A COMPREHENSIVE review of Lancashire County Council’s One Connect Limited partnership with BT will be undertaken after a deal over commmunity alarms was abandoned over spiralling costs.

The authority’s new Labour leaders vetoed the alarms proposal after discovering OCL intended to charge a 20 per cent mark up - costing council taxpayers’ £1.4 million.

The contract for Tunstall Healthcare to take over telecare for the old and vulnerable was approved by former Lancashire Tory leader Geoff Driver, three days before the May county elections put Labour in control.

A report to new leader Jenny Mein and deputy David Borrow revealed Tunstall did not sign the contract after prices were marked up by 20 per cent by OCL and an up-front investment of £2.8 million was required.

After vetoing the deal, Coun Mein requested officers ‘to raise the findings of the review with BT and OCL as a matter of urgency’.

Coun Borrow said: “It was a major shock that something supposed to make savings was going to cost an extra £1.4 million.

“There is no other word for it, we were being ripped off.

“There is a comprehensive report on our arrangement with OCL and BT being prepared for the end of the year.”

Coun Driver said: “The telecare report is incomplete and biased. It was written to come to sensational conclusions.”

The report said: “Tunstall have written to the county council expressing their concerns. It is estimated that the proposal from OCL would have cost the county council £1.4m more than the tender prices submitted by Tunstall.

“The majority of the amount of £1.4m represents OCL increasing the prices tendered by Tunstall by adding mark ups.”

It identified mark-ups by OCL of 20 per cent in four areas adding: “A one-off investment of £2.8m was required from the county council to establish a telecare monitoring service without there being any evidence that savings could be achieved.”

Tunstall managing director Simon Arnold said: “Whilst recent events involving One Connect Limited and Lancashire County Council have been surprising, our aim throughout has been to ensure service users receive the support and care they deserve.”

BT referred our inquries to OCL where no-one was available for comment.