Do You Want To See Council Contracts, Deeds & Receipts? Now Is Your Chance!

It is that time of year when you can ask to inspect various documents held by Wrexham Council – although the invite, despite being legally compliant, may have escaped your notice!

You have the right to ‘inspect and make copies of the accounts’ of Wrexham Council, which includes looking at the books, deeds, contracts, bills and vouchers and receipts that refer to them.

The window to inspect such things is open between 28th June and 25th July (9:30am to 4:15pm), and the documents must involve the accounting year up to the 31st of March 2017.

This could include contracts signed by Wrexham Council last year, or that are active during that period, such as consultants, leisure or litter service providers, or construction contracts such as the Arts Hub conversion.

Councillor and Officer expenses forms, including the receipts, are also open for inspection. Deeds of property owned by Wrexham Council, and if there are active leases they are also open to viewing, plus receipts for land sold.

The process is straightforward, you contact Wrexham Council’s Head of Finance (contact details here) noting which documents you wish to inspect, and arrangements and appointments are then made.

Two years ago Wrexham.com exercised this right, looking at how much it cost to change a lightbulb in the markets, discovering the details of how Wrexham Council still had a connection to Eagles Meadow car parks via their lease, and of course which Councillor claimed £1.35 mileage to attend Remembrance Day.

Last year we had attempted a similar exercise , however despite probably being the most interested in Wrexham, we missed the notice despite mentioning it several times. Previously it had been posted on social media, but that step was skipped – just being placed in the most visible place deemed by law – the back of the local paper in tiny writing.

Due to that we attempted to FOI some of that information, with the Council’s reply being inaccurate – you can read about that here.

Roll forward to 2017, at the time of writing the current notice on the Council’s website refers to 2015-2016, and there is no mention of an inspection period on any of the Council’s social accounts.

In correspondence last year we were told, a ‘notice was in the Leader inviting viewing on 9/10 June‘, and thus we actually took a look this weekend to see if the same single notice would be printed.

On page 26 in very small writing appears the following, giving formal detail:

Going by previous invoices we have inspected using the above method, we would guess MOJO Holdings’s (NWN) Leader publication will have been paid hundreds of pounds to publicise this process via the above notice.

For the record, Wrexham.com has received £0.00 for this promotion and highlighting of the notice.

UPDATE MONDAY: The statutory notice is in today’s daily Leader as well, so we assume has been paid for a double run.

Further, unlike 2016, the notice has today appeared on the Council’s social media as well.

Audit of Accounts 2016/2017 – NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that pursuant to Section 30 and 31 of the Public Audit (Wa… https://t.co/u5KyAY7F5B

— Wrexham Council (@wrexhamcbc) June 12, 2017