A 20-point action plan to prevent a recurrence of the massive losses incurred by the City Council's Contract Services Department goes before a council committee today.

But there is no attempt to apportion any blame for the fiasco in the Building Services Division of the CCS, which lost £6 million of ratepayers' money.

In his report Iain Roxburgh, the council's chief executive and town clerk writes:

"The situation leading to the investigation into trading deficits in the Building Services Division of CCS and, subsequently, to this Action Plan and ongoing audit activity, were unique and therefore, it is not considered that anything more can be gained by focussing on the events of September, 1997."

Mr Roxburgh added today:

"I believe we have moved on from blaming and finger pointing. We have moved forward and my concern is about breaking even this year with our Building Services Division."

When it was pointed out that the ratepayer would be picking up the tab for the £6 million losses, the chief officer responded:

"The tab will be smaller the sooner we turn this around. We are not turning our back on the past, we are learning the lessons of the past."

He said his action plan was aimed at "basically better management controls, personnel controls, pay reward schemes, bonus schemes and to check through the council to see if the reward systems are helping or hindering productivity."

Mr Roxburgh says his investigation brought to light a number of serious shortcomings, which his plan was intended to put right and in many cases the work was already underway.

He added that he had also identified wider measures, which might be applied throughout the council. But he added that while these features required the urgent attention of all the council's chief officers, it was not implied that the Building Services Division situation was paralleled elsewhere.

He said there was now an opportunity to issue some 'best practice' guidelines and for chief officers to test the practices in their departments and directorates against the guidelines and take steps to improve management where necessary.

The chief officers have been ordered to discuss the action plan with their senior management teams.