Peacock: You’ll never find out who hired Slocombe on £20k a month! (It was me. I just forgot I told scrutiny in July)

Stephen Peacock decided that he needed to close down the debate over who hired two contractors on tens of thousands of pounds a month in a bungled procurement process.

The West of England Combined Authority chief executive was being questioned by councillors at the audit committee on September 15 about who was the principal actor in the debacle that saw Weca take on two of Peacock’s former colleagues from Bristol council.

Bristol councillor Stephen Williams made a last effort after Grant Thornton, the auditor, had pointed the finger at Weca’s senior management team.

“The question that is hanging in the air is who ultimately authorised that appointment and by doing that either ignored the rules or broke them… if it’s not the former mayor and current MP for Hanham, who was it?” Williams asked.

Here is Peacock’s lengthy response.

(Bear with me here, it’s worth hearing all he had to say.)

“So the procurement rules are clearly set out, delegations are there, and the individuals who are responsible for all procurement breaches, of which these are two of several we’ve discussed are all basically making decisions according to their seniority in the organisation.”

“So, we cannot name individuals in the context of today’s discussion. There are objections to the accounts, as I understand it, that you are going to be investigating. So, it’s right and proper that those are looked at by the auditors. But what we need to understand is that if you’re focusing on two individuals, I understand with the cameras rolling why you would do so. There was a systemic problem around following rules. People not aware, not following them properly. No one wants to do that. Why would an organisation want to do that to itself? Why would any of us want to be here now answering that question? There were problems. We agree and accept, as Solange has said, that we should still see governance in those internal controls as part of our improvement journey. We’re working really hard to do that. So to answer your question, we’re not going to name individuals around this room. That would be unfair…”

And then in a not very surprising move, the deputy monitoring officer, Stephen Hellard, backed his boss to the hilt. It wouldn’t be appropriate to release the names (names, not name – another diversion). We know who they are already, it’s the controlling mind, as lawyers say, who should face the consequences of his actions. (For a later day, but I have to ask where the monitoring officer Bob Brown was. On leave, the meeting was told. He missed scrutiny on July 14 too. This was one of the most important public meetings of the year, but he was on holiday. There are only 20 or so public meetings a year. That Bob Brown couldn’t make two of them makes you wonder how seriously he takes his job.)

Back to Peacock and the translation.

“You’re focusing on two individuals.” No, they are not. It’s clear from an email released earlier under a freedom of information request that two individuals – assistant chief executive Ben Mosley and Solange Russell (who was in charge of procurement at the time) oversaw the process to hire Kevin Slocombe and Nicki Beardmore. We know all that. Williams wants to know who ordered the hiring. Interestingly, Peacock is admitting it was current officers. But in his “clearing up” speech to Scrutiny on July 14 he kept saying former senior officers. Now it seems they weren’t former officers. (As an aside, I understand that Spendy Ben was behind the brilliant value hiring of Beardmore as Bristol’s Clean Air Zone comms and engagement director – a mere £218,005 a year. Spend it like Mosley!)

“I understand with the cameras rolling why you would do so.” Peacock is trying to imply there is a witch hunt going on (he should know how to they work) but that is a diversion.
“There was a systemic problem around following rules.” Yes, that was the former mayor, Dan Norris, and his assistant, Alex Mayer, who acted unlawfully in the bus wrap fiasco, but to whose mast Peacock nailed his colours. Peacock prefers to blame former officers who called out Norris and Mayer’s actions: classic “Bidenising”. Who’s a mini-Trump then?
“Why would any of us want to be here now answering that question?” He is trying to distract with another question about the procurement process, not who ordered it.
For those with a memory that extends to beyond two or three months, it is quite clear who ordered the hiring. Stephen Peacock. He admitted as much on July 14 to scrutiny. Much of what Peacock says tests the elasticity of the truth, but we shall take him here at his July word. “The two individuals that I asked to bring in brought specific relevant track records that meant they were the right people at that right moment.” We’re still waiting to see how that appears in the minutes.

In my experience as a business journalist, I have learnt that the quickest way for a chief executive to become unstuck is to fail to tell the truth: Bernard Looney and his office girlfriends, John Browne and a relationship; there are countless others. Yet Stephen Peacock remains in place. What is mayor Helen Godwin up to? Either she is not listening or condoning Peacock and Brown’s behaviour in 2024-25. I can’t see that as a medium-term strategy without a lot of risk.

That’s not all. At audit the Errington report was mentioned in public for the first time. It was a £40,000-plus, off-the-books witch hunt against former officers, led by the monitoring officer on behalf of the former mayor, who was crazed with a desire for retribution. But no mention of the fact that the spending was hidden from the public. Can Grant Thornton really ignore that?

Perhaps the only way to resolve the procurement process fiasco would be to have an inquiry. After all, the hiring of the two contractors at £263,700 – especially former close colleagues of the hirer – is much more serious than the regrading of a few senior officers in 2023 that may – or may not – have broken Weca’s flawed constitution with the former mayor Norris’s approval. (He may subsequently try to deny that.) The concerns of the Errington report seem trifling and, of course, went nowhere.

Lastly, as I had to leave early (fatal error), new whistleblowing rules were waved through that seem to put the process firmly in the grip of the monitoring officer. Which would be great so long as the monitoring officer is not subject to a whistleblowing complaint. That could never happen, of course. Until next time, when we’ll deal with whistleblowing, FoI requests and the Errington report, all at the same time, if manageable.