Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council

Elected members sign the decisions of Sefton Council. Unelected officers write them. On the matters in this report, officers also complete the awards, sit on the boards of council-owned companies and local charities, answer the freedom of information requests about their own posts, and remain in place after the cabinet that signed has changed.

A cabinet member can be removed at an election. The officer who drafted the recommendation cannot. Scrutiny of those posts, and of the way the council's own brakes are applied to them, is the subject of this report.

The council's external auditor and the council's own draft governance statement have each named the same weaknesses in the past year: financial sustainability, the High Needs deficit, budget monitoring, and the use of procurement waivers. This report sets the decision papers, the payments and the company registers against those findings.

Each decision is marked on four tests. The mark is 0, 1 or 2.

Where a test could not be applied because the original decision notice was not reviewed, the cell says "not reviewed". Where a decision was recorded as non-key, so the forward plan did not apply, the cell says "not applicable". A row that is only a forward-plan entry is not treated as a decision. Silence is recorded as silence. It is not upgraded to a conclusion that advice was never given. Advice is often in a closed appendix.

The standards used are the council's own and the law's. The forward plan and Rule 27 are in the constitution. Section 123 of the Local Government Act 1972 and the General Disposal Consent of 2003 are the legal minimum for a disposal. Section 117 of the same Act, and the council's code, govern officer interests. The Annual Governance Statement is the account the chief executive and the Leader sign. The Auditor's Annual Report is the external auditor's value-for-money verdict. Contracts Finder is the public register of awards. Companies House is the public register of directors and accounts. The monthly supplier publications are the council's own record of payments of £500 and over.

Council papers: the draft Annual Governance Statement for 2025/26; Grant Thornton's Auditor's Annual Report for 2024/25, received by Audit and Governance in January 2026 and by Council in February 2026; the September 2026 revenue report; the adult social care charging report; the Families First and SEND papers; the Sovini reports of November 2025 and July 2026; the Marine Lake Events Centre reports of October 2025 and June 2026 and the motions of November 2025 and July 2026; the Strand papers of December 2023, March 2024 and September 2025; the Bootle Canalside business case of May 2022; the Southport Market papers of September 2020 and November 2025; the garden-waste procurement report; the Sandway Homes and Sefton Hospitality Operations outturns of March 2026; five quarterly waiver reports from September 2025 to September 2026; the minutes of the Sands call-in of 20 August 2026; the Waterloo call-in agenda published on 16 September 2026; the Council papers of 17 September 2026; the appointments to outside bodies of June 2025 and June 2026; the four scrutiny work programmes for 2026/27; the forward plan for 1 October 2026 to 31 January 2027; and the council's published freedom of information performance data for 2025/26.

Payments: Sefton's published supplier payments for every month from January 2022 to December 2023. Twenty-four monthly publications, 144,986 payments. Payments after December 2023 were not available for this report in a form that could be totalled.

Registers: Companies House, consulted on 23 September 2026, for Sefton Hospitality Operations Ltd (13451207), Sandway Homes Limited (11646502), Southport Business Improvement District (09048655), Southport Flower Show (02103365), Victoria Park Management Company (Southport) Limited (03016129) and British Destinations Ltd (13327062), together with filed accounts. Contracts Finder awards where the buyer is recorded as Sefton Council. Information Commissioner decision notices naming Sefton, by date. The published register of interests of the Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Economy and Skills.

The council's written answers to SIBA's freedom of information requests, its two complaint-stage responses and its two letters of May 2026 are all on the public record and are cited where they bear on governance.

The disposals in section 12 and the roles in section 8 draw on SIBA's investigation files, each entry of which is sourced to a council paper, a filing or a public statement. Where a claim rests on a filing that was checked again for this report, the date of the check is given.

This report was prepared from the public record alone. No questions were put to the council in preparing it. The council's response to SIBA's earlier governance questions is in section 18.

