Apologies for going off topic mods; but...
The council signed an agreement with British Telecom years ago, a joint partnership called Liverpool Direct Limited would be setup. For a set fee (started at £25m year and increased by £5m each year iirc) LCC would pay this to LDL and they would manage all HR, ICT, call centre, one sto shops etc etc. The caveat was the council departments had to procure goods through LDL
So, your PC broke and a replacement one was required. You go to LDL, only they charged an extortionate amount for it (around 100% markup); the idea was that the profit made by LDL (which is why prices were marked up so high) would be paid back to the council at the end of the finical year.
This is where politicians trying to be businessmen failed; little did they realise that there were clauses in the contract (between LDL & LCC) which stated that the profit to paid back by LDL would be determined by them and only after all bonuses were paid. Miraculously, every year, the bonuses LDL paid to the directors matched the profit that was to be paid back to LCC. So nothing went back to the council. They had barristers trying to get out of the contract and it was water tight.
The then assistant chief exec of the council, who bizarrely was also chief exec of LDL at the same time, was David Mcelhinney. How this was allowed I’ll never know.
Further agreements were signed off by officers that extended the contract, ok’d by certain politicians without seeking Cabinet approval. Those officer received golden handshakes (£500k in one instance), and then went into Lancashire county council to setup exactly the same operation (there names are in the public domain)
The entire thing stunk, and finally it looks like justice is being served