WEST Sussex County Council is a very big authority covering a very big area.

Its borders reach Brighton and Hove.

It’s responsibilities are large but knowledge about it is probably little among the general public.

For decades it has been a one-party fiefdom. It gets on with its business without a lot of scrutiny from outside.

Certainly journalists, usually focused on bigger towns and cities do not often beat a path to county hall.

One wonders whether these factors had any part to play in the unforgivable sloppiness and perhaps even worse that has resulted in a botched outsourcing programme revealed in The Argus today.

In all the council cannot really say whether millions of pounds spent on services was value for money or indeed if there is overspend. Has the sum of it been lost down the local authority equivalent of the back of the sofa?

There appear to have been no strict controls on what money was flowing into the coffers of private companies. Outsourcing is a fact of life for the public sector and many times private companies do bring a rigour and new creativity to delivering services.

But sharp-minded officers and councillors in public authorities are needed to ensure taxpayers’ money is not wasted. That leadership was desperately lacking in this case.

Coming a week after a weak response to the Orchid View care home scandal in which 19 elderly people died, this has not been a good few days for the authority.

Council leader Louise Goldsmith needs to do more to assure her local taxpayers that she has a firm handle on things.

She could start by ceasing to hide behind press officer statements and answering questions herself.