LUCRATIVE contracts worth more than £13 million have been handed out by Inverclyde Council in one six-month period.

Details of the taxpayer-funded awards, issued between April and September this year, have emerged in a report to councillors.

The total of £13,436,508 was awarded over 29 public contracts, an average of more than £460,000 per contract, with only six going to Inverclyde firms.

The biggest single award was an 11-year £2.9m deal to BT for telephone services.

This was followed by a three year contract for waste disposal, treatment and recycling, worth £2m, which was awarded to Northern Ireland firm Regen Waste in August.

Third highest was a three year £1.1m Microsoft licensing contract with Reading-based Ultima Business Solutions.

The eye watering details emerged in a report by the director of environment and regeneration, Stuart Jamieson.

He said: "The council has adopted a process to ensure that all contract awards, direct awards, negotiated contracts and modifications are reported on a six monthly basis to committee."

The report also states that works contracts of more than £250,000, and all services contracts with a value over £50,000, must be reported, as must the name of firms or organisations who have been blacklisted. 

The fourth highest contract value awarded by the local authority between April 1 and September 30, and the highest to an Inverclyde organisation, was a £927,000 deal with the Muirshiel Resource Centre, in Port Glasgow, to provide day care services to older people for more than three years.

Watford-based Action for Children's Services were given £918,000 to deliver a counselling programme for school kids over three years.

The lowest-value award was a £56,000 seven-month deal to Before and After School Kilmacolm (BASK) to provide after-school care for children in both Kilmacolm and Port Glasgow.

Councillors were also told in the report that there were no risks, financial, legal or otherwise, from any of the contract awards.

No-one had been blacklisted in the April to September period.

The six contracts awarded locally were worth just over £2million, with four being given to firms or organisations from Greenock.

Contracts were, however, also awarded to firms in Edinburgh, Belfast, Bristol and London.

Fourteen contracts, worth £3.9 million, were 'direct awards', without going to tender.

Ten others, worth a total of £4.9 million, were put out to competitive tender, with only one Inverclyde firm among the bidders for any of the 10 deals.

The remaining four contracts, including the one with BT, were awarded through a framework agreement.

The report is due to be discussed by members of the council's environment and regeneration committee on Thursday.