Ombudsman slams procurement practices at City of Port Phillip

Procurement practices at the City of Port Phillip have been heavily criticised in a report by the Victorian Ombudsman tabled in the State parliament today.

In a damning report Ombudsman George Brouwer found procurement at the City of Port Phillip was mismanaged with a chronic lack of oversight and governance.

In one example, the services of a consultant, working through the company Corporate Power, were procured with no contract put in place after services exceeded the local government threshold of $100,000, when contracts are supposed to go to tender.

From 2006 to the end of 2007 services went virtually unchecked incurring fees in excess of $620,000.

“Poor governance of this process allowed expenditure of significant amounts of public funds to occur with little, if any, oversight,” Brouwer said.

Investigations carried out by the Ombudsman found that the council’s procurement processes had been affected by poor governance, including poor tender and contract management practices;  failure to act on conflict of interest matters; non-compliance with purchasing guidelines and several cases that raised questions about compliance with provisions of the Local Government Act.

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Click here to download the Ombudsman’s report.