Folkestone & Hythe District Council Faces £250K Spending Scandal in 2024/25 — Latest Chapter in Financial Failures Dating Back to 2018

The history of financial and contractual irregularities at Folkestone & Hythe District Council is well documented on the pages of the Shepway Vox Team’s blog. Since 2018, the team has reported on case after case of mismanagement, prompting repeated comments and recommendations from the Council’s external auditor, internal auditors, and even the Council itself.

Yet after six years of sustained scrutiny and documented failures, the irregularities persist—with little to no explanation as to why. In December 2022, Chief Executive Dr Susan Priest assured the Audit & Governance Committee that these issues would be brought to an end. However, her words have not translated into meaningful reform. As many critics note, Dr Priest often says the right things, but little ever changes in practice—especially when it comes to contract and financial controls.

 

In the 2024/25 financial year, under Cllr Tim Prater as Cabinet Member for Finance and Lydia Morrison as the Council’s Section 151 Officer, the pattern of irregularities has not only continued but worsened.

Seven New Examples of Contract and Financial Irregularities in 2024/25

The most recent analysis of the Council’s Payments to Suppliers and Contract Register reveals the following examples:

• Painting Spaces Kent: Contracted at £5,500 net and with VAT £6,600 gross.

• Yet they were paid £9,000 gross for a job resulting in an overpayment of £2,400, with no variation or explanation disclosed.

• Three Hills Sports Park: Awarded two contracts for election venue hire at a cost of £30,500.

However, both payments are missing from the publicly available expenditure data.

• Lister Wilder: Were awarded two contracts valued at £102,665 net. The gross amount therefore should have been £123,198

• However, Lister Wilder Received £176,285 gross for the two contracts valued at £123,198, resulting in an overpayment of £53,087 with no published justification.

• Threds Construction Ltd: Awarded a £25,060 fit‑out contract on 5 February 2024, yet no corresponding payment appears in the Council’s published ledger.

• Brighter Homes (Folkestone) Ltd: Contracted for services worth £59,792 gross, but paid £78,921 gross—an unexplained £19,129 overpayment.

• Multisteel Ltd: Awarded £11,340 for steel door installations, but again, no payment is visible in the supplier data.

• AECOM: Paid £57,988.80 in 2024/25 according to the published spend data, yet they were not awarded any contract in 2024/25 financial year, according to the Contract Register 

These seven cases alone represent over £153,000 in unexplained or irregular spending—but this is only part of a larger pattern. Further irregularities for 2024/25 have been found by The Shepway Vox Team, and the cumulative total exceeds a quarter of a million pounds. All of this is in clear breach of Part 10 Council’s Constitution which deal with the Financial Procedure Rules and Contract Standing Orders

Despite this, the Council has offered no public explanation, no accountability, and no clear action to rectify the situation.

A Culture That Continues to Disregard the Rules

What is increasingly clear is that the Council’s internal culture remains indifferent to the financial safeguards laid out in Part 10 of the Council’s Constitution, which governs, contract management, and financial oversight.

In December 2022, internal audit report AuG/22/17 delivered a stark warning. Across three areas—contract management, waste services, and car parking income—auditors could only provide limited assurance, reflecting systemic weaknesses in how public money was managed.

Key findings from the Contract Management – Controls and Governance audit (Section 2.3.1) included:

• 4 out of 15 contracts were not advertised, breaching Contract Standing Orders (CSOs).

• 5 contracts had waivers, while 30% failed to obtain the required quotes or tenders.

• Only 9 of 15 suppliers had formal contracts in place.

• Only 9 of 15 suppliers spending over £5,000 appeared in the Contract Register.

• Just 8 contracts (53%) had any formal performance reviews.

• Officers lacked training on procurement, and many failed to provide accurate pre-contract cost estimates.

At the same meeting, auditors also reviewed the Housing Planned Maintenance service and found that £1.45 million was spent in 2021/22 without following CSOs, including significant payments for work that had not yet begun. In one case, £76,499 was paid in full for a fire alarm installation that only started months later—and part of which was incorrectly specified.

The Historical Pattern: Repeating Itself

These failures are not new. They sit atop a long line of unresolved scandals, including:

• P&R Gas Contract: Overcharging of £1.5 million across four East Kent councils.

• M&R Refurbishments Ltd: Documented instances of overbilling, poor workmanship, and unverified payments.

• Anthony Wallner: Linked to a £2.5 million roofing contract under investigation for contract splitting and possible misconduct.

• Alastair Clifford: A senior officer suspended amid procurement-related investigations.

At the December 2022 Audit & Governance Committee meeting, Chief Executive Dr Susan Priest pledged to introduce mandatory training on financial and contract management. Yet the 2024/25 Contract Register and the Council’s own Payments to Suppliers data continue to show a persistent disregard for Contract Standing Orders and Financial Procedure Rules—clear and unassailable evidence that the internal culture has not changed.

Sometimes, the only way to transform a failing organisational culture is to remove those at the top and allow a new broom to sweep clean. That is what is now required. But whether elected members have the resolve—or the courage—to take that step remains an open question.

This is public money, raised primarily through your Council Tax—and after six years of failure, mismanagement, and broken promises, surely it is time for that broom to sweep clean. Because despite repeated warnings, audits, and investigations, we still haven’t been told where all the money has gone. The public deserves better than silence, evasion, and financial chaos disguised as business as usual.

The Shepway Vox Team

Discernibly Different Dissent