The cabinet noted that day:

Scrutiny chairs on the same paper: Councillor McKee, adults. Councillor Karen Cavanagh, children. Councillor Hinde, regeneration and skills. Councillor David Roscoe, regulatory and corporate services. Audit and Governance is chaired by Councillor Conalty. Planning is chaired by Councillor Spring. Licensing and Regulatory is chaired by Councillor Kelly. The Health and Wellbeing Board is chaired by Councillor Moncur.

The officer board, from the council's leadership page, is Phil Porter, chief executive, and five executive directors: Stephen Watson, regeneration, economy and assets; Becky Bibby, children's services; Sarah Alldis, adult social care; Andrea Watts, operations and partnerships; Chris Warren, corporate resources. Below Watson sit Stuart Barnes, Assistant Director (Place), Economic Growth and Housing, and Mark Catherall, Head of Service, Visitor Economy and Enterprise. Paul Reilly is a finance officer. Chris Moister is the monitoring officer and Chief Legal and Democratic Services Officer.

Dates the papers support:

Councillor Lappin has been a councillor since May 2012 and a cabinet member for regeneration through the whole disposal series in section 12. Councillor Cavanagh was a director of the hospitality company from 19 June 2025 to 4 June 2026 and became chair of children's scrutiny on 21 May 2026. Councillor Conalty chairs Audit and Governance and moved the motion that let the Sands disposal stand.

• a significant weakness in the council's medium-term financial sustainability, with four improvement recommendations;
• a significant weakness in the level of the Dedicated Schools Grant deficit, with two key recommendations;
• significant weaknesses in arrangements relating to budget monitoring and reporting, and to the council's use of procurement waivers and its strategic procurement planning, with an improvement recommendation on budget setting;
• a prior-year significant weakness on children's social care lifted after inspection.

The auditor's report notes, as national context, the growing number of councils in receipt of Exceptional Financial Support. On 16 July 2026 Councillor Swaney's motion to Council stated that Sefton "required exceptional government support to set a balanced budget for 2026/27". The budget papers behind that statement were not reviewed for this report. The motion is quoted as what a councillor put on the record.

The first is the High Needs budget. The statement says the deficit has risen for years because demand has risen and government funding has not kept pace, that it is affecting treasury management and cash flow, and that it is a major risk to financial sustainability. The lead officer is Becky Bibby. The remedy is capacity reviews and an application for a High Needs Stability Grant.

The second is procurement and contract management. The statement names waivers, signed contracts, contract performance management and budget control, sourced to an external audit report and a KPMG contract review. The remedy is a single contract-management system, Atamis, going live in phases to April 2027. The lead officers are Chris Warren and Christian Rogers.

Three further points sit in the same draft. It says a revised Code of Corporate Governance was approved in March 2026. It says the Local Government Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner's review letter identified no systemic issues; four Information Commissioner decision notices name Sefton, dated 18 March 2025, 22 May 2025, 18 June 2026 and 4 August 2026, and their outcomes are not summarised here. And the paragraph introducing the two significant issues reads "The 2024/25 annual governance review has identified the following issues", inside a statement headed 2025/26. Last year's sentence is in this year's draft. The signature block is drawn for Phil Porter and Councillor Marion Atkinson. The dates are blank.

The council publishes every payment of £500 and over, monthly. The twenty-four publications for January 2022 to December 2023 record 144,986 payments and a net total of £648,824,871. That is £315,059,701 in 2022 and £333,765,170 in 2023, a rise of 5.9 per cent. There were 75,402 payments in 2023 against 69,584 the year before.

The highest months are May 2022, at £41.0 million, and March 2023, at £41.7 million. The lowest is April 2023, at £19.9 million, the first month of a financial year. March, the last month of the year, is above the average in both years.

The publications spell the corporate resources department two ways, "Corporate Resources" and "Corporate Resouces". Together the two spellings are £37,334,484. The council's own records are inconsistent inside its own transparency publication.

Sefton New Directions is the council's own adult care company. Its payments appear under four spellings of its name. Agilisys is the IT contractor that received a £12.3 million award notice in September 2025. Jones Lighting is a named supplier on the £30 million street lighting award of 2017. Dowhigh is a highways contractor.

