Havant Borough Council (HBC) is implementing an enhanced programme of staff training and governance after officers identified an historic gap in its temporary accommodation procurement processes.
At last night’s Cabinet meeting (23 September 2026), members received a report from officers that outlined the findings of a review of expenditure data on the procurement of temporary accommodation.
The review began in December 2025 when HBC brought its previously outsourced procurement function back in-house. When council staff reviewed housing data, they found 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. The review did not identify any dishonesty or misconduct by council staff.
Upon discovering this issue, the council sought independent, external legal advice to examine the review’s findings and work with the council to put in place a remedial action plan to ensure the future provision of temporary accommodation is fully compliant with statutory requirements.
Leader of Havant Borough Council, Councillor Gillian Harris MBE, said: “As a council, we have a statutory duty to provide emergency accommodation for homeless people in our borough, often at short notice and in difficult circumstances.
“I believe we’ve sought to do this to the best of our ability and to meet the needs of vulnerable, homeless people, all within a very challenging budgetary environment.
“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, and we need to ensure that we put that right.
“As a Cabinet, we accept the review and acknowledge that significant improvement must happen to ensure we have a compliant procurement system going forward so residents can be confident that value for money is being achieved, expenditure is fully documented and monitored, and our processes are transparent and fair.”
The Cabinet received the report and accepted the remedial action plan prepared by officers. The documents can be found here: Agenda for Cabinet on Wednesday, 23rd September, 2026, 5.30 pm | Havant Borough Council.