THE city council has defended a decision to give a senior councillor’s company a school transport contract without putting it out to tender.

Brighton and Hove City Council gave Community Transport a £160 per day contract to take children from St Margaret’s Primary School to Longhill High School.

This was while St Margaret's temporarily closed for site works.

General manager of Community Transport, Tom Druitt, is a senior councillor on the ruling Green administration. His link with the company, and his managing director position on The Big Lemon CIC Bus Company is reported in his register of interests.

A council spokesman said it was “extremely rare” for transport contracts not to be tendered but it does happen in "temporary emergency situations”.

The spokesman said: “We had to make emergency arrangements at very short notice for children.

“This has been very successful. No children have lost any time at school, and St Margaret’s has told us how much they appreciate what we have done.

“The council has to be able to respond quickly to exceptional circumstances and emergencies – particularly when it is clearly in the best interests of vulnerable children and young people and our key worker parents.

“We are ensuring social distancing on transport to keep children and staff as safe as possible. Community Transport, which runs the Big Lemon, is the only organisation on our list of approved transport providers that was able to offer a vehicle big enough for the job.

“Our legal team is very clear that we have acted in accordance with the council’s rules on contracts and within the law.

“It is extremely rare for transport not to be tendered and only happens in temporary emergency situations. The circumstances that arose here are unlikely to be repeated.

“It is well known that the manager of Community Transport is a senior councillor. This is reported on his register of interests.

“But our decision to use his company was based purely on the fact that Community Transport was the only transport provider who had a big enough vehicle.”

Conservative opposition councillor Mary Mears raised concerns about the importance of transparency considering the sensitive topic of school transport contracts in the city.

In 2019, dozens of children with special needs were left stranded after the school transport service descended into chaos amid a plan to “streamline” the service.

Multiple taxi companies pulled out of contracts organised by Edge Public Solutions, a firm which was awarded a £499,000 contract to cut costs.

The fallout eventually led to a £1 million overspend on a £3 million-a-year budget.

Conservative councillor Mary Mears said: “Following on from this debacle and the issues that were raised, and considering another report is set to come out, it’s really important that everything is done openly and transparently.

“This is so the council wouldn’t have to defend itself in the paper, because it would be put out to tender and published to make the process clear.”

The council negotiated a discounted price of £160 per day initially for the three weeks up to half-term. Due to delays in site works this was extended until March 3.

Speaking on behalf of Big Lemon, Cllr Druitt said: “We have worked with the council since 2012 as a contractor and we have been asked to do various things to help out where we can.

“In this situation, we were asked to help out at the last minute to solve an urgent need to get the kids back to school, so we did. I had a call in the afternoon and we took the kids to school the following morning.

“I’ve been driving it every morning and it’s been really nice, the council responded to an urgent need from the school and we’ve responded to help.”

The Big Lemon boss added that all the children and staff have been “a delight”.