PERKS including free sports tickets were passed between contractors and officials while residents battled helplessly against spiralling costs in the council homes repair scandal.
Edinburgh City Council's system of stepping in to iron out rows between neighbours over shared repairs in tenements in the city appeared on paper to be a success, but in turned into a financial fiasco for the council and ended in workers being sacked and a fraud squad probe.
There was a catalogue of complaints from residents claiming their costs rose excessively, they were billed for work that was never done, that unnecessary work was done and extra repairs were carried out without consultation.
While the police probe found nothing illegal, officers discovered a significant number of staff members from the now-disbanded property conservation department had accepted hospitality from contractors. This included tickets for football matches and rounds of golf.
Under the controversial Statutory Notice scheme repairs were identified as essential or emergency by council inspectors, who then hired contractors to carry out the work and billed owners.
The local authority charged owners 15 per cent of the total of every bill for administration.
This administration charge resulted in the service being seen as an income-generating operation for the council.
Among those caught up in the scandal was arts impresario, author and former director of museums in Glasgow Julian Spalding after a bill that was originally for a series of minor repairs grew to £30,000, and was then halved when challenged.
On some occasions during the process significant amounts were deducted from the contractors’ final account before billing owners and in one case this £439,000, or 40 per cent.
The auditors report found "the problems with Property Conservation have caused considerable distress to many".
The fraud probe stretched to another department - Property Care Services responsible for repair of council buildings - and two former council employees pleaded guilty after receiving kickbacks from an Edinburgh-based firm's staff in return for helping influence the awarding of construction contracts.
The council's internal auditors said there was also a review of the replacement service, Edinburgh Shared Repairs Service, a bolstered version of the previous service and said: "We were pleased to find that robust governance arrangements have been implemented for the new ESRS, and that the service has embedded the lessons learned from the operational failings of the former Property Conservation service.
"We have made two low priority and one advisory recommendations for improvement."
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