Public kept in dark over council's biggest ever deal

 by EWAN LAMB

The global IT and business consultancy CGI is set to play an extremely influential role in the delivery of local government services for 115,000 Scottish Borders residents over the next 20 years by leading a multi-million pound digital transformation programme.

But discussions and decision making by Scottish Borders Council leading up to a £99 million contract extension with CGI were conducted exclusively behind closed doors before the extremely lengthy publicly funded deal was finalised last September. 

The secrecy was maintained by use of the 1973 Local Government (Scotland) Act which allows local authorities to exclude members of the press and general public and classify all reports and minutes 'Not for Publication'. It also meant none of the Borders' elected councillors could discuss the subject or raise their concerns publicly.

The sheer scale of the massive deal which lasts until 2040 has only come to light following a Freedom of Information request which resulted in SBC making available a collection of confidential papers, including presentations made by senior officers before the arrangements were sanctioned by a majority of councillors.

After negotiations were completed and at least one elected member complained of the lack of transparency, SBC told the Border Telegraph 'we have no secrets'. But the released documents confirm most of the details have remained hidden from public view. The impact on the council's limited funds did not rate a mention in a joint statement issued in October..

Audit Scotland's external audit report on SBC covering the financial year 2018/19 stated: "There is an increasing focus on how public money is used and what is achieved. In that regard, openness and transparency supports understanding and scrutiny. There are increasing public expectations for more openness and transparency as citizens want to understand how public money is used and, to support their participation in local service design and delivery.

 "A transparent organisation shows the basis for its decisions and shares information about performance and outcomes, including when targets have and have not been achieved as well as how it is using its resources such as money, people and assets.

 

"There is evidence from several sources which demonstrate the council's [SBC] commitment to transparency. Members of the public can attend meetings of the full council, executive and other committees. Minutes of these committee meetings and supporting papers are readily available on the council’s website. The council and committees do meet and consider business in private where there is a need to consider commercially sensitive information. The need to consider business in private should be subject to regular review."

The 'confidential' minute of a full council meeting in August includes the following passage: "Members needed to be sure that the deal offered good value for money and that the opportunities and risks of the proposal were fully understood and that officers had undertaken all necessary due diligence before a final decision was made" A final report would be submitted in September.

Councillor Robin Tatler (Conservative), seconded by Councillor Shona Haslam (Conservative) [SBC's Leader], moved approval of the recommendations as set out in the report to agree in principle to extend the contract with CGI until 2040.

Councillor Stuart Bell (Leader of the Opposition SNP group), seconded by Councillor Heather Anderson (SNP), moved as an amendment that discussions continue with CGI with a short term sub-committee to be formed to clarify a number of issues.

The motion was carried by 20 votes to nine.

There was a further attempt to block the deal in September, as the private minute of that meeting shows.

This time Councillor Haslam, seconded by Councillor Mark Rowley (Con), moved approval of the recommendations in the report and spoke in support of the proposals which Mrs Haslam believed would bring benefits to the area.

But Councillor Bell, seconded again by Councillor Anderson, moved as an amendment that council should note the report and take no action at this time. He advised that he had not been reassured by the Members’ Sounding Board sessions and that he could not agree to this without more information on the costs/benefits and details in relation to the various projects.

The administration's motion won the day by 20 votes to seven.

Today Councillor Bell congratulated Not Just Sheep and Rugby on their successful Freedom of Information request which, he said, "opens the door to public scrutiny on the detail behind SBC's decision to sign an astonishing 20 year contract with the IT Supplier CGI."

He told us:"I am very supportive of our Council's partnership with CGI as this gives our rural local authority really good access to the fast-changing world of information and communications technology, and opens the possibility for improvements in services to Borderers, over and above those that can be provided by the Council's own in-house capability.  But I don't think that signing up - at relatively short notice - to a 20 year contract extension is either necessary or wise.

"Not Just Sheep and Rugby's blog extensively quotes Audit Scotland's recommendations to our Council to play close attention to the need for openness and transparency; and as Chair of the Council's Audit & Scrutiny Committee I am always mindful of the importance of reviewing and learning, as Audit Scotland says, from "..information about performance and outcomes, including when targets have and have not been achieved..."; as well as the Council being open about why, as well as on what, it decides to spend public money. The Council should be open about all these issues which overlap with the three concerns I articulated when the proposal to sign up to a 20 year IT deal was debated in September last year.  To summarise; I was concerned that:-

"1 Evidence we reviewed in August & September indicated that not only had the original contract with CGI, dating from 2016, failed to deliver all the promised financial improvements, but there have been significant gaps in the officer and elected member oversight of this contract.  As this original contract still has nine years to run; and as it has not been fully effective - why rush to extend it now?

"2 It is not clear where the £34 million funding for a new contractual commitment to CGI over the next three years will come from. This is not a small amount of money - it is more than the cost of the new Grammar School in Jedburgh.

"3 It was - and still is - not clear exactly what benefits in improved services and/or reduced costs will be seen by Borderers as a result of a new commitment of £34 million of investment.

"I thought there were some interesting prospects in the proposals which Councillors reviewed in September. Prospects which could have justified further analysis, clarification and costing; and prospects which could, perhaps, then have justified further contractual commitments with CGI. But there was nothing with sufficient clarity to justify signing up to a 20year contract worth £99m; and also  little that needed to be kept to purely private Council discussions - as your FoI documents now show."

NEXT: WHAT THE DEAL MIGHT MEAN FOR BORDERS RESIDENTS