A decision over who will organise and run Midsomer Norton’s Christmas Fayre and Lights Switch-On was made behind closed doors on Monday, as questions grow over the Town Council’s tendering process.
Midsomer Norton Town Council excluded both the press and public while councillors decided who will organise and deliver the 2026 Christmas Lights Switch-On event.
The agenda for the Town Council meeting stated that the discussion contained “commercially sensitive information”, with councillors asked to select a preferred provider within a maximum budget of £6,000 excluding VAT.
Which organisations or companies tendered for the Christmas event is not known, nor has the outcome of the Town Council’s decision been made public.
The confidential treatment of the Christmas Fayre contract is in marked contrast to the way the Town Council dealt with its Christmas lights contract only a few months earlier.
At the Finance and Operations Committee on 15 June, the Christmas lights procurement was discussed during the public session of the meeting, with no exclusion of the press or public.
Four months later, the Town Council adopted a very different approach to the Christmas Fayre contract.
Why the two procurement exercises were treated differently is not known.
The agenda for Monday’s meeting stated that publicity would be prejudicial to the public interest because the discussion included “commercially sensitive information relating to proposals received for the delivery of the Council’s Christmas event.”
The decision to exclude the public was itself challenged during the meeting.
Cllr Gordon Mackay questioned why the matter needed to be discussed in private, but his challenge was defeated and the meeting continued with the press and public excluded.
While commercially sensitive details contained within individual bids may legitimately require confidential treatment, the contrast raises questions over why one Christmas procurement exercise could be discussed openly while another was taken entirely behind closed doors.
The decision on who will run the Christmas Event will not be made by the Community and Events Committee, despite that committee having been established to specifically oversee community events. Nor will the committee have any input into the arrangements.
Instead, authority to finalise the arrangements has been delegated to Town Clerk Tara Bailey.
There are also separate questions over whether both Christmas procurement exercises were properly advertised.
Under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015, local authorities are required to publish prescribed information about invitations to tender worth more than £5,000.
The Town Council has its own Current Tenders and Contracts webpage for publishing procurement information, and Town Council policy clearly states that invitations to tender and contracts will be published there.
However, neither the Christmas Fayre and Lights Switch-On tender, with a maximum budget of £6,000 excluding VAT, nor the earlier Christmas lights tender, worth more than £8,000, has appeared on the Town Council’s tendering page.
If the invitations to tenders were not published, the Town Council will have failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of the Local Government Transparency Code 2015.
As Town Clerk, Tara Bailey is legally responsible for ensuring that the Town Council conducts its business properly and follows its legal and administrative requirements.
Questions over financial transparency within the Town Council are not limited to Christmas.
In February, when the Town Council took the highly controversial decision to bring community events in-house, the main argument made in favour of the change was that events would benefit from Full Council accountability and oversight.
However, despite earlier reassurances from Cllr Cheryl Scott, Chair of the Finance and Operations Committee, the Town Council has still not published the final account for the Town’s Summer Fayre, more than three months after the event took place.
The decision over who should run the Christmas Fayre has now been taken away from public view.
Despite the Town Council having only taken the decision in February to run community events directly, last month Cllr Cheryl Scott acknowledged that the Town Council did not have the staff capacity to undertake the organisation of the Christmas event.
Residents are therefore left without answers to some very basic questions: Who will organise the Christmas Fayre? How much will they be paid? What role will the Town Council itself play? What activities will be provided? And will the event match the Christmas celebrations the town has become accustomed to in previous years?
