Birmingham council boss slammed in council contracts inquiry
Jan 14 2010 by Paul Dale, Birmingham Mail
A TOP Birmingham City Council official has been disciplined after the unit she runs handed contracts worth £22,448 to a company owned by her husband.
Raffaela Goodby, who is in charge of the city’s BEST staff motivation project, was the subject of a five-month investigation by council auditors.
The inquiry was triggered by the city’s chief legal officer after invoices for consultancy services and IT development were paid by the council to Birmingham-based Nutrient Ltd, where Mrs Goodby is the company secretary and her husband Jack Goodby is a director and sole shareholder.
No one else was invited to bid for the work because council rules state that only individual contracts worth more than £10,000 must be subject to competitive tendering involving at least three firms.
The result of the inquiry is being kept under wraps by the council, which would only say today that Mrs Goodby had been subjected to a formal disciplinary process.
However, the Mail has learnt that the payments were approved after Mrs Goodby had taken the precaution of informing staff and her line manager of her husband’s ownership of Nutrient and making it clear that someone else would have to authorise payment.
Acting director of policy Jason Lowther was subsequently put in charge of investigating allegations levelled against Mrs Goodby by a council whistleblower.
Mrs Goodby, although the cost centre manager for BEST, did not personally approve any of the payments to her husband’s company, the audit inquiry found.
A council spokeswoman said: “As soon as we received a complaint about Raffaela Goodby, an internal audit investigation was carried out and she has since been disciplined. In addition, a formal conflict of interest register has now been introduced in the division where Raffaela works and she has been given training in detailed procurement procedures.”
Earlier this year Mrs Goodby joined council chief executive Stephen Hughes and cabinet human resources member Alan Rudge to pick up an award for the People and Workforce Achievement of the Year from the Municipal Journal.
