Corruption expert worried by ‘red flags’ in Teesworks report

Among Prof Barrington’s criticisms of last month’s report was that despite setting out to find it, there is no definition of the term “corruption”.

“This means we do not really know what it was looking at, making it much harder to evaluate whether it did a good job,” he said.

“I’ve never heard of a corruption ‘review’. Usually it would be an investigation or an inquiry.

“It was incredibly thorough on governance but it was not possible under this design to succeed in finding corruption.”

He is also critical of the Government’s terms of reference (ToR) for including the line “The department has seen no evidence of corruption, wrongdoing, or illegality.”

“It’s highly unusual to commission a review and to say in the ToRs you don’t see the evidence,” Prof Barrington said. “It’s challenging people to defy you.”

The question of resourcing is also one of concern for Prof Barrington, as he compared the “1,400 documents” seen by the Tees Valley Review with the millions usually gone through as part of investigations by the Serious Fraud Office.

“WhatsApp is at the forefront of the Covid inquiry, that’s how you find hidden stuff, but it’s only mentioned once in this review when an individual giving evidence proactively offered to share a message to back up a statement.”

Prof Barrington insists he is not critical of the panel who authored the report, who he said are “experts in other areas” besides corruption. “It wouldn’t be a problem if they hadn’t been asked to look specifically into corruption.”

However, he directed criticism to the Government for its response to the report, specifically for a ministerial statement which said: “It has been proven comprehensively through an independent review that there was no corruption and there was no illegality.”

A Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “The panel invited anyone with evidence to present that, and having reviewed and investigated over a number of months, found no evidence of corruption.”

Prof Barrington also questioned the UK’s ability to detect corruption, saying it is “naive” about the issue “in its own backyard”. In a blog post on the report, he wrote: “The British tendency to assume corruption happens overseas but not at home, with the red flags that the report reveals, there can be no doubt that this project would not qualify for British overseas development aid.

“For all its other merits, this is not a report about corruption, and certainly not an investigation into corruption, and so it is not a coincidence that no evidence of corruption was found.”

The Teesworks Report’s authors were asked to comment on Prof Barrington’s critique.