Herefordshire Council’s Audit and Governance committee will receive an internal audit special investigation report on the Hereford City Centre Transport Package (HCCTP)
This will be at its meeting on Tuesday 10 May.
The report, requested by the council’s (then new in-post) chief executive Paul Walker in July 2021, details the outcome of an in-depth review into the project’s financial controls and governance processes to understand events that led to an increased spend.
Chief Executive, Paul Walker said:
Once again I would like to apologise to councillors and residents for management and communication failures throughout this project.
This independent auditors report clearly describes the historical weaknesses in this project’s budget control and governance processes, and it’s evident that some key lessons had not been learnt from previous projects where costs greatly exceeded the initial budget.
While there is still work to do, the report recognises that significant changes have already been made to governance processes and how project spend is managed. We have made significant improvements to our performance management reporting processes and decision making. All decisions recommended to councillors should be transparent, understandable and demonstrate value for money for local residents. The way that decisions are now recorded will provide heightened transparency for council decision makers and residents. The strengthened controls now in place will help ensure issues identified as part of this review and previous reviews do not occur again.