Council officers were putting off making decisions amid a major review of Southampton City Council's governance - using this as an "excuse," it has been said.

Governance was one of the main issues raised in a report on Southampton City Council by a Local Government Association group who scrutinised the local authority.

The team, which was made up of senior politicians and officers from other councils, recommended an urgent drive to make improvements in governance and decision making.

Their report, which was presented to the city council’s cabinet on Tuesday said this was needed to “solidify the future stability and growth of the organisation”.

The recommendation said a “fast-paced plan that shows clear accountability” should be produced.

Deputy leader Cllr Simon Letts has been heading up a review of the council’s governance arrangements.

He asked the lead peers if they had anything further to raise around this issue, and whether the issues related to matters that happened away from public meetings, such as internal office processes.

Discussing the governance review, lead officer peer Ian Davis, chief executive at Lambeth Council, said: “There was a fair amount of feedback from the organisation that that process had been taking quite a long time and it had been ongoing for quite a period and it felt like it just needed to bottom that out.

“Certainly, my experience of governance documents is they are refreshed, renewed, re-looked at almost on an annual basis and you are taking small amendments to it, almost at the annual council every year.

“This didn’t feel like that. It felt sort of like a major review but it felt like it had taken quite a long time.

“I think the consequences of that were that elements of the organisation felt like it could use it as an excuse not to make decisions it needed to make.”

Mr Davis said he found pushing decision-making down to the lowest level possible, while keeping governance in place, was the best way to speed up the process.

Lead member peer Cllr Muhammed Butt, leader of Brent Council, added: “I think there was also some concern about some of the reports that were provided to some of the cabinet members.

“Did they have the relevant level of detail, the information around the finance?

“Also, whether or not some of the cabinet members had enough time to input into the reports themselves.

“The issue about the governance was raised as well. That links into scrutiny and audit.

“Whether they were being given the time and space to look at the things that needed to be looked at and whether or not all the items that each scrutiny committee, as such, needed to scrutinise were being brought forward.”

Southampton City Council’s action plan in response to the corporate peer challenge report said since the team’s visit in January the governance and constitution transformation project had been reshaped.

The action plan said this reflected the feedback received from the peer challenge and “the need to streamline internal governance processes as well as constitutional elements”.