Audit calls foul: Folkestone & Hythe Council’s £1.74 m no‑bid contracts branded a “huge own‑goal”

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s Contract Standing Orders could not be clearer: any officer who wants to buy something costing more than £10,000 without first testing the market must obtain formal sign‑off “only in advance and only in exceptional circumstances” from both the Section 151 Officer—Alan Mitchell—and the Monitoring Officer—Ewan Green—and must record the reasons in writing. Breaching that rule is a disciplinary offence, the civic equivalent of a straight red card.

         

Yet an internal Waiver Strategy Report, sent to the Corporate Leadership Team on 22 May and heading to the Audit & Governance Committee on 30 July 2025  (Item 12),reads like a match summary where every tackle was late and the referee mislaid his whistle.

The score‑line so far

• 100 waivers were issued in 2024/25.

  • 37—issued for poor planning, lack of notice/time to tender, departmental resourcing headaches

  • 22—for cultural pressure, lack of planning, a tendency to direct‑award

  • 8—for yet more poor planning

  • 33—retrospective waivers, written after the match ended, thanks to cultural reliance on suppliers and—again—poor planning

Inside that century of hall‑passes, 33 waivers carried a price‑tag of £1,741,254.15; A dozen of them sat snugly under £25,000, worth £195,173.50. Think of it as the scoreboard showing plenty of goals conceded long before kick‑off.

Procurement officers admit the paperwork behind many waivers “lacks depth or consistency”; requests often arrive after work has begun, rather like a striker appealing for a penalty long after the ball has smacked the back of the net — and a “cultural reliance on known suppliers” keeps the passes going to the same familiar vendor, as if the team’s only tactic is “Give it to Dave, he’s our Dave,” while everyone else waits permanently off‑side for a touch that never comes.

Where the hall‑passes were used — the league table

The £475,000 waiver for temporary accommodation alone gobbles up 27 per cent of the spending total—an eye‑watering own goal the club is now “actively working to procure competitively.”

What a waiver is—and what it is not

For the non‑specialist, a waiver is the Council’s official permission slip to break its own transfer rules. The strategy report says it lets managers “deviate from adopted procurement policies or procedures.” The Constitution lists acceptable excuses: a life‑or‑property emergency, a sole supplier, parts for existing kit, or ultra‑specialist professional work. Picture it as the fire‑axe behind glass and the single authorised emergency substitution: shatter only when the boiler explodes, record the incident, and get back to structured play. It was never meant to be the fourth official’s board popping up every five minutes.

A decade‑long run of extra‑time

These numbers aren’t a blip; they’re injury‑time stretching into a second half. The Shepway Vox Team previously tallied 107 waivers worth north of £11 million between 2016 and 2020, including one season of 49. Seventy per cent of those sign‑offs came under the current Chief Executive, Dr Susan Priest. Put bluntly, the loophole has been left unmarked on the wing for ten years.

Why over‑using waivers matters

Offside flags have been raised for “abuse of waivers” and “contract splitting” as classic fraud indicators. The Annual Fraud Indicator Report, makes it clear procurement fraud already costs local authorities £5.04 billion—a bill no council wants showing on its fixture list. When competition disappears, so does value: the NAO says nearly 25 per cent of major public contracts between 2021 and 2023 attracted only one bidder. Framework deals ballooned from £10 billion to £35 billion in four years, as transparency dribbled away. FHDC’s own auditors keep four competency actions open until 2026; expecting a perfect off‑side trap when the back‑line is still in training is optimistic.

When you can’t see the open goal in front of you

There is, of course, an academic name for players who keep skying the ball yet punch the air as though they’ve scored: the Dunning‑Kruger effect. Social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger first illustrated it in 1999 with the unforgettable tale of McArthur Wheeler, the would‑be bank‑robber who smeared lemon juice on his face, convinced it would make him invisible to CCTV. Wheeler’s mis‑adventure led the researchers to show, across humour‑rating, logic puzzles and grammar tests, that the poorest performers routinely over‑estimate their own ability and—crucially—lack the metacognitive skill to spot their errors. Put differently: if you keep shooting wide, you’re also the least likely to realise you’ve missed the net.

The council’s waiver habit fits that playbook perfectly. Officers who mis‑time their procurement tackles are also the ones least able to see why constantly reaching for a hall‑pass is a problem. Dunning and Kruger found that novices improve only when they are first trained to recognise competence—rather like giving a Sunday‑league defender a masterclass in the off‑side trap before expecting him to hold the line. Until FHDC’s training closes its four lingering “competency” gaps, the risk is that the same lemon‑juice logic—we’re invisible, so the cameras won’t catch us—will keep replaying, waiver after waiver, highlight reel after highlight reel.

