Barnet Council will not publish a draft report into a £2 million fraud case because doing so is “not in the public interest”.

In January this year, the council commissioned consultancy Grant Thornton to carry out a detailed review into why the alleged fraud – perpetrated by a member of staff on a contract with outsourcing firm Capita – was able to take place.

The report is currently in draft form “to allow Capita a period of time to review and comment on its accuracy”.

But the council said it would not be in the public interest to publish the report at this stage because it “contains financial and business information about Re and Capita”.

It continued: “This report and further reporting information from the Grant Thornton review will be finalised over the next few weeks and months and it is intended that these will be presented to audit committee and any other relevant council committee in the Autumn 2018.”

The comments come in a report to be discussed at a meeting of the council’s audit committee on Tuesday, July 17.

The former Capita contractor appeared at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, July 3, to face two separate charges of fraud by abuse of position.

They had been employed on the Regional Enterprise (Re) deal with the contractor, which covers services such as environmental health, regeneration and highways.

The council said it had recovered all of the money from Re and responded by tightening its financial controls.

Councillors will decide whether to bring a range of services outsourced to Capita back in-house at a special meeting of the policy and resources committee at 7.30pm on July 19, at Hendon Town Hall.

The council’s audit committee will meet at 7pm on July 17 at Hendon Town Hall.