8,915 payments, £18.65 million, carry the supplier name "SUPPLIER NAME REDACTED". That is 6.1 per cent of payments and 2.9 per cent of value. Care payments to individuals are ordinarily redacted. The publications do not say which payments those are.

2020 is the low year: ten awards, £8.5 million. 2017 is the high year by value: £58.8 million from 25 awards. 2023 is the recent low: £17.7 million from 27 awards. 2024 is a rise in notices, not a new size of council: the count moves from 27 to 116, about 4.3 times, and the value from £17.7 million to £50.7 million, about 2.9 times. The median award in 2024 was £70,444. Awards of £1 million or more were still 76 per cent of that year's value. 2025 returns to 33 awards and stays high at £42.4 million.

Eight awards of £10 million or more account for £206,263,595, about 61 per cent of the total. Thirty-three awards between £1 million and £10 million account for £93,150,832. One hundred and seven awards between £100,000 and £1 million account for £31,149,262. One hundred and ninety-one awards under £100,000 account for £9,325,539, about 2.7 per cent.

The register flags 269 of the 339 awards as going to small or medium-sized enterprises, with a stated value of £269,544,974. The other 70 awards, £70,344,253, are not so flagged. That flag is the supplier's own declaration. On a framework it attaches the whole ceiling to each small firm on the list.

Savills appears once, at £42,500. Sovini Group appears once, at £75,000. No award under this buyer names Sefton Hospitality Operations, Sandway Homes, Mikhail, Silcock, or Stand Up For Southport. The published payments in section 6 show that several of those names were paid anyway. A payment without a notice is not itself unlawful. Below the thresholds no notice is required. The gap between the two registers is what the auditor and the governance statement are describing when they name procurement.

In every one of the five, the list of waivers is in an appendix marked not for publication under paragraph 3 of Schedule 12A. The public body of each report contains no count and no total. The council's own sentence is: "Overall, the report highlights the number of Waivers that are authorised." The number is in the closed appendix. Each waiver, the reports say, was "submitted and Authorised by Relevant Assistant Directors and Heads of Service".

The fifth report says an Internal Audit report on waivers was issued in May 2026, that an improvement plan is now in place, and that future reports should add the number of waivers per month, the value per month, the average value, waivers as a percentage of procurement spend, and benchmarking against comparable authorities. None of those figures is in the public part of any report to date. The cover of the fifth report is dated "2 September 2025" for a period ending August 2026.

The waiver that SIBA has been able to see is the one disclosed under freedom of information: a 2020 Town Deal engagement contract to Stand Up For Southport, signed by Stephen Watson as Head of Service, with the firm's partnership with Southport BID cited as the reason for direct selection. A second, the March 2025 award to the council's own hospitality company of up to £138,686 to advise on Southport Market, the Enterprise Arcade and bar operations at Salt and Tar, was confirmed in the council's Stage 2 complaint response as a procurement waiver approved by Stuart Barnes, with no declaration recorded by Watson, a director of the company.

On 17 September 2026 Councillor Pugh's motion to Council said it plainly: "the excessive use of waivers and the appreciable impact on the revenue budget of the council's commercial undertakings and regeneration schemes".

This section records posts and seats. It does not allege that any of them was used improperly. Every seat is from Companies House, a council paper, or a published register, checked on the date given.

Sefton's own performance data is in section 5: 1,505 requests in 2025/26, compliance between 76 and 84 per cent by quarter, 282 late.

SIBA's requests about the visitor economy are a case study in who answers. Thirteen of the first fifteen responses were signed by Mark Catherall, whose roles were the subject. SP-04, about his own register, and SP-13, about his own job description, were signed by him. SP-01 and SP-02, signed on the same day, contradict each other: one says the council holds no information on BID consultancy costs; the other names the ballot contractor and a £5,665 fee. SP-10, on BID board declarations, directed the requester to the BID, which under clause 20 of the service level agreement cannot answer a request without the council. SP-14 was the first response processed by the information governance team instead.

