Members of the authority’s audit committee have called for increased oversight on West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) financial management of large capital projects and contract procurements .

Concerns were raised at the outset of a meeting held Monday, June 1 due to repeated overspends on major capital projects. This followed an earlier audit on the county’s new mortuary, which overspent by £1.25m against its £9.4m budget upon opening in April. WNC has also seen rising costs for the Market Square regeneration and has cancelled multiple NPH affordable housing projects due to escalating costs.

Recommendations from the mortuary audit included developing documented methods for setting, approving, and reviewing contingency levels, introducing clear procedures to monitor and give visibility to the use of funds for unforeseen project costs, and creating an overarching project management procedure.

Despite these recommendations, members expressed concerns about possible systematic failings in project management, with Cllr Adrian Little (Reform UK, Towcester) seeking assurances the council would implement lessons learned. Cllr Vincent Clive (Reform UK, Duston) questioned why the recommended procedures were not already in place and called for a further audit on a current capital programme to demonstrate improvements.

The Audit and Governance meeting was held at the One Angel Square offices on Monday, June 1. Credit: Nadia Lincoln LDRS

placeholder image — The Audit and Governance meeting was held at the One Angel Square offices on Monday, June 1. Credit: Nadia Lincoln LDRS

Audra Statham, corporate director of strategic projects and acting chief audit executive, stated there had been no findings of systemic failure, and urged the committee to await further analysis before drawing conclusions.

Cllr Cecile Irving-Swift (Conservative, Rural North East) suggested inviting the officer responsible for the capital project to a future meeting for an update on implemented actions, before deciding on further audits. The committee agreed and also suggested referring the issue of capital overspends to the triangulation committee for additional scrutiny.

Later in the meeting, members raised concerns over the council’s use of waivers in contract approvals. In 2025/26, nearly £14m in contracts were awarded via waivers, bypassing competitive tender processes. Since November 2025, a new platform has provided improved audit trails for waiver requests.

A total of 219 waivers were approved in 2025/26, with a reported reduction in the latter half of the year. Councillors requested more information on departmental waiver use and reasons behind unavoidable waivers. An update report will return to the audit committee in six months.