FHDC Contract Register “Time Travel”: £14.87m of Contracts Starting Before Award — Waivers, Letters of Intent and What the Constitution Requires
We, The Shepway Vox Team, have been rummaging in the Council’s contract register (once again) like Doc Brown in a garage full of suspicious gadgets. And, sure enough, the flux capacitor starts glowing the moment you compare “Contract Award/Contract Award Notice Date” with “Contract Start Date”.
In the register dated 11 December 2025, there are 699 contracts listed. 598 have both an award date and a start date. Of those, 20 show a start date earlier than the award date. Using the register’s own “Total Contract Value” field, those 20 entries add up to £14,869,651.95 (and their “Contract Award Value” adds up to £13,867,992.45).
Princes Parade: the Council’s “time machine” in public view
If this feels familiar, it’s because The Shepway Vox Team has been shouting about it for years. The Princes Parade utilities trio (electricity, water, gas) is a textbook example: works shown as starting in April/May 2022, with award dates in November 2022.
Those three also appear in our 20-entry “time travel” sample from the 11 Dec 2025 register.
Contract chart: award date vs start date
Ordered from contracts awarded in December 2025, working backwards.
Two important “keep it simple” points:
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Most of the £14.87m here is driven by three separate register entries for Insurance Services 2025–30, each showing £3.67m (so the register itself may be counting lots/placements separately — we’re reporting what it records).
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One entry shows £0.00 total value (Passenger Shelter Repair and Maintenance 2019/24), and another shows a £500 total value against a £20,000 award value — which is… not how numbers usually like to behave.
Procurement waivers: the Council’s own paperwork admits the “after the fact” problem
This isn’t just a nerdy spreadsheet spot-the-difference. The Council’s Waiver Strategy Report describes, in plain English, the operational reality: “Retrospective waiver request” — where services approach Procurement after a supplier has been chosen or work has commenced.
And the external auditors’ annual report describes the mechanics of these backwards-looking timelines: contracts expiring without timely action, waivers needed, and a drift into “backdated agreements” and reliance on supplier goodwill.
So the DeLorean has an engine: late planning + expiring contract
Does this break the Constitution? The key clauses — and why the dates matter
In Back to the Future, you hit 88mph and the car arrives before it left. In the contract register, some contracts appear to start before they’re awarded — and the Constitution is basically the Council’s anti-DeLorean manual.
First, it says you’re meant to plan properly so the process runs from planning to award and signature with “sufficient time” allowed (CSO 10.1(a)).
Second, if you’re going to bend the rules, you must do it before the bend — waivers should be sought “only in advance” and “only in exceptional circumstances” (CSO 13.2) and approved and documented in advance (CSO 13.3).
Third, if you really must start early, the Constitution allows a tightly controlled “starter pistol” called a letter of intent (CSO 15.1–15.2).
And if the dates are just messy data rather than real time travel, the Constitution still expects the register and records to be properly kept (CSO 5.4(f)–(g)), with non-compliance treated as a disciplinary matter (CSO 5.6).
That’s why this matters: the Council’s own waiver strategy admits “retrospective waiver request” — approaching Procurement after work has started.
The Auditors Annual Report also describe contracts expiring before replacements are signed, leading to backdated agreements and reliance on goodwill — which is not a control system, it’s a cinematic plot device. What this means for normal humans (not procurement professional.
What this means for normal humans (not procurement professionals)
When contracts appear to start before they’re awarded, the risk is not just “bad admin” — it can mean the competition happened late (or not at all), approvals became a formality rather than a safeguard, and the public record stopped being a reliable way to check what the Council actually decided and when. FHDC’s own Waiver Strategy calls out “retrospective waiver request” — services approaching Procurement after a supplier has been chosen or work has already started — which is basically the governance version of letting Marty McFly drive first and asking for a licence later. The external auditors describe a related problem: contracts expiring before replacements are signed, leading to backdated agreements and reliance on supplier goodwill; and goodwill is not a control system — it’s a polite hope with a receipt. And yes, we at The Shepway Vox Team have already documented wider patterns around procurement controls and contract timelines over time, including but not limited to Princes Parade.
The obvious question the Council now has to answer
For each of the 20 “time-travel” entries, the Council only needs to answer one basic question: is the register wrong, or was the process late? If the process was late, the follow-up is even simpler: where is the paperwork that proves the Council authorised an early start properly — the waiver approved in advance (CSO 13.2–13.3) or the letter of intent signed off as genuinely exceptional (CSO 15.1–15.2)?
Because at the moment, the public record reads like this: the Council hits 88mph, the contractor arrives on site, the invoices begin to materialise in the present, and only then does the award notice wobble into view like a fax from 1985. That might keep the service running, but it does not keep confidence running.
So, by all means, let’s have a DeLorean in the Civic Centre basement — councils need hobbies too. But if you’re going to bend time with public money, the Constitution’s message is painfully unglamorous: fill in the forms first, sign them in advance, and then press “go”. Otherwise it isn’t Back to the Future; it’s just Backdating to the Present.
The Shepway Vox Team
Discernibly Different Dissent
“Irregularity means it’s a crime but you can’t prove it. Malpractice means that it’s a crime but you can prove it.” – Yes Prime Minister