TEMPERS have flared at an extraordinary West Offices meeting this week, as councillors discussed the way six figure sums of money were paid without proper contracts, quotes, or monitoring.

Two members walked out, others rejected a legal executive's advice that they should keep the meeting behind closed doors, one dubbed it "Kafkaesque", and an external auditor said the situation "could not be any worse".

As The Press reported last week, a confidential audit report showed serious concerns over the way a former council director, Stewart Halliday, had commissioned communications consultation Stuart Goulden to carry out more than £170,000 worth of work for the council.

According to the report, there was a series of policy breaches, but auditors have made clear there is no evidence of fraud or criminality.

On Wednesday night a redacted version of that report came before an audit committee and councillors, senior managers, auditors and members of the public were embroiled in three and a half hours of angry debate.

Council legal chief Andy Docherty urged them to shut the public and press out of the meeting, but that was voted down twice by councillors saying the public interest in council finances outweighed any concerns. That row even led to former council leader Chris Steward insisting "officers advise, members decide" and asking why the managers would take the "unprecedented" step of telling councillors to explain their decision.

With information and names already in the public domain through Freedom of Information requests the report only keeps secret "incompetence", he added.

However, committee chairman Neil Barnes walked out refusing to take part in what he said was becoming a "kangaroo court", and he was followed by his Labour colleague James Flinders who said debating the report openly was not in the public interest, or in the best interest of council tax payers.

Despite warnings that putting more information into the public domain could harm the people involved and open the council up to legal risks, the meeting went ahead in public, but no names were mentioned throughout the debate.

The meeting, which unusually had a security guard present throughout, saw other councillors and members of the public tell the committee of their own serious concerns.

Cllr Paul Doughty said that with finances under severe pressure, it was abhorrent to discover six figure sums had been spent on "nebulous" projects without proper records. "The very public revelations of procurement issues which began during the tenure of the previous administration have left many wondering what on earth has been going on at West Offices, who has been responsible for decisions about residents hard earned money and who, if anybody, is or has been held accountable when things might have gone wrong," he added, and went on to call for an independent investigation Meanwhile, Cllr Mark Warters urged the committee not to ignore the £24 million of spending not properly tracked in the civil engineering and building maintenance department.

Later, chief executive Mary Weastell confirmed police had been called to look into the original payments, but stressed they found no evidence of fraud, and said the both police and the information commissioner had been called over the leaked confidential report.

Both internal and external auditors then spoke to the committee, with Max Thomas of the internal body Veritau stressing there was no criticism of the consultant involved, but saying it was crucial the council "strengthened its position".

When the external auditors Mazars presented their own report, partner Gareth Davies called the situation a "catalogue of serious errors" and said: "I am not sure it could be any worse".

They went to talk about an action plan for strengthening rules and making sure staff always follow them, with the financial manager stressing the majority of improvements have already been carried out.

However, the councillors did ask to hear more about specific investigations that are still going on, and they asked for the way procurement breaches are monitored to be further tightened up.