Police probe dodgy data claims at Lanarkshire firm handed £1.8bn council contract

Police have been asked to look into dodgy figures at a Lanarkshire repairs firm which has just been handed millions in public cash.

Mears LLP - owned by Mears and North Lanarkshire Council - is at the centre of a complaint to officers over concerns they were manipulating data for work at the council.

But despite the issues, councillors approved a new contract for Coatbridge-based Mears at a secretive meeting on Thursday night worth £1.8bn - the largest of its kind in Scotland, the Sunday Mail reports.

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The controversy over Mears led to chaotic scenes with some councillors from Progressive Change North Lanarkshire (PCNL) who spoke out and were branded "conspiracy theorists" in an angry speech by Labour council leader Jim Logue before they were thrown out of the chamber.

The Sunday Mail yesterday revealed details of a report, hidden from the public, warning councillors they had no choice but to hand Mears the contract despite the firm having already been found to have amended its performance figures for potentially years while working on other contracts with the local authority.

The report states that if councillors didn't give Mears the contract the local authority had no other means of doing repairs to its tenants' homes.

It says there is "insufficient" resources in the council to manage contractors to do their own repairs across social housing and council buildings and if the contract isn’t given to Mears the firm could sue "given that they have met all the conditions for a successful award".

It adds that there would be a risk for future elections as "the council does not have the available human resource or expertise to operate the setting up of polling places, delivery of ballot boxes and management of inbound ballot boxes to the count centre."

The scandal of Mears unravelled when a whistleblower reported their concerns to Audit Scotland last year alleging the company had been manually changing its completion dates on repairs jobs to make it look as if they were finishing repairs faster than they actually were.

A probe by the council then confirmed the claims were accurate and the practice may have been going on for years.

Councillors from Progressive Change North Lanarkshire have been challenging the Mears deal for months and said it is unacceptable that the council has been forced to award this contract.

PCNL Deputy Leader Paul DiMascio said the situation was a "damning indictment of the catastrophic failure of this council to have protected council interests better."

He said: "We have no contingency plan for if the contract was awarded to anyone other than Mears; we don't own the management system which allows repairs to be scheduled, we don't have resources to deliver repairs on time.

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"Councillors seem to be fine with this despite accepting the fact that important statutory data has been openly manipulated by Mears." Police Scotland has been asked to investigate Mears' dodgy data claims after a report was made two weeks ago.

It is not known whether council staff or councillors were aware of the police report when they voted to award the deal last week. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "Reports have been received and the information is being assessed."

A North Lanarkshire Council spokesman said: "The council agreed unanimously at a meeting this week to award the contract for housing and corporate property repairs to Mears Limited.

"This ensures that 37,000 council houses will receive routine and emergency repairs and that the corporate property estate will be maintained appropriately while achieving best value for tenants and residents.

"This followed a six-year procurement process which was approved at all stages by councillors, including by members of PCNL, until an unsuccessful amendment was proposed at the award stage in August last year." Mears declined to comment.

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