Exclusive: Sheffield forced to publish report on £14m trading standards fraud

South Yorkshire Trading Standards Unit (SYTSU) was operated by the county’s four district councils and a scandal broke following the sudden death of its manager Mike Buckley in late 2005 when an examination of its finances revealed a massive and long-running fraud.

That led to the prosecution of three businessmen who had traded with Buckley and the launch of an investigation by civil servant Neil Newton, with Sheffield Council stating the findings in his report would be published after the crown court case had ended.

The timescale has repeatedly slipped, with a series of estimated dates for the release of the material by Sheffield Council missed.

A request for release of the report through Freedom of Information legislation was made and rejected by Sheffield Council, but their decision was taken to the Information Commissioner and the ruling was that it must be released within 35 days.

Sheffield Council has confirmed it will not be contesting the Information Commissioner’s ruling and is expecting to release the material within days.

SYTSU was operated by all four councils, though Sheffield was paid to provide management and financial services, and the local authorities are still in negotiations about how the cost should be split.

Sheffield Council issued invoices for the proportion of the outstanding debts to its neighbouring authorities soon after the losses were revealed, but a spokesman confirmed the situation was “still under discussion”.

The situation is complex because although Sheffield Council was paid to manage and audit the TSU, it was also overseen by a committee of councillors made up from all four district councils.

A Sheffield City Council spokesman said: “We have received the ICO’s ruling which we have shared with the other three local authorities. We will not be appealing against this and have always maintained the report will be released publicly at an appropriate time. This has always been our commitment throughout. Whilst we are disappointed that the ICO disagrees with us about the timing of disclosure, we will now be finalising matters ready for release and will announce further details shortly.”

Details from a draft version of the Newton Report were obtained by the Yorkshire Post and published more than a year ago.

The scandal was a major embarrassment for the councils because the trading standards unit had been regarded as a great success.

Buckley was meant to run the unit to provide services the councils legally have to provide, like calibrating drinks optics for pubs, but also extended into offering other scientific services in competition with private businesses and the unit appeared to be making modest profits. He was regarded as a leader in his field and was highly respected among fellow scientists, but business competitors were unable to understand how he was able to offer such competitive prices and complaints were made about his commercial practices.

He managed to deceive managers and auditors at Sheffield Council, who were responsible for overseeing his activities, over several years but when the scale of his actions were discovered South Yorkshire Police, and then the Serious Fraud Office, were called in to investigate, resulting in the criminal case.

One of those affected by Buckley’s behaviour at the TSU said: “It’s a long time since this happened, now, and people have been trying to move on with their lives. But it will be interesting to see what the final report says. It is hard to understand why it should take so long to make it public.”