Havant Council Just Told the Public It Spent 16.6 Million Pounds Unlawfully. Nobody Is Accused of Taking a Penny of It.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. A review at Havant Borough Council found that from 2019/20 to 2026/27 the council paid for homeless people's temporary accommodation with no procurement or contractual framework in place, covering roughly 16.6 million pounds of spending, 13.6 million pounds of it in the last four years alone [1] [2]. The council's own monitoring officer and section 151 finance officer have filed the statutory reports required when a local authority's executive incurs unlawful expenditure, under section 5A of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 and section 114A of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 [1] [6]. The review found no dishonesty or misconduct, and the council says the accommodation itself was appropriate in quality, allocation and cost [1]. Cabinet accepted a remedial action plan on 23 September 2026 [2].
A council does not usually announce that it broke the law. It is required to. Section 114A of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 obliges a council's chief finance officer to make a formal report the moment they believe the executive has incurred, or is about to incur, unlawful expenditure [6]. Havant Borough Council's own spokesperson cited that section by name, alongside the monitoring officer's equivalent duty under section 5A of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, when explaining why a statutory report on seven years of housing spending had to go to Cabinet at all [1]. Both officers were independently obliged to say so once the gap was found. Neither could stay quiet about it.
What the review found
The problem surfaced by accident. Havant brought its procurement function back in-house in April 2025, having previously outsourced it, and in December 2025 began working through the historic expenditure data [1]. What officers found, in the council's own words, was that "during the period 2019/2020 - 2026/2027, the provision of temporary accommodation by HBC took place without appropriate procurement or contractual frameworks in place" [1]. Council records identified payments totalling approximately 16.6 million pounds across that period, with 13.6 million pounds of it spent in the most recent four years and a single-year peak of approximately 3.8 million pounds in 2024/25 [1]. The trend line is not a legacy problem the council has since fixed; on these figures, the spending was accelerating right up to the point it was caught.
Procurement rules exist so that a council can show it tested the market, documented its reasoning and got fair value for public money. Havant's own report concluded that "it is likely that best value has not been achieved and that some savings could have been realised" as a result of not following that procedure [1]. That is a narrower claim than an accusation that money went missing: it means the council cannot point to the paperwork that would prove it got the best price available.
What the council is and is not claiming
The distinction Havant is drawing is specific, and worth stating precisely rather than compressing into a single word. A council spokesperson said that "while the provision of temporary housing during this period was appropriate, in terms of allocation, quality and cost, the lack of documented oversight and governance requires a statutory report" [1]. The review did not identify any dishonesty or misconduct by council staff [1] [3]. What triggered the unlawful-expenditure finding was procedural, not a judgement that homeless families were badly housed or that money went astray: the council had a statutory duty to house them, appears to have done so adequately, and simply cannot produce the contracts and competitive process the law requires it to have run while doing it [1].
Council leader Gillian Harris put the same point in her own words to Cabinet on 23 September: "The reality though, is that we need to be able to evidence that we've done this properly and that we've also worked to use our resources efficiently and to achieve the best value accommodation. The lack of a clear procurement framework for the period during which this service was outsourced means that we can't provide that evidence" [2]. The council sought independent legal advice, including from a King's Counsel, before bringing the matter to Cabinet, and says that advice identified no further steps required beyond the remedial plan it adopted [4].
The opposition's question: who was watching
Not every councillor accepts that officer training closes the matter. Councillor Terry Norton, who represents the Stakes ward, said the council's account "raises serious questions about governance, procurement processes, oversight and how the Council reached its current position", and pressed for answers on "what happened, over what period, who was responsible for the relevant decisions and what political oversight was in place" [1]. After the remedial plan was published, he went further: "A lack of proper procurement is a significant governance failure. In this case, one that took place over a number of years, involving substantial public expenditure, and residents are entitled to ask how it was allowed to continue for so long without being identified" [4]. His point is one about elected oversight rather than officer conduct: a council report is one thing, but seven years of unchecked spending on this scale is also a question of what councillors themselves were being told, and whether they asked.
Deputy Leader Netty Shepherd defended the council's response as proportionate, pointing to the external King's Counsel scrutiny and to a new commitment that the Governance Committee will now receive regular progress reports on the remedial plan [4]. That committee oversight is the practical answer to Norton's question about future accountability, even if it does not resolve his question about the past seven years.
What Cabinet actually decided
Cabinet met on 23 September 2026, received the officers' report, and accepted the remedial action plan they had prepared with external legal advice [2]. The plan centres on an enhanced programme of staff training and a reinforced procurement function, building on the fact that the service is now run in-house rather than outsourced [2] [3]. The full report and the Cabinet's papers are on the council's committee management system, though that system blocks automated access and could not be retrieved directly for this article; the council's own account of the meeting, quoted throughout here, is consistent across its press release and both rounds of local newspaper coverage [5] [2].
No compensation, clawback or disciplinary process has been announced. The council's position is that the money was spent on a service it was legally required to provide, to people who needed it, and that the fault lies in the paper trail behind that spending rather than in the accommodation itself. Whether that satisfies the Governance Committee it has now promised to report to on a regular basis is the next thing to watch.
Sources
- The News (Portsmouth), "Havant Borough Council spent £16.6million 'unlawfully' on emergency accommodation for homeless people", 16 September 2026. https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/havant-borough-council-emergency-accommodation-procurement-review-9066320
- Havant Borough Council, "Council tightens governance around temporary accommodation procurement", 24 September 2026. https://www.havant.gov.uk/news/2026/council-tightens-governance-around-temporary-accommodation-procurement
- LocalGov.co.uk, "Council tightens governance after temporary accommodation procurement gap found", 24 September 2026. https://www.localgov.co.uk/Council-tightens-governance-after-temporary-accommodation-procurement-gap-found/64993
- The News (Portsmouth), "Havant Borough Council will introduce more staff training after it admits £16.6m was spent 'unlawfully'", 25 September 2026. https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/council/havant-borough-council-emergency-accommodation-procurement-review-9179409
- Havant Borough Council, Cabinet meeting documents, 23 September 2026 (reachable but blocks automated retrieval; linked from source 2). https://havant.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=128&MId=13434
- legislation.gov.uk, Local Government Finance Act 1988, section 114A. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/41/section/114A