Audit criticism: TUV leader Jim Allister lays blame for lack of civil service 'value for money' at feet of Sinn Fein

The TUV leader, who was one of the MLAs sitting on Stormont's audit committee until the Assembly became moribund, was reacting to the NI Audit Office's 46-page verdict on the state of public procurement of goods and services.

Among the accounting agency's findings were that there is a "lack of an overarching strategy to coordinate procurement activity" in the civil service, "as well as a lack of staff with the appropriate capacity".

The result is that it is not "capable of demonstrating that public procurement achieves value for money".

This is of vital importance, since roughly one quarter (£3bn) of all civil service spending goes on procurement.

The Procurement Board is responsible for ensuring that activity is carried out effectively and delivers value for money.

It includes "expert advisors from the public sector, industry/voluntary sectors". It is chaired by the finance minister.

In December 2020, Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy - the then-finance minister - announced a major shake-up, telling MLAs "I have completely changed the make-up of the Procurement Board" by bringing in fresh faces.

He said: "Previously, almost 20 people attended the Procurement Board. This was too large a group and I have reduced the membership by half. This will allow the group to meet more regularly and to drive forward reform."

Reacting to the audit report, Mr Allister said: "Let's remember minister Murphy, with great to-do, set up a procurement board which was going to sort out procurement and do all sorts of wonderful things."So if they report's now saying they are still failing, that is a failure of Murphy's…

"It was supposed to be addressing what seems to be still-persisting problems.

"All this is public money which should be getting the best value for the taxpayer. And if procurement is still not up to the standard it should be that means the loser in that is the taxpayer.

"If he set it up in such a way that it's incapable of delivering and giving the oversight that's required then the failure lies at his door.

"He told us all sorts of great things he was going to do with this procurement board and all these issues were going to be resolved, and here we have a report saying they can't cope."

The Department of Finance was asked to comment, but no response had been received at time of writing.