An accountancy firm that delivered a damning report into Liverpool Council ’s energy contract failings has defended its work and the cost of its findings.
Representatives from Mazars Accountants said they had delivered “a thorough piece of work” which was worth the fee as its assessment into what went wrong at the Cunard Building over energy terms was debated by members of the council’s audit committee. The firm, who were commissioned by Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson to carry out an external investigation, identified gaps in the council’s own audit process, criticised individual decision making and accused the authority of failing to learn lessons from previous contract renewals.
Members of the committee had their first opportunity to publicly discuss the findings at Liverpool Town Hall last night and called into question the value for money of the report. Labour group chief whip Cllr Ruth Bennett said the document told members nothing they didn’t know already as the majority of issues had been identified in the Max Caller and commissioners’ investigation.
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Nigel Layton, of Mazars, confirmed the probe had come in at its original budget of £80,000, while an additional £30,000 was spent on documents and email reviews. He said the firm had completed a “thorough piece of work” and were “more than satisfied” they had done sufficient work to reach the conclusions they had.
Mr Layton added the cost of the investigation had been in line with others conducted by the accountancy firm and came in less than differing projects he himself had been involved in previously. He said: “I am more than happy to stand by my costs and say we did what we were asked to do and we were fully transparent and everything was agreed along the way and there were no nasty surprises.”
Cllr Kris Brown, chair of the audit committee, said he "expected a little bit more" given what the council had spent on it. Cllr Richard Kemp, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, gave a withering take on the report, describing it as a “mediocre, ill thought out” document.
He said: “I am absolutely appalled that nobody from Mazars has been prepared to come to this meeting in person to defend, clearly and publicly in front of members, what can only be described as a mediocre, ill thought out report. Would they like to explain, why having trousered £111,000 from us, they can’t be bothered to come and defend their report in public?”
Mr Layton told the committee he had a “long-standing vacation” that prevented him from attending in person but had made efforts to join via a video call while abroad. Former acting Mayor Cllr Wendy Simon offered her criticism of the report, and said while it provided recommendations, it did not give timescales or how to rectify issues.
She added: "Without this, we're going to continue to be in the situation where staff are overworked." The Kensington and Fairfield Labour representative also said that while there are mentions of lessons to be learned from renewals carried out in 2019, the issues were not directly mentioned in the report.
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