A LEADING Liberal Democrat has called for an outside examination of East Hampshire District Council's planning performance statistics to restore public confidence. Peter Rodgers told a full meeting of East Hampshire District Council last week that he was not confident that a planned audit commission review of the council's planning service would fit the bill "As it is unlikely that that review will address the real issues currently causing significant damage to the council and the morale of staff, will councillor Burridge use his office as portfolio holder for development to have a full external audit carried out into this issue in an attempt to restore confidence once and for all?" He said an internal inquiry would not resolve the issue: "We have had previous inquiries which have not got to the bottom of the matter and so an external inquiry is the only way forward." Patrick Burridge told him he was fully committed to resolving the problem which was frustrating everyone. "I am keen to see an end to it and I will work with officers to see this is done ." Chief executive Will Godrey told the meeting: "Obviously I am aware that everyone wants to sort out this issue. Part of the work we are doing is an external validation of our current procedures. If you are concerned that this is wholly internal, I can assure you tonight there will be external validating work carried out so that we are sure, when we submit figures in future to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, that they are correct." He said he would be reporting to the next meeting of the overview and scrutiny committee "and if members are still not satisfied and want more scrutiny, I will be happy to do it." Mr Rodger's call for an external audit follows a strong open letter last week from Liberal Democrat leader Tony Ludlow to Mr Godfrey. Mr Ludlow claimed councillors had been deliberately misled and warned Mr Godfrey that unless the overview and scrutiny started to do its job properly "We should consider using an independent reviewer such as the Audit Commission." He said he had been briefed about problems with planning performance statistics last March, but given the impression wrong dates were used by mistake. "Gradually, in a series of meetings of the overview and scrutiny committee it was reported that wrong dates had been used because of an error in the computer system, then that it was an error in entering data into the computer and finally that there had been an instruction to use the wrong dates." But, said Mr Ludlow, it was not until early in February that he learned there had been an "unambiguous intent to use the wrong dates deliberately to improve the performance figures reported to the ODPM." And he added: "There is clear evidence of a cover-up." "At overview and scrutiny on September 29, councillors were being led to believe that the false entries were made 'inadvertently' and that the problems were 'associated with the Acolaid computer system.' This was the view of the internal audit manager in spite of the existence of the email. The Internal Manager reported that there had been no evidence of fraud in this case." Mr Ludlow said the emerging facts begged several important questions. He wanted to know when political leaders discovered the contents of the damning email and whether in the light of its contents, the internal audit manager might want to revise his findings. "It seems to me that that a proper inquiry is essential. The obvious place is overview and scrutiny committee but that has been made ineffective recently because it has divided on party lines with acrimony."
