The failure of Birmingham City Council to follow the correct procedures when awarding a £254,000 contract to PricewaterhouseCoopers is by no means one of the most serious breaches of procurement rules, although it is embarrassing.

Senior council officials spent several months stonewalling a Freedom of Information Act question from a member of the public, even claiming that the contract had been awarded correctly. They imagined, probably, that Larry Brown, the person who asked the question, would tire and go away.

It was not until council chief executive Stephen Hughes became involved, to his credit admitting that mistakes had been made and launching a disciplinary inquiry, that Mr Brown received confirmation the PwC contract should have been put out to tender, but was not.

What lies behind this episode is of more interest than council officers rushing to let contracts and cutting corners as they did so. Details released by the council show that more than £400,000 of public money was given to PwC and another consultancy firm, Taylor Haig, in order to promote something grandly called the Total Place agenda.

This is an initiative devised by the previous Government and embraced by the coalition, although now known as Community Budgeting, which encourages all of the public bodies in a given area to save money and improve service delivery by working closely together and even sharing budgets.

Potential benefits from this are thought to be significant as far as establishing more joined-up working between social services and Birmingham’s health trusts are concerned