BELFAST City Council won't say if staff will face any disciplinary action over a controversial decision to store pallets for loyalist bonfire builders.
It follows the completion of a report examining how the council agreed to store pallets.
The investigation, headed by former Northern Ireland Ombudsman Tom Frawley, found no minutes or written records exist of key meetings that led to the divisive move.
Belfast City Council (BCC) had been expected to only release a redacted version of the report, summarising sections and removing the names of staff.
But the full report was leaked to the media before councillors were set to consider the matter.
The probe was launched last year after the The Irish News revealed BCC was storing pallets, prompting anger from some councillors who said they were not consulted.
Around 2,500 pallets were held for east Belfast's Walkway area and around 300 for a pyre at Hope Street near a city centre hotel – and were due to be returned before the Eleventh Night.
According to the council's delegation policies on when staff can make decisions instead of councillors, chief officers are required to "maintain a record of delegations and any sub-delegations".
Asked yesterday if staff would face any action over the lack of record-keeping, BCC did not address the question but said proposals on publishing the report would be discussed at last night's full council meeting.
The report says BCC's director of city and neighbourhood services, former senior PSNI officer Nigel Grimshaw, had "directed that preparations and plans should be made with a view to removing the material" from the Walkway bonfire last May.
Mr Grimshaw told the probe he had asked for councillors to be "briefed urgently to ascertain their views before any action took place", according to details reported in the Belfast Telegraph.
The pallets storage proposal emerged at a meeting in east Belfast between two council officials and two community group members.
The council has no records of discussions at the meeting.
An email was then sent to 13 councillors in east Belfast inviting them to a bonfire steering group meeting and two Sinn Féin representatives were also invited.
However, only three attended – the UUP's Jim Rodgers, the DUP's Aileen Graham, and Alliance's David Armitage.
No minutes were taken.
The report says there is "some variation" in recollections of the meeting.
One council official said she briefed councillors present "on the suggestion that the bonfire material would be removed, stored and returned", and they had "sanctioned the proposed action".
Mr Armitage told the probe he recalled officials seeking support to remove pallets and return "just enough" for the bonfire.
Mr Rodgers said it had been unanimously agreed that officials reach an arrangement with bonfire builders for material to be removed, stored, and returned.
The following day, a council official emailed all 19 east Belfast councillors about the removal of the material, but no mention was made of storage or return.
In his report, Mr Frawley said officials "did what they did, motivated by the right reasons rooted in public service values but without political cover and in the absence of a robust governance framework".
SDLP councillor Tim Attwood and the UUP's Mr Rodgers both hit out at the unredacted report being leaked.
DUP councillor Lee Reynolds defended BCC over the pallets storage and said the "independent examination hasn't uncovered anything which contradicts that".
Sinn Féin councillor Deirdre Hargey meanwhile said the report gave the council "a good basis to work from in future".
Alliance councillor Emmet McDonough-Brown described the actions of some officials as "regrettable", but said he hoped they could move forward "in a constructive fashion."
