Council scammed out of thousands for shipping container that never arrived
A WELSH council lost more than £3,000 to fraud in the 2024-25 financial year after a shipping container they ordered never arrived.
Bridgend County Borough Council bosses heard about the purchase at a governance and audit committee meeting where they discussed the submission of an audit inquiries letter to Audit Wales.
The letter is intended to help Audit Wales’ understanding of the governance arrangements for the council to support their work in providing an audit opinion on the yearly financial statement.
However a part of the report given to councillors noted a case of “actual,
suspected, or alleged fraud” where a shipping container had been ordered with 50% of the cost being paid up-front but which never arrived.
The letter which was submitted to Audit Wales said: “The council ordered a shipping container which did not arrive and paid 50% up-front (£3,658).
“This has been identified as a fraud and a request for the final 50% payment was rejected.
“Financial regulations require that payments in advance should not be
made without s151 officer approval.”
Addressing the chamber councillor Martin Hughes of Maesteg East asked how the purchase was made and if it would be possible for the council to recoup any of the losses.
Officers responded by saying there had been attempts to make contact with the company to recover the money though they were “not sure” if it was possible.
They also added that while this seemed to be a one-off incident they would look into it further to see if there had been a breach in procedure to make sure it didn’t happen again.
Councillor Steven Easterbrook of Bridgend Central described the situation as embarrassing for the authority and said they needed to be “a lot more careful” in the way they were doing things.
While it was unclear exactly why the shipping container had been purchased some members pointed out that three other containers had recently been set up in Porthcawl for start-up businesses to use.
Following the report the committee approved the letter of response to Audit Wales though asked that further investigations take place on the incident with the missing shipping container.
By Lewis Smith, Local Democracy Reporter
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