Welsh council in datacentre funding probe
Torfaen County Borough Council asked to cover £400,000 funding black hole at local datacentre facility
A Welsh council previously accused of rushing through a PC procurement deal must stump up £400,000 to cover a funding shortfall at a datacentre whose activities are being probed by local police.
The £3m datacentre in Blaenavon, south Wales, is part of an initiative led by Torfaen County Borough Council (TCBC) to share ICT services with neighbouring local authorities.
The tier three-to-four datacentre, which opened last year, also forms the centrepiece of TCBC's plans to become the UK's "most digitally connected community".
The site, also known as the Shared Resource Service (SRS), has been at the centre of a Gwent Police probe since last September over funding irregularities.
In a statement to ChannelWeb, a Gwent police representative confirmed that, to date, the investigation has resulted in three men from the south Wales area being arrested on suspicion of fraud. All three are on bail, pending further enquiries, until next month.
A report on local news site the South Wales Argus from last September also revealed that a senior TCBC officer and SRS director, Farooq Dastgir, has been suspended as part of the ongoing investigation.
In an SRS progress report dated 14 February 2012, TCBC deputy chief executive Peter Durkin asked to use council reserves to cover an "unbudgeted...one-off" sum of £400,000 to maintain the centre's operations.
"In light of [the] ongoing criminal and disciplinary investigations, it would not be appropriate to publish within this report the specific breakdown of this cost in full because it may be prejudicial to those investigations," wrote Durkin.
"Clearly some costs have been incurred through actions that may result in criminal charges being made and disciplinary hearings being convened."
However, Durkin goes on to write that the problem with the costs is that they were either incurred without "prior approval" or that "appropriate budget provision was not made at the correct time".
"It is anticipated that following conclusion of both investigations, the council will wish to fully scrutinise both the sources of the costs and the events leading to them being incurred," Durkin added.
In a statement to ChannelWeb, a TCBC representative said the council would make no further comment on the issue at this time.
"This is part of an ongoing investigation on suspicion of alleged financial irregularities. Gwent Police investigations are continuing at this time and it would be inappropriate to comment further until the outcomes of the investigations are known," it stated.
The datacentre probe is not the first time TCBC's IT strategy has come under scrutiny. Last April, the council came under fire for allegedly pushing through a laptop procurement deal, which saw it acquire more than 8,600 laptops from public sector VAR XMA.
At the time, sources said they had expected the council to order about 400 laptops based on the original tender, and were shocked when the size of the final order was revealed.