West Bromwich arts centre The Public condemned by auditors
It also pointed out how councillors worried about the project the year before it opened in 2008, issued a report outlining a “flawed” and unclear business case, insufficient operational and financial expertise, weak risk and project management.
But the report added that the council had acted “reasonably” in its dealing over the project, which it only this year took sole responsibility for.
“The authority has had to act in conjunction with the other funding bodies Arts Council of England and Advantage West Midlands in this matter and has had to rely on information provided by others,” it said.
“There are a number of important lessons to be learned from this project and with the benefit of hindsight the authority may have taken a different course of action.
“However, given the information and evidence of the key stages of the 15 years of this project, we re-iterate our view that the authority has acted reasonably.”
The report, due to be discussed at a council meeting on Tuesday was described as “unsurprising” by local authority leader Bill Thomas, who promised to stand by the building that had cost taxpayers nearly £21million.
“I’m not surprised by the report, because it is looking at the situation historically and we’ve not always had the involvement we do now,” he said.
“Obviously any arts building doesn’t come without cost, but from our point of view, it is improving with interest in it increasing month by month.
“The real worry for us has been the claw back possibility - we’ve not wanted to even to consider that.
“We’ll take the advice and try to move forward with it - there’s no other option than to stick with it.”
