£13m bill for council rogue

Here was an apparently highly-successful and eminent individual, internationally-recognised in his field, who was fiddling the books to such a degree that his actions left taxpayers in South Yorkshire with a massive 13m bill – although the real cost of his real crimes is unlikely ever to be established.

But today's revelation by the Yorkshire Post that council officials in Sheffield had been warned of problems in his department years before they came to light, will further add to the justifiable anger of council tax payers who will now have to pay for the deficit.

An official investigation into what went wrong will be published shortly, but it should spell out just who knew what and when and why no action was taken at the outset.

It appears Mr Buckley was an accomplished liar who successfully covered his tracks for years – his crimes were not uncovered until his sudden death – but there must be serious questions about his accountability and the lack of detailed scrutiny of his department by managers and auditors, particularly since the fees that he was charging customers were below the market rate.

Not only did his actions leave a big hole in budgets, but they also badly hit businesses as their trade providing weights and measures services was poached by the unit, as well as damaging the UK's worldwide reputation in the field.

Lessons from this scandal must be learned not just by council leaders in South Yorkshire but across the country.

Taxpayers have in recent years paid for unjustifiable profligacy in our country's public services and will no doubt have to fork out even more in coming years to pay for the crisis in public finances.

There is no excuse for waste or inefficiency in any of our public authorities, but it is simply a matter of basic good business practice that stringent procedures must be in place to prevent fraud. In short, the abuses witnessed in South Yorkshire must never be repeated.