A LOCAL authority that hopes to transfer all of its council houses to a housing association has agreed to appoint agents to assist with negotiations.

However, Teesdale District Council will not tender for the legal advisors and consultants, it will hire companies already involved in the housing transfer.

Council tenants are to be balloted on the transfer later this month and, if the ballot is successful, PCA Consultants and Pinsents legal advisors will be hired to guide the council through negotiations. It is expected PCA will be paid £50,000 and Pinsents £60,000.

The council's director of community services, Mark Ladyman, said the two companies were being hired as the council did not have the necessary expertise in-house to deal with the complex negotiations.

Although, it would be normal practice to tender for the work, he recommended standing orders were suspended as advertising and interviewing other companies would take up too much time.

He said: "Time is of the essence and both PCA and Pinsents have a degree of empathy with the council and know what we want and have kept the residents' best interests at heart."

The council was reprimanded by the Audit Commission for not carrying out the tender process fully during a refurbishment of Barnard Castle Tourist Information Centre.

In order to prevent this happening again, the council's deputy leader, Richard Betton, said the authority would need to give good reasons why it was employing PCA and Pinsents.

He said: "It does seem to be the sensible solution.

"But, given the problems we've had with procurement, it needs to be spelt out very clearly in the minutes the justification for hiring them."

The council's head of finance said both companies went through a tendering process when they were originally hired and were found to offer the best value.

The council has about 900 homes and hopes to transfer them to Teesdale Housing Association, a new housing association set up in partnership with Endeavour Housing Association.

The housing association would be able to access funds unavailable to the council to bring the homes up to National Homes Standard, which the council cannot afford to do.