Calls for inquiry over £100k Dudley Council France trip

Dudley Council faced calls for an investigation into how £100,000 was spent on a trip to the French Riviera.

In March 2022 a delegation visited the MIPIM trade event in Cannes looking for property investment.

Councillors clashed at a committee meeting about how decisions were made over who went to the event on the Mediterranean coast.

Labour members argued councillors were involved in the decisions but Tory councillors disagreed.

Councillor Shaukat Ali, Labour's spokesperson for finance, said: "There are still issues in relation to this, what role did members take in that decision process? There needs to be an investigation."

The row broke out as councillors discussed the conclusions of this year's audit which said the usual financial and governance processes did not operate effectively around a contract with an events company connected to MIPIM. 

Labour opposition councillors argued the 2022 decisions about who went on the trip were made by councillors as well as officers on the authority's appointments panel.

The ruling Conservative group disagreed and council leader Patrick Harley told the meeting: "MIPIM was an appointments panel failure of officers to follow due process."

Speaking in March 2022, he said: "Having been somewhat of a sceptic at spending £100,000, I was extremely pleased with the outcome. I don't accept the Daily Mail's ridiculous story of this being a booze-soaked week."

Nine delegates attended the 2022 MIPIM event and included councillor Harley, the then-cabinet member for regeneration and enterprise, councillor Simon Phipps, and Dudley's chief executive, Kevin O'Keefe.

The council was contracted to attend MIPIM in 2020, 2021 and 2022, although the first two events were cancelled due to Covid.

The authority spent £270,154 with an event management company in relation to the three events plus £13,056 on hotels and flights in 2022 and a further £5,000 on sponsorship in the same year.

An internal audit found there had been a "collective lack of competence" from officers in relation to overspending on the events.

This year's independent audit found, while the council was in most cases governed effectively, there were concerns about finance and standards of conduct.

The auditors' report said inspectors were concerned about the role of the council's monitoring officer due to his place in the management hierarchy.

Dudley's deputy chief executive, Balvinder Heran, who also attended MIPIM in 2022, told the audit committee: "We have started a process of organisational redesign looking at senior management restructure. This issue is a live piece of work."

A recent review by the Local Government Association (LGA) also found problems with how the council handled MIPIM.

The LGA report said: "The issues occurred as a result of a failure to follow the governance arrangements that are in place and understanding what went wrong here is important." 

Labour councillor Judy Foster, who was a member of the audit scrutiny committee, said: "The LGA review is clear, there has to be change, I am looking forward to seeing the details."