More Contract & Financial Irregularities At Folkestone & Hythe District Council

Folkestone & Hythe District Council’s contract register shows that on 5 February 2024 it awarded Threds Construction Ltd a £25,060 contract for Category A fit‑out works at Connect 38’s first floor—new partitioning and snag‑list tidy‑ups—scheduled from 12 February to 26 April 2024. Yet Threds appears nowhere in the council’s published “Payments to Suppliers” files for either 2023/24 or 2024/25, so there is no public evidence that any money was ever paid against this project. The building; which is in Ashford, is owned by the  Folkestone & Hythe District Council

During 2024/25 the council also awarded Brighter Homes (Folkestone) Ltd three contracts that fall wholly inside that financial year: £17,073 (26 Feb – 31 Mar 2024), £9,369 (11 Mar – 13 Apr 2024) and £23,385 (11 Sep – 4 Oct 2024), for a combined net value of £49,827. Adding 20 % VAT gives a gross figure of £59,792, yet the 2024/25 payment ledger shows gross payments to Brighter Homes totalling £78,921—a surplus of £19,129. (A fourth Brighter Homes contract runs into 2025/26, so its payments should not appear in 2024/25.)

On 1 October 2024 the council engaged Multisteel Ltd to install steel doors to the communal boiler and lift‑motor rooms at Nailbourne Court, Lyminge, under a one‑month contract worth £11,340. Again, no corresponding payment appears in the 2024/25 data. Once may be a mistake, twice a habit, but three times is a pattern: well over £50,000 of 2024/25 expenditure remains unexplained.

These financial irregularities are not isolated. We The Shepway Vox Team have catalogued similar problems for years:

• Jenner (Contractors) Ltd was paid about £150 k more than the combined value of two housing‑retrofit contracts in 2023, and roughly £181 k above contract in 2022/23, despite repeated warnings that internal controls would be tightened.

• The parking‑enforcement contract with NSL Ltd is on course to overshoot its £2.84 m ceiling by more than £300 k before it expires in March 2024, one of nine contracts found to be overspent in a sample of fourteen.

• A single roofing contract with Premier Roofing & Construction Ltd ballooned from an initial £484 k to £2.43 m by March 2022—five times its original value—and triggered an HR investigation and suspensions

Other posts highlight late or missing accounts, purchase orders that exceed contract values, contracts not recorded on the public register, and staff continuing to flout procurement rules even after mandatory training in 2023 / 24. In short, the latest anomalies with Threds, Brighter Homes and Multisteel sit atop a long‑running pattern of contract overspends, missing payments and weak oversight. Promised reforms, investigations and staff training have yet to stop the cycle of irregularities, leaving significant sums of public money—past and present—still unexplained.

Since 1 April 2018—when Dr. Susan Priest – pictured – was appointed Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service, with a remuneration package now exceeding £150,000 a year—Folkestone & Hythe District Council has repeatedly pledged to strengthen financial oversight, with mandatory training. Yet the persistent pattern of irregularities has not only continued, it has deepened. The training has failed. They say a fish rots from the head down; perhaps it’s time to remove the head to halt the decay. This is not how public money should be managed.

The Shepway Vox Team

Delightfully Delicious Dissent