Pole dancing | Now an internal audit found it: Kerava's cane trade was illegal

Keravan BDO, which inspected the purchases, came to the same conclusion as the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority in February: the pole vault should have been put out to tender.

Splitting the procurement decision into two was against the Procurement Act, but also against the city's own internal procurement guidelines.

Public the management expert company BDO recommends the city of Kerava to develop internal control.

The city is recommended to tender the procurement of exercise poles and wellness services as a single entity and to draw up procedures that provide sufficient assurance that all city procurements comply with the law on public procurement.

In addition, Kerava is advised to follow the city's internal instructions in procurement processes, and that a procurement decision is made for all procurements exceeding 9,000 euros in accordance with the city's small procurement guidelines.

The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority estimated in February that Kerava's branch manager Tiina Larsson had acted in violation of the Procurement Act in its procurement decisions related to pole dancing.

The East Uusimaa police have started on the acquisition of a preliminary investigation.

Vice chairman Iiro Silvander (ps) is satisfied with the government's unanimity. Silvander chaired the meeting of the city council Markku Pyykkölän (cook) while away.

“We unanimously approved 20 improvement measures, some of which are really tough. Now they must be put into practice, and this implementation must be monitored. The city cannot live in this kind of turbulence all the time.”

Silvander puts the fact that the services are basically tendered to the top of the list of measures. Another key improvement measure is to secure the resources of the city's own procurement unit and its own legal services.

Keravan in accounting, a bigger purchase than a walking stick has been the employment legal advice ordered from the law firm Roschier in the fall of 2022 in Kerava's urban engineering industry.

The investigation related to the work environment and occupational health and safety notices did not turn into a possible criminal suspicion until around 2023. Based on the Procurement Act, legal services related to a possible criminal case do not need to be tendered.

In ordinary legal advice, the tendering threshold is 300,000 euros in the Procurement Act.

The city of Kerava paid Roschier a total of almost 400,000 euros from the investigation lasting just under a year.

BDO recommends the city to consider tendering legal services, even if the separate assignments do not exceed the procurement limit of the Procurement Act.

Kerava is particularly criticized for the fact that it had purchased legal services from Roschier without a written procurement contract or mandate letter and that the service was never tendered.

According to Kerava's own procurement manual, the procurement must be made into a written procurement contract, which defines the object of the assignment, the terms of the procurement and the responsibilities of the various actors. According to BDO, the procurement of legal services has been in accordance with the law, but it has not been in accordance with the city's procurement manual in all respects.

The report related to urban technology is under preliminary investigation by the police, but the prosecutor's office limited the preliminary investigation in February so that the police no longer investigate the data protection crime. The preliminary investigation investigates a possible breach of official duty.

Roschier, who works internationally, has been in the news as a potential investigator of harassment reports made about the head of the Canadian Embassy of Finland. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs canceled the purchase as too expensive.

The Parliament's ombudsman had time to take the Roschier procurement into his consideration, because in principle occupational health and safety matters should be done as official work.

Already earlier, Kerava city council communicated that based on BDO's report and the decision of the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, actions will be taken to ensure the transparency and quality of decision-making.

For this, politicians should have at their disposal sufficient and up-to-date information for decision-making and control.

One of the critical aspects of the pole vaulting purchases is that branch manager Tiina Larsson did not inform the board of education about her intentions to make a purchase of 108,000 euros. The board met only a day before the procurement decision.

The board was also not informed of the procurement decision at the next meeting, and therefore did not have the opportunity to exercise the right of withdrawal or change the official decision.

It sucks has also been raised by the fact that the decision to hire Tiina Larsson, who resigned from the position of branch director, for the new position of information management director, has not been brought to the city council. To HS's request for information, Kerava Lakipalvelut replied that it is a private law employment relationship, not an administrative decision. Therefore, the request for information could not be answered.

According to Silvander of the city council, the city manager Rontu decided on a new employment relationship in Kerava on his own initiative. The employment relationship was signed by Ronnu while on vacation vs. the city manager, the city chamberlain Teppo Verronen.

Local newspaper according to Keski-Uusimaa A five-year employment contract has been signed with Larsson.

The decision on Larsson's new employment surprised the politicians. The solution model has been criticized by, among others, representatives of the Social Democrats, Basic Finns and the Greens In an interview with HS.