Medway Council has paid more than £15 million to its trading arm in the past four years, but is unable to say if it would have got a better deal by keeping services in-house.

Medway Commercial Group (MCG) was set up by the local authority in 2015.

Since then it has been awarded contracts for CCTV, telecare, recruitment of temporary workers and governor services, receiving a total of £15,646,994.

It was not possible, said the council, to provide a like-for-like comparison for how much that work would have cost if it had remained in-house.

MCG’s relationship with the council is governed by something called the Teckal exemption.

Teckal means the council can easily give work to MCG.

But in return 80% of MCG’s work must be for the authority and it must abide by the same EU procurement laws as the council.

If, for example, maintaining the Towns’ CCTV network required MCG to employ a sub contractor at a cost of more than £172,000, European law would require it to tender for that work.

But in responding to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request from the Messenger, MCG was unable to say if this had happened as it did “not have a list of all sub-contractors for each customer... the value of each contract... and the procurement procedure undertaken”.

It said compiling a list would have taken more than 18 hours, costing too much money.

The Messenger has gone back to MCG with a re-worded request.

MCG was approached for comment.

Responding to a separate Messenger FoI, Medway Council said it had never been made aware of its arrangement with MCG not being in line with the law or in line with EU regulations.

MCG refused to answer the same question as legal advice does not have to be disclosed under FoI rules.

Medway Council was also approached for comment.

In recent week’s an internal audit has been ordered into MCG’s finances following questions over the running of the CCTV network.

A senior member of staff has been suspended while that inquiry is conducted.

It emerged last week the council has taken over the running of a £25 million project to build a special school in Cornwallis Avenue, Gillingham. MCG was previously in charge.

Labour leader Cllr Vince Maple has said: “It is time to stop the failed experiment that is MCG.”