No ‘corruption’ at Teesworks improvement – however inquiry finds ‘transparency and oversight’ points

An inquiry has discovered no proof of “corruption or illegality” on the Teesworks web site within the North East of England – however has raised issues over “transparency and oversight.

The improvement of the previous Redcar Steelworks started in 2015 and has seen the realm remodeled into a big industrial web site, with plans to show it right into a freeport to create a tax-free zone for transport.

Tees Valley Conservative mayor Lord Ben Houchen claimed it had raised £2bn of personal sector funding and created nearly 3,000 jobs.

But the federal government ordered an impartial inquiry into the positioning after claims non-public corporations – which now personal the 90% of the mission – had profited to the detriment of the taxpayer.

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Releasing its report on Monday, the inquiry mentioned it had discovered “no evidence to support allegations of corruption or illegality”.

However, its report added: “There are issues of governance and transparency that need to be addressed and a number of decisions taken by the bodies involved do not meet the standards expected when managing public funds.”

The web site has been pointed to as a “levelling up” success for the federal government, and made Lord Houchen a widely known determine inside the Tories.

But a report by the Financial Times claimed Teesworks Ltd – an organization arrange by the South Tees Development Corporation, which is chaired by the mayor, to run the mission – had handed over 90% of its shares to native enterprise individuals without spending a dime and with no tender course of, regardless of a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money being pumped into the mission.

Labour claimed there was “a worrying lack of effective safeguards to ensure value for money for taxpayers” all through the mission, and attacked Lord Houchen for the half he had performed.

And Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald made allegations within the Commons of “truly shocking, industrial-scale corruption”.

But the Tory mayor accused the social gathering of “smearing [an] incredible project” that has been “delivered by the Conservative Party in a traditional Labour heartland”.

While the inquiry rejected Mr McDonald’s allegations, they did conclude “the systems of governance and finance in place within TVCA [the Tees Valley Combined Authority] and STDC [the South Tees Development Corporation] at present do not include the expected sufficiency of transparency and oversight across the system to evidence value for money”.

Responding to the report, Lord Houchen mentioned it “sets out in black and white that there is no corruption or illegality at Teesworks”.

He added: “Without this partnership, the former steelworks would still be sat idle, costing the taxpayer £20m a year to stand still, with no investment and not a single job in sight.”

The mayor additionally mentioned he would “review the recommendations to improve our processes and procedures in line with the report’s findings”.

But Labour’s deputy chief Angela Rayner mentioned the report gave “a scathing assessment of Conservative mayor Ben Houchen’s mismanagement and bad governance at Teesworks”, and “many questions remain”.

She referred to as on the federal government to refer the mission to the National Audit Office (NAO).

A spokesperson for the NAO mentioned: “We will examine the detail of the government’s review to understand whether there are implications for central government and therefore the NAO’s future work programme.”