Motion H
Proposer: Paul Dundas
This Council notes that:
1. Colchester City Council recently published on its website a list of payments to suppliers over the last 12 months, this being a statutory duty pursuant to the Local Government Transparency Code 2015, revealing to Colchester Council Tax Payers where their money was being spent.
2. As originally published, these statutory disclosures stated that in the past 12 months Colchester City Council had spent, amongst other payments, £2,200,809 on stationary, £245,552 with the Anti-Loo Roll Brigade, £245,000 with the Grosvenor House Hotel, over £2.1m on election software, £880,000 on playground inspections, over £5m on newspaper advertising, over £1m on an individual no one can identify, £350,000 on printing, £847,000 on telephone bills, just under £5m with a Christian Empowerment Charity, £8,646 on Oysters, £130,000 on mobile phones and £1,097,146 on Ice Creams.
3. Upon Conservative Councillors querying some of these items it was ascertained that the data for at least 9 of the 12 months was erroneous, many of the payments listed did not in fact occur, and consequently the published figures were removed from the website and the Leader of the Council issued an apology to Councillors.
Therefore, the Council:
1. Thanks the Leader of the Council for prompt acknowledgement of the error and the email notification of the data failures issued on October 31.
2. Thanks and notes the work of Conservative opposition councillors who brought these errors to the attention of the Council.
3. Informs Cabinet that the operational finance team may be under considerable time pressure and a review of its workload would be appropriate.
4. Urges Cabinet to issue apologies to the Council Tax Payers of Colchester for publishing erroneous information, and also to each and every recipient of payments for which erroneous information was published.
5. Requests Cabinet ensure that robust procedures are put in place to ensure all financial information put into the public domain is accurate.
As the motion is not an executive matter it will be debated and determined at hte meeting.