The Stage 1 complaint, which named Watson, was assigned to Watson. The Stage 2 complaint, which named the officer who had decided every internal review, was assigned to her. The Stage 2 response said there is no policy on cabinet-approved officer directorships, that the register had not been updated because there was nothing to declare, that the SHOL contract was a waiver with no declaration by Watson, and that the VisitSouthport review would be led by Catherall. Three responses in the record carry a warning that future requests may be treated as vexatious, one of them appended to a full disclosure.

SP-17, answered 26 days after the statutory deadline, disclosed that £350,000 was paid to Savills on 6 June 2025 as property managers of the Strand under a contract assigned from the previous owner, without competitive procurement, while stating that no contracts with Savills existed as at 1 June 2025. SP-18, on delegated land disposals and the valuer used, was answered in part on 14 July 2026; the questions on the valuer panel, the instructions to Fitton Estates and the oversight of delegated disposals were not answered.

One Information Commissioner complaint, IC-525261-L0N8, was filed on 10 June 2026 about the refusal of the VisitSouthport audit log. The council's governance statement says the Commissioner's review letter found no systemic issues.

On 6 November 2025 Cabinet approved the direction of the Families First programme, a locality model aligned with neighbourhood health. The report was a key decision and it was on the forward plan. On 9 September 2026 the Health and Wellbeing Board was asked to endorse the operating model. A further Cabinet paper, and the Foster4 regional fostering contribution of £94,837, are listed for 1 October 2026. Those decisions have not yet been taken.

On 22 September 2026 children's scrutiny was told there were 4,585 live education, health and care plans on 9 September 2026, about 380 more than at 31 December 2025, and on a path toward about 4,730 by the end of the year. The published total had risen from 1,445 in December 2018 to 4,197 in December 2025, an increase of about 190 per cent. An earlier cabinet-member note said 4,478. The scrutiny count of 22 September is the figure used here.

On 23 July 2026 Cabinet agreed that the Assistant Director of Education Excellence may award new SEND transport contracts, after tender, for two years, in time for the school year. The report was on the forward plan and it is public. The award does not return to Cabinet. The passenger transport frameworks on the register, £24 million then £28 million, are the same family of purchasing. The forecast overspend on education travel support is about £2.3 million. The September cabinet-member note records disruption from one transport provider. Cabinet kept the decision to delegate. It did not keep the individual awards.

In the 2022 and 2023 published payments, the single largest education heading is "Special General Expenditure (High Needs), Non-Maintained Day Schools": £17,857,403 across 1,352 payments. Pontville School alone received £6,885,203. The High Needs deficit is named a significant weakness by the auditor and a significant governance issue by the council. The officer listed to present it to scrutiny in March 2027 is a director of the council's loss-making hospitality company.

On 3 September 2026 Cabinet approved changes to adult social care charging. The report was a key decision, it was on the forward plan, and it is public. Parts of the policy had not been reviewed for several years. The changes include charging from the first day of new non-residential services. The report says the options were tested against the Care Act, fairness, and the Better at Home strategy.

Adult social care is where the money goes. £265.4 million in two years, 41 per cent of all payments. The largest single expenditure headings are supported living for adults with a learning disability, £28.7 million across 12,482 payments; private residential care for older people, £26.5 million across 10,941 payments; domiciliary care for older people, £18.5 million across 14,254 payments; and nursing homes, £12.4 million across 4,615. Sefton New Directions, the council's own care company, received about £19 million. Autism Initiatives received £13.5 million, Alternative Futures Group £6.3 million.

The cabinet-member note for June to August 2026 says the service is seeking £5.5 million of savings, of which about £1 million had been delivered, and that a digital pilot has been extended into early 2027. Procurement of residential rehabilitation is on the forward plan for 1 October 2026. That decision has not yet been taken.

Public health's largest entries on the contract register are the Healthy Child Programme, £28.9 million in 2016 and £32 million in 2022. The 2022 and 2023 payments show £10.6 million paid to the NHS under "Childrens 0-19" and £16.7 million to Mersey Care NHS Trust. The autumn key-decision plan lists no public health decision. The cabinet-member note of 1 September 2026 records the council's figures: adult smoking from 9.1 per cent to 10.7 per cent between 2023 and 2024, healthy life expectancy down for a fourth reporting period, and a stop-smoking grant of £277,042 for 2026/27.

