THE city council tried to persuade a consultant to alter his conclusion that it was "dysfunctional".

Hardmoor Associates was commissioned to assess the authority's inner workings at a cost of £30,000.

A draft report, produced by Hardmoor more than two years ago, found the council had "meddling" councillors who undermined the effectiveness of the organisation, and a "totally ineffective" senior management team.

The first line of the report stated: "Put simply, this council is dysfunctional."

However, the council never published the report and refused requests to release it under the Freedom of Information Act (FOI).

It was eventually leaked to the Evening Post.

New correspondence has now emerged relating to the draft report.

Emails between the council's former deputy chief executive, Adrienne Roberts, and the author of the report, Darryl Stephenson, suggests the council wanted to water down the findings because it feared they may enter the public domain.

Mr Stephenson sent Ms Roberts a copy of a presentation he was proposing to make on his findings in January 2007.

Ms Roberts replied: "Would you be prepared to remove the bit about 'dysfunctional'? These slides will be discoverable and that is strong language; I don't mind you saying it!"

But Mr Stephenson declined the request.

He wrote: "It is really difficult to [remove it] as it is the key message; it's not the people or their commitment or what you are trying to achieve, it's how the various parts just don't work together."

The emails were found following FOI requests and complaints to the Information Commissioner, by Liberal Democrat councillor Tony Sutton.

Coun Sutton said the correspondence revealed Ms Roberts believed the report could be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, something the council later refused to do.

Coun Sutton said: "It is clear they were concerned it would become public knowledge, which confirms my suspicion they desperately tried to hide it. Ms Roberts tried to influence the content because of that."

Subsequently, the council spent £5,000 on legal advice, which has not been released, in its attempts to prevent disclosure of the draft report and information relating to it.

A new set of consultants, Invigor8, have been taken on to consider similar issues to those raised by Hardmoor. In February, the council revealed it had, up to that point, spent £69,000 with the firm.

Invigor8 initially found "some previously identified issues remain to be fully resolved".

The council is in the bottom 20% of local authorities nationwide, but the Audit Commission recently concluded it was "improving well".

Council chief executive Jane Todd said: "[Hardmoor] is an old report and we have moved on since then – things are very different now. The nature of draft reports is that requests for alterations are made."

charles.walker@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk