Christmas benefit to be studied

Consultant hired by PKC

Perth and Kinross Council has hired a consultant to assess the economic benefit of this year’s Christmas lights switch-on event and St Andrews Day Festival.

The contract, which is worth an estimated £6,887, was awarded to a company called Bellerby Economics, which is based in East Renfrewshire. According to the contract award notice it was the only company to bid for the work.

Bellerby Economics, whose director is a man named Dr Graham Senior, was also responsible for the desk-based economic impact assessment of last year’s Winter Festival, which concluded that event generated additional revenue of around £1.6m.

The company ended up being paid a total of £10,312 for its review of the 2015 Winter Festival, according to a list of invoices obtained by the Perthshire Advertiser under the Freedom of Information Act.

On Bellerby Economics’ website it states that Dr Graham Senior has held “senior positions at national and international consultancy practices” and “had 11 successful years as director of EKOS Limited”, a consultancy practice based in Glasgow.

Except Companies House has no record of Dr Senior ever being a director of EKOS Limited, and a spokeswoman for that company told the PA this week that Dr Senior was only ever an “associate director”.

When the PA asked Dr Senior over the phone why he had not made this distinction on his company’s website, he replied: “I don’t think I’m prepared to talk to you anymore”. He then hung up.

The PA has since discovered Bellerby Economics is not registered as a limited company with Companies House, meaning it does not have to publish its

We are satisfied the contact was awarded appropriately

accounts.

Asked in light of this information if it was certain the company had been vetted properly before it was awarded the contract a PKC spokeswoman said: “Responses to the invitation to quote were considered against our requirements for an economic impact assessment of these events.

“We are satisfied the contract was awarded appropriately.”