Section 123 requires the best consideration reasonably obtainable. The General Disposal Consent of 2003 allows a disposal below that value where the undervalue is under £2 million and the council can show an economic, social or environmental benefit. A disposal can meet that test and still fail the forward plan, the publication of the price, or the separation of the officer who writes the report from the member who signs it.

January 2020. Pleasureland, Southport seafront. Cabinet member, recorded as non-key. Fifty years with a further fifty. An NDA. The investment figures in the council's own papers were £5 million, then £9 million. Councillors who asked for the lease terms in April 2022 and January 2023 were told the NDA prevented disclosure.

June and July 2023. Viking Golf, on the same seafront. Cabinet member. The receipt was not published.

March 2022. Plot J, Southport Business Park. A Red Book valuation was obtained.

12 May 2025, in effect 21 May. Plots F, G and H, Southport Business Park. Nine hundred and ninety-nine years to EFT Group Ltd. No capital receipt. Cabinet member. A residual appraisal by Fitton Estates, not a Red Book valuation. Fitton Estates was paid £2,500 by the council in 2022 and 2023. The Leader attended the announcement.

July 2025. Former TTCables and Peoples site, Linacre Lane and Hawthorne Road, Bootle. Cabinet member. Sale to a preferred purchaser, conditional on planning consent. The price is not in the public paper.

December 2025. No. 2 Lodge, Victoria Park, Southport. Cabinet member. The receipt is not stated in the public decision. The member's register records her as a Friends of Victoria Park volunteer.

31 July 2026. Former Sands public house, Shore Road, Ainsdale. Cabinet member. A 250-year building lease to GSL Development Limited, company 14060882, with an option over 3.29 hectares. Not on the forward plan. Financial terms in a confidential appendix. The company is a micro-entity with two directors, one of whom was a director of a dissolved company that traded as Go Surf. The published reason is that the property is part of the first phase of the Ainsdale-on-Sea Eco-Vision and that the buildings are in considerable disrepair.

The decision was called in by Councillors Pugh, Thompson and Delves and heard by regeneration scrutiny on 20 August 2026. The call-in was ruled valid. Councillor Pugh's recorded points were that GSL had previously traded as Go Surf, that two earlier exclusivity schemes for the site had not been built, that evidence of GSL's financial capacity "was hard to find", and that on Ocean Plaza the council had asked the developer for a bank letter of comfort. The call-in members asked what would happen if the scheme stopped half-way and funding ceased, what the lease terms gave the council by way of control, and whether the cabinet member was confident the funding was in place or in prospect.

A motion that the committee was not concerned was moved by Councillor Conalty, who chairs the Audit and Governance Committee, and seconded by Councillor Cavanagh, who had ceased to be a director of Sefton Hospitality Operations eleven weeks earlier. It was carried by six votes to three. The decision stood. No declarations of interest were recorded at that meeting.

14 August 2026. Three properties in Waterloo. Cabinet member: Brunswick Parade on the Esplanade, 18 Great Georges Road, and 25 Crosby Road South. Called in. The special scrutiny meeting is on 24 September 2026, the day after this report. The agenda was published on 16 September. If the committee is not concerned, the cabinet member's decision takes effect. The result will be known after the meeting.

Still on the forward plan, not yet decided: the Southport Esplanade park-and-ride, part exempt, slipped from 3 September 2026 because negotiations continue; Sefton 2030 phase 1 disposals in Bootle West, Kew and Netherton North, the same slip and the same exemption; section 106 receipts at Southport Business Park; 486 Hawthorne Road, Bootle; landlord licensing on 5 November 2026, across Birkdale, Blundellsands, Bootle East, Bootle West, Cambridge, Dukes, Kew, Litherland and Waterloo.

Nine disposals in six years, most with no receipt stated in public. The same officer's directorate wrote the reports. The same cabinet member signed them. For most of that period the vice chair of the committee that reviews them was a director of a company inside the same portfolio.

