The authority’s ruling Executive had voted in April to award the new contract to JC Decaux, which holds the present contract, without going through a tendering process.
But council officials admitted at a fiery Executive meeting last week that they had made a mistake in assuming the value of the contract fell below the threshold at which a tendering process became necessary.
Instead, JC Decaux has been granted a 12-month extension to its existing contract, which is about to expire – and the council is now to go out to tender on the full 15-year contract.
Executive member for finance Cllr Katie Lomas told the meeting: “Mistakes do happen: it is a thing that happens. We should never ever be afraid to say a mistake was made.”
But in bad-tempered exchanges at the meeting, the council’s Liberal Democrat opposition leader Nigel Ayre said the authority’s original decision had led to ‘huge reputational damage’ and ‘brought the council into disrepute’.
“The public would find it hard to understand the Executive blindly waiving procurement rules to award a £5m contract with no evidence why,” he said.
He said it was a mistake that had taken him just 13 minutes to identify: “13 minutes of simple maths presented to procurement that should have been done way before the paper came to Executive.”
And in a jibe at Cllr Lomas, he added: “It was simple questions the Executive member for finance should have been asking.
“She quipped last month how frustrating it must be for opposition members to not receive papers. Well it’s a good job we do so somebody is doing the necessary work.”
At one point, Cllr Ayre was accused of flashing council papers containing confidential information in front of the cameras recording the meeting.
The footage has been blurred out in the official council webcam of the meeting, which can be viewed on YouTube.
Cllr Lomas told the meeting: “The advice given by officers was given absolutely in good faith. We took that in good faith and made a decision in good faith.
“As soon as officers realised that one of the premises on which they had based that advice was incorrect, they came to us, and they worked with us very hard to rectify the situation.
“And that’s why this report has come this evening so that we can make it right before any harm is done.”
