Causeway land investigation: Jim Allister calls for auditor's exclusion

A senior Audit Office staff member should be excluded from investigating land disposals by a council because of "appalling" handling of a previous complaint, an assembly member has said.

Jim Allister said Colette Kane should not take part in an investigation into Causeway Coast and Glens Council.

He criticised Ms Kane's response to a complaint he lodged in 2017.

The head of the Audit Office said he was content with the team conducting the investigation.

Kieran Donnelly said the audit would be "rigorous and robust" and its work would be reviewed by another UK audit institution.

Collette Kane is leading the audit of the council's land disposals

Ms Kane, who is the local government auditor, is leading an extraordinary audit of the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council's land disposals.

The audit was ordered by the communities minister in November 2020 after it emerged the council granted the right of way - or easement - on the Ballyreagh Road in Portstewart to a hotel developer for £1 in 2016.

The developer needed the land for a new entrance into its proposed £20m four-star development.

It has since emerged that council staff went ahead with the deal without a formal valuation.

Mr Allister, the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader, who has a holiday home nearby and is an objector to the proposed development, discovered the transaction in June 2017 and asked the Audit Office to investigate.

Ms Kane, who was responsible for auditing Causeway Coast and Glens Council at the time, replied the following month saying that she was satisfied the council had taken "professional advice" on the disposal before seeking the approval of councillors.

She specifically referred to a report from the Strategic Investment Board (SIB).

The council had sent the SIB report to the Audit Office, along with minutes of a meeting of elected members, but did not make it clear that the report had never been shown to councillors.

Jim Allistar said Ms Kane's involvement in the audit lowers his expectation of a "thorough investigation"

In 2019, a High Court judge - when ruling on Mr Allister's legal challenge of the hotel's planning approval - described the SIB report as an "irregular, internal valuation" and "a quite unsatisfactory document".

Mr Allister told BBC News NI that Ms Kane should have come to a similar conclusion about the SIB report.

"Ms Kane returned to me with a 'nothing to see here' message, that she had talked to the council, had been assured that all was in order, there'd been professional advice taken about the valuation, and really nothing here.

"I think it was quite an appalling piece of investigation which really did not get to the heart of the matter at all."

Mr Allister said Ms Kane's involvement in the extraordinary audit lowered his expectation of a thorough investigation.

He added: "I think the Audit Office - if that's all they can offer, Ms Kane to conduct it - they should have farmed it out independently, thereby it would have had the prospect of commanding public confidence and acceptance."

'Content with the arrangements'

The head of the Audit Office, Kieran Donnelly said: "I am content with the arrangements and the team allocated to undertake this extraordinary audit.

"A rigorous and robust independent audit process is in place."

He added that the extraordinary audit was being conducted in accordance with international standards on auditing.

Padraig McShane has criticised the council's conduct in relation to land disposals

Causeway Coast and Glens Borough councillor Padraig McShane, who has criticised the council's conduct in relation to land disposals, said whether or not councillors had seen the SIB report, there should still have been a professional valuation of the land.

He added: "Whenever the council produced the SIB report to Colette Kane, it was an attempt at misdirection, but Colette Kane should have been wise to that misdirection.

'Untenable'

"I would have expected her to thank council for the information, write back and say: 'Can I have the professional valuation now?' Obviously that professional valuation didn't exist and thereafter she should have started an investigation.

"Colette Kane's position within the audit is untenable given her involvement," he added.

The council subsequently requested a retrospective professional valuation of the right of way immediately after it was contacted by the audit office and more than a year after it had already been granted to the hotel developer.

It backed up the council's £1 valuation but during Mr Allister's legal challenge there was disagreement over what the right of way was worth, with one valuer who acted for Mr Allister placing it at £800,000.

The Department for Communities, which appointed Ms Kane to the post of local government auditor, said: "The department, as set out in Article 22 of the Local Government (NI) Order 2005 directed the local government auditor to hold an extraordinary audit of Causeway Coast and Glens Council, focusing specifically on land and related asset issues.

"The department cannot comment further as this audit is still ongoing."

The council said it was unable to make any comment

A spokesperson for Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council said: "As an extraordinary audit is ongoing....we are unable to make any comment on the matters raised."

They added that the council was co-operating fully with the audit process, which is expected to conclude by mid-late summer.

In 2019, Mr Allister's application for a judicial review of planning permission for the hotel was ultimately successful and the permission quashed.

The court proceedings included a dramatic intervention by Mr McShane.

He submitted evidence of secret recordings he made when speaking with senior council staff.

Excerpts of the recordings, including comments relating to the £1 easement, were broadcast for the first time last month by BBC Spotlight.

Last year, the BBC revealed that following a complaint by Mr Allister, an independent investigation company upheld 15 out of 18 allegations about the council chief executive David Jackson's conduct in relation to events around the hotel planning application.

Last month, BBC Spotlight exclusively revealed that all 14 of Mr Allister's allegations against council solicitor David Hunter were upheld.