On 25 June 2026 Cabinet authorised procurement of a new garden-waste treatment contract, with Star Procurement and the other Liverpool City Region waste councils, before the current contract ends on 31 December 2026. The 2019 award for the service being replaced was £5,777,800, shared with three other councils. Permission to start a procurement is not the award.

The waste authority levy, £26.9 million over 2022 and 2023, and the transport levy, £35.3 million, are the two largest flows out of the council after adult social care. Neither is a contract the council chooses. Both are set by bodies on which the council has seats.

Formby Pool Trust is on the plan for 1 October 2026. The plan says the council will be asked to revise the operating contract and to cut the management fee by half. No report has yet been published. Fleet renewal is listed for 5 November 2026, slipped, and marked part exempt. The Stronger Communities strategy is listed for 3 December 2026, slipped from November.

Sefton Hospitality Operations Ltd, 13451207, incorporated 11 June 2021. Sole shareholder: the council. Directors on 23 September 2026: Helen Lorna Duerden, from 25 June 2026; Paul Anthony Reilly, from incorporation; Stephen Thomas Watson, from 20 December 2023. Karen Cavanagh was a director from 19 June 2025 until 4 June 2026.

At 31 March 2025 the company owed the council £1,990,904 in shareholder loans, £424,459 more than a year earlier. Current liabilities of £1,510,551 stood against current assets of £437,404. The company's business case promised a £250,000 a year benefit to the council. The accounts show the money running the other way. It trades from The Lake House in Crosby, Cone Head at Southport Market and the Beach House at Ainsdale; The White House at the golf links opened in May 2023 and closed after fourteen months.

Watson directs the company and wrote its outturn report to scrutiny. Reilly has been a director for its whole life and is the finance officer listed on the High Needs deficit. Lappin is the shareholder representative. Cavanagh was a director while vice chair of the scrutiny committee that reviews the portfolio, and for fourteen days while chair of children's scrutiny. The company was paid up to £138,686 by waiver to advise on venues it competes at, with no declaration by its executive-director board member. It does not pay the BID levy that independent hospitality businesses at Southport Market pay.

Sandway Homes Limited, 11646502, formed in 2018, owned through a holding company. Business case approved by Cabinet in October 2017. The current director is Maria Porter, from 16 May 2025; that name is not treated as a relative of the chief executive. Diane Elizabeth Roscoe was a director from 23 January 2019 to 14 July 2021; the current children's cabinet member of that name is not treated as holding a current conflict. The shareholder representative in 2024/25 was the Cabinet Member for Housing and Highways, attending as an observer. Sandway does not appear as a payee in the 2022 and 2023 payments. Its outturn was written by the same executive director for the same scrutiny meeting.

Sefton New Directions Limited, the council's adult care company, is the third-largest recipient of payments, about £19 million over two years under four spellings of its name.

Both wholly owned company outturns are listed again for March 2027. That meeting has not been held.

Bootle carries the Strand, Salt and Tar, the former high school sold to One Vision, the TTCables site sold to a preferred purchaser at a price not stated, and three sites on the slipped Sefton 2030 list. Waterloo has three properties in front of a call-in and a Sovini site at Oxford Road. Seaforth has Rawson Road on the Sovini list. Netherton has Dale Acre and St Raymond's. Formby has Redgate, a Sovini phase-two site, and a pool whose fee the cabinet is asked to halve. Ainsdale has the Sands, a Sovini phase-two site and the Beach House. Crosby has The Lake House. Southport has the events centre at £106 million, the market, the pier, the park leased to 2114, the seafront under an NDA, the business park on a 999-year lease at nil receipt, and the visitor-economy post held since 2014.

The pattern is not a coastal one. It is a delegation. Cabinet, or one cabinet member. On the plan, or off it under Rule 27. A public report, or a confidential appendix. An officer still in the post when the meeting ends, and often on the board of the body the paper is about.

VisitSouthport is operated by the council directly, with no service level agreement, no editorial framework and no audit trail of which businesses are promoted. That is the council's own answer in SP-09 and SP-12 and its Stage 1 concession. SIBA's review of four seasonal pages found Mikhail venues on every page and no independent competitor. The council's published remedy is a review led by the officer who runs the platform.

