THE SUMMARY of an anonymous investigation into the Lyme Green fiasco paints a picture of unrealistic targets, broken EU regulations and a ‘quite extraordinary’ lack of public consultation.

Cheshire East Council’s Designated Independent Person’s report is an in-depth review of how the authority came to spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money on a botched waste recycling plant in Macclesfield.

But the council has refused to release the full DIP, and instead this week issued their own summary of its findings, authored by interim chief executive Kim Riley.

Strained relationships, a culture of mistrust and a wilful ignorance to inconvenient truths feature in the document, released on Tuesday.

Its publication was followed by a press conference during which it was announced the site would be given over to a new furniture distribution centre for Arighi Bianchi.

The report quotes extensively from the DIP’s key findings - principally that unrealistic timescales led to the council proceeding to build a waste transfer site without planning permission, consultation, and in breach of competition requirements.

Three senior council officers have resigned over the affair, but the summary says the DIP found no evidence that elected members were to blame.

The report also talks down the estimated £1 million that Lyme Green cost taxpayers – estimating a revised figure of £100,000.

Speaking about the report’s publication, leader of Cheshire East, clr Michael Jones, said: “Despite its unwelcome impact on the council’s reputation, this painful experience has left a positive legacy.

“It has helped us to develop the Lyme Green site to support local business and job growth, as well as visibly improving our project management and procurement activities.

“On top of this, it has pushed us to make much needed major changes in management roles, service structures, working practices, and organisational culture in the council.

“The Lyme Green review has been thorough and time consuming. The necessary costs involved have meant that we have got to the truth of what happened, why things went wrong, and who was responsible.”

Mr Riley’s concludes: “The experience has been a painful one, but much of lasting value has been learned as a result, though it is accepted by the council that local people in Cheshire East will be the best judges, in the future, of whether this is the case." 

 

Highlights from Mr Riley's report on the DIP:

 

The Lyme Green story begins in March 2011, when a decision was taken for a private sector contractor to handle, store and dispatch co-mingled dry recyclates in the north of the borough.

Only one tender was received, from Henshaws, but the procurement process was abandoned by a senior council officer believing greater revenue cost savings were possible, and against advice to proceed from the Waste Strategy Manger.

The decision not to accept Henshaws’ three year contract ‘set in motion’ a series of events including the need for the council to provide an interim solution, says the report.

Thereafter the ‘die was cast’ in terms of proceeding with Lyme Green by the third week in August, continues Mr Riley, adding that the timetable was ‘completely unrealistic in terms of the necessary consultation and process required to obtain proper planning permission.’

Thereafter, council officers undertook a delegated decision to award Henshaws an interim contract.

Overall costs of the project were now ‘far in excess of the approved capital budget’ says the report.

The funding shortfall evident in September 2011, but despite a project team discussion advising a revised target date of March 2012, the ‘decision of senior project officers was to accelerate the timetable for the completion of the project, even though they were advised that this increased the level of risk involved, both reputationally and financially, for the council’.

Latterly, Kier Regions Ltd was appointed to build the facility at Lyme Green.

The report says that the work programme attached to the delegated decision to appoint Kier ‘clearly indicates that that the planning application process would run concurrently with construction.’

There was no effective monitoring of the site, and work ceased following complaints from members of the public.

 

The report states that the fiasco was caused by ‘serious failure of project management by some of the senior staff involved.’

Poor project management was compounded by the ‘lack of due professional diligence can care by other senior officers’ it finds.

The DIP directly states ‘it is a fact that offices in the planning department were put under considerable pressure’ by the most senior manager’s decision to adopt a truncated timetable.

It says there is evidence that advice of those seeking to point out problems with the process ‘was not listened to’.

A further problem, finds the report, is that project team officers did not communicate the escalating costs to the finance directorate.

The DIP concludes that with the exception of the project managers, there are no other officers or persons against whom allegations or proceedings could have been considered’.

 

On the culture of the council, the DIP says there is evidence that ‘advice from planning and the legal departments was not welcomed if it did not comply with the expected answer.’

On other occasions ‘advice was ignored’, there was a ‘lack of transparency and respect for advisors’ and there is some evidence to suggest ‘relationships were strained from time to time’.

Mr Riley concludes that the council’s structure meant that ‘necessary technical advice was sometimes neither sought nor taken at key stages, with wrong assumptions being made as a result’.

He continues that ‘one unwelcome product of those structures was the unintended creation of an organisational culture in which key decisions and judgements were sometimes insufficiently challenged’ and adds that now is the time for ‘major changes’ to be made in the council’s management roles and responsibilities to ensure they are fit for purpose over the coming years.

The DIP says there is no evidence that elected members of the council were involved with giving directions to officers to deliver the efficiency programme or Lyme Green project on the basis of cutting corners or ignoring the council’s governance or compliance with with EU procurement regulations’.

The council’s report concedes that a ‘culture of mutual mistrust’ had developed in the council between some officers and some elected members.

“This was largely the result of a lack of clarity over their respective roles and responsibilities, as well as over how they should work together as a single team for the benefit of local people,” is says.

 

Regarding the specifics:

The DIP categorically states that Lyme Green was progressed without planning permission and in contravention of EU regulations and the council’s own finance and contract procedure rules.

The DIP adds that finance officers ‘were not told, nor were they given reasonable opportunity to know, that the budget figure of £650,000 had been increased to £1.5 million as the target cost for the project.’

They conclude that ‘the council’s standards to openness and trust with the public as to consultation were not met’.

The Lyme Green timescale ‘bred a lack of care in applying the procedures, rather than a defined plan to deceive. There is no doubt however, and understandably so, that the public did feel misled’ says the DIP.

The DIP is particularly critical that within the project team, there was nobody designated to dealing with consultation.

The DIP says: “I find this quite extraordinary, and particularly when one is dealing with a sensitive council led application such as for a waste transfer station.’

The DIP adds that a planning officer visiting the site was ‘simply the messenger’ of what they were told was going on at Lyme Green.

In a written communication to colleagues one planning officer expressed concern that ‘we are not being entirely honest’ and considered whether the council should ‘not simply come clean and say so’.

Mr Riley’s report says the DIP is ‘perhaps understandably’ unsure of what went on, and quotes from the DIP:-

“There is a strong hint that some officers were attempting to contrive a version of events on Lyme Green which was not entirely accurate.

“I have thought long and hard about this as to whether there was an intent to deceive the public but on balance I have reached a conclusion that the cause of this lack of transparency and inaccurate communication was confusion because no-one was clear what was happening on the ground.”

The DIP adds that they do not think that officers had ‘any personal intent to mislead the public, nor elected members’, but that poor project management nevertheless inspired this feeling.

In conclusion, the DIP finds that a number of allegations against senior officers involved in the fiasco were ‘well founded’.

The report points out that several officers have resigned and CEC have implemented an improvement plan to tackle issues arising from Lyme Green.

The report states: “The mismanagement and consequent failure of this relatively small project will continue to unfairly taint the more significant achievements and successes of the council for some time to come’.