commission report said the issues raised by the unnamed whistleblowers within the authority “were genuine concerns”. These included communication with potential tenderers, declarations of interest and the “deliverability of the contract awarded to Colas”.