The council’s cure—or another tactical reshuffle

Faced with a hostile crowd, officers propose a bold‑sounding formation: lift the three‑quote threshold to £25,000, run everything above that through a new finance system from April 2026, introduce a mandatory checklist, and roll out compulsory e‑learning. To sceptics, that feels like moving the penalty spot ten yards further back while trusting the same defence.

And now the promised new playbook

Procurement insists this is only the first whistle. According to Report Number AuG/25/08, approved by the Corporate Leadership Team in June 2025, promises to cut the number of no‑bid contracts to a trickle. The document vows that waivers will be granted only in genuinely exceptional circumstances, the financial equivalent of a last‑gasp clearance off the line rather than the opening move of every attack.

Instead of letting retrospective requests dribble in after the build‑up has finished, the strategy pledges to stamp out that habit, to man‑mark the Council’s long‑trusted suppliers, and to rein in the free‑form “Chief Officer discretion” that has left so many opponents unchallenged in the box. Procurement takes the captain’s armband here, promising sharper training drills, revised thresholds and an early‑engagement culture designed to start attacks from the back rather than lumping long balls forward at the last second.

To prove it is not all preseason talk, the Strategy says waiver statistics will now appear as a standing item on every committee agenda—complete with a league table of which service areas are racking up the most infringements, an injury‑time review of repeat offenders, and post‑match analysis outlining what remedial training is under way – if any. The idea is to replace the current cloak‑and‑dagger routine with weekly match stats on possession, shots on target and—crucially—how many waivers are being kept out of the net.

Procurement officials say the new regimen will boost transparency, rebuild dressing‑room confidence and, in the long run, shrink the waiver tally to something befitting a team determined to keep a clean sheet. Whether the squad sticks to the playbook once the 2026/27 season starts will be the real test; for now the promise is clear: the days of casual hoofs into the stands are—on paper at least—over.

Promises, promises—ignored from kick‑off

Back in December 2022, Chief Executive Dr Susan Priest promised staff training from January 2023 and “no excuse for non‑compliance.” The Audit & Governance Committee heard the same pledge from the statutory officers amid a mounting deficit. Fast‑forward to 2024/25: 100 hall‑passes issued, 37 blamed on poor planning, 22 on cultural pressure, and 33 written after the whistle. That pre‑match talk clearly never made it past the tunnel.

Two codes of conduct—one confused dressing‑room

Adding to the farce, the Officer Code of Conduct on the Council’s intranet doesn’t match the public facing Constitution. Until the dressing‑room wall and the match programme show the same tactics board, no‑one can be sure which playbook counts.

Who is brandishing the rubber stamp?

Who in which departments sprint for the waiver bench most often? Are the touchline generals—the senior managers—quietly overruling their own playbook while junior staff stick to the drills? The crowd wants the names on the back of the shirts.

What the rule‑book really says

The Constitution insists procurement must protect “the council’s reputation from any implication of dishonesty or corruption.” It bans contract‑splitting, demands a robust audit trail and treats breaches like straight reds. Even in emergencies, officers may “play advantage” briefly, but must whistle, report and seek retrospective sign‑off before the restart.

The cost of gifting possession

£1.74 million—about 9 per cent of the £19.4 million 2024/25 budget—could bankroll planning enforcement, homelessness prevention or affordable‑housing schemes. It would also fund two years of emergency accommodation for 70 families or pay every Senior officer for two‑and‑a‑half seasons. Dumping that cash via no‑bid contracts is like pinging a back‑pass into your own net and high‑fiving the culprit; meanwhile opponents in inflated‑price shirts stroll through on goal.

What happens next

The Corporate Leadership Team will step onto the pitch this summer to decide if the new waiver strategy goes to Audit & Governance and then full council—board‑room VAR for a controversial decision. The report vows to “strengthen financial discipline, transparency and accountability,” yet fans have heard that chant before. Councillors and auditors, the away support with binoculars, want three early signs: a sharp drop in waiver numbers (especially those cheeky under‑£25k tap‑ins), closure of the lingering competency bookings, and the identity of whoever keeps flashing the rubber stamp like a last‑gasp substitution board.

Closing thought

Waivers are emergency kit—good for burst pipes, flash floods and those rare days when only one supplier exists. They are not a licence to hoof a hopeful long ball every time midfield possession gets sticky, nor a rolling sub for officers whose match fitness in planning procurement looks dubious. Until Folkestone & Hythe proves that no‑bid buying is again a last‑ditch clearance, and publishes the full team sheet of who is waving the hall‑passes, the district’s procurement match will remain one where the home side takes the throw‑ins, nudges the corner flag closer to goal and edits the rule‑book whenever the referee glances at his watch.

The Shepway Vox Team

The Velvet Voices of Voxatiousness