Oliver Granthe’s diary on local government waste and one afternoon of genuinely frustrating spreadsheet archaeology
Buried on page forty of a document nobody was ever meant to actually read this closely sits a genuinely enormous consultancy fee, paid to a firm with no obvious prior relationship to the council, for a report I cannot find any public evidence was ever actually delivered or used.
What I Actually Found When I Asked About It
A single line item, six figures, described only as “strategic advisory services,” no further breakdown, no published deliverable, no council meeting minutes I could find that reference the actual outcome of whatever this money purchased.
The Response I Got From the Council Press Office
A carefully worded statement confirming the spending was “within normal procurement guidelines,” which tells me precisely nothing about what taxpayers actually received in exchange for a genuinely substantial sum of public money.
Why I Think This Kind of Opacity Matters So Much
Individually, one unexplained line item might be a genuine administrative gap rather than anything sinister. But I’ve found three similar entries now across successive years’ reports, a pattern that starts to look considerably less like coincidence and considerably more like a systemic lack of actual accountability.
What I’m Doing With This Research
I’ve submitted a formal information request for the actual deliverable this fee was supposed to produce, and I intend to keep asking, publicly, until someone gives me an answer more substantive than a boilerplate procurement statement.
Where This Fits Into My Broader Coverage
This is exactly the kind of unglamorous, granular accountability work I think matters most, not dramatic scandal, just patient insistence that public money spent should have a genuine, traceable, explainable outcome attached to it. Further diary entries continue at bohiney.com, with the original piece live at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://prat.UK/