Stand Up For Southport is the BID's paid media contractor, is paid by Mikhail, was paid by the council by direct award, and was for four months a director of the Flower Show. Its coverage of the BID, Mikhail venues, SHOL venues, Salt and Tar, Invest Sefton and the Flower Show did not disclose those relationships. The council's Southport 2026 business workshops were co-branded VisitSouthport and Invest Sefton and held at a Mikhail hotel.

This report did not search every other council publication for a written editorial policy. It does not claim that none exists elsewhere.

Of the thirteen executive decisions scored, nine handed the award, the signature or the delivery to an officer. Seven kept their financial terms in an exempt appendix.

Forward-plan items not yet decided, and therefore not scored: Foster4, residential rehabilitation, the Formby Pool fee, fleet renewal, the Esplanade park-and-ride, Sefton 2030 phase 1 disposals, landlord licensing, the Warm Homes grant top-up, the Matrix agency-staff award, and the Ainsdale equity loan.

The external auditor found significant weaknesses in Sefton's financial sustainability, its schools deficit, its budget monitoring and its use of procurement waivers. The council's own draft statement, written by the monitoring officer's office, names two of those as significant governance issues and calls the framework fit for purpose in the same document. A councillor told the chamber on 17 September 2026 that waivers are excessive and that members lack the information to give assurance. Five waiver reports have gone to the audit committee. The public has not been shown a single figure from any of them.

The money bears out the shape. £648.8 million left in payments of £500 and over in 2022 and 2023, 41 per cent of it to adult social care and a tenth to two levies the council does not set. £339.9 million of stated contract value sits in 339 awards, eight of which hold 61 per cent. Names that recur in the land and company chapters were paid without a notice on the register. The events centre has gone from £73 million to £106 million with its appendices exempt and its main contract delegated. The Strand has taken a £20 million grant and a further £17.935 million on a centre the council itself valued at less than half what it paid.

Land follows the same shape across the borough. Nine disposals in six years by one cabinet member, on reports from one directorate, most with no receipt in public, one urgency decision for ten sites, and a call-in that was valid, was heard, and was voted down by a motion from the chair of the audit committee, seconded by a councillor eleven weeks out of a council company boardroom.

The people repeat. The officer who designed the BID sits on its board, runs the platform that promotes its members, oversees the market whose bar its treasurer's employer holds, holds oversight of the events centre operator agreement, and signed thirteen of the first fifteen freedom of information answers about himself. His line manager is a trustee of the charity that holds a public park to 2114 and approved the waiver that paid the council's own hospitality company to advise on the market. Their executive director directs that company, wrote the Sovini report, was given the delegations on the Strand and the events centre, and was handed the complaint that named him. The finance officer on the company's board is listed to present the schools deficit. The cabinet member who signed the disposals is the company's shareholder representative, the vice chair of the policy consultee, and the council's representative to a one-director company run by the man who chairs the town's marketing body and sits on the Flower Show board beside her officer.

None of that is a finding that any officer or member took a bribe, or gained personally from a disposal. It is a finding that the posts which write the papers are unelected, that several of them outlast the chief executive, that the same names sit on both sides of the same decisions, and that the brakes the council describes in its own statement are not the brakes the decision papers, the payment records and the company registers show.

Checked 23 September 2026.

Sefton Council committee papers on the council's ModernGov system, as cited by meeting and date. Sefton Council published supplier payments, January 2022 to December 2023. Grant Thornton, Auditor's Annual Report 2024/25. Sefton Council draft Annual Governance Statement 2025/26. Sefton Council Freedom of Information Performance Data 2025/26. Companies House, checked 23 September 2026. Contracts Finder, buyer Sefton Council. Charity Commission, charity 1000698, accounts for 2023 and 2024. Register of interests of Councillor Paulette Lappin, published 11 September 2026. Freedom of information responses SP-01 to SP-18 and the council's complaint responses, published at siba.digital. Institrace document holdings for Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council.