THE decision to give a controversial council grant to a law firm was less prudent than ‘handing £300,000 to a complete stranger’, a town hall committee heard.

Cllr Martyn Cox told Bolton Council’s audit committee meeting yesterday that due diligence had not been done before the grant was awarded to the former Asons Solicitors last year.

Last week, it was revealed that an independent audit carried out by KPMG found the decision was ‘legal and appropriate’, although the council was criticised for failings in its emergency powers procedure.

However, Cllr Cox said the grant could not be considered appropriate given the town hall’s prior knowledge of the law firm.

He said: “I can’t see how this decision was appropriate. Handing £300,000 to a complete stranger would almost look prudent compared to this. I don’t understand how you can say that this decision, albeit legal, was appropriate.”

He added: “It was in the public domain that this company was in dispute with the Inland Revenue and was in some financial difficulties. We know from experience with this company in the past that it had set up various companies that had gone into liquidation, leaving a whole train of creditors behind.

“We know from the owner’s Twitter feed that he was buying a new Lamborghini every year. That may seem like a silly point, but it takes a special kind of person to do that when you have that train of creditors behind you.

“Any conversation with anyone in the community would have revealed that this company had a poor reputation.”

KPMG’s Rashpal Khangura replied that the auditors’ view on the ‘appropriateness’ of the grant was linked to wider conclusions about the council’s procedure, rather than the specific due diligence carried out in the Asons case.

He added that this was the first time ever that the auditors had issued an ‘except for’ value for money conclusion in their audit, which criticises one specific part of the local authority’s procedures, for Bolton Council.

Committee chair, Cllr David Greenhalgh, said he had hoped the KPMG report would ‘draw a line’ under the Asons scandal but had been left disappointed by the lack of detail in the audit, specifically as it does not provide a timeline of events leading to the grant being awarded.

Mr Khangura said the timeline issue was something for council officers to deal with, but confirmed he had seen evidence of the grant money leaving the council accounts and then returning after the law firm ceased trading in March.

The auditor added that, because the council had already improved its emergency powers procedures, there was ‘no rationale’ to take further action, such as issuing a separate public interest report.