DEFIANT metro mayor Dan Norris is refusing to change how he communicates with top West of England Combined Authority (WECA) officers despite criticism from finance watchdogs.

Labour’s Dan Norris said he would continue to use the “red-box” system of communication, employed for centuries by government ministers to transport important documents from one department to another.

WECA’s external auditors Grant Thornton found three “significant weaknesses” in the organisation’s value-for-money arrangements and issued six key recommendations following a probe into the £10,000 unlawful Birthday Bus wrap.

Last December, the leaders of Bath and North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire councils agreed with the combined authority’s legal and finance chiefs at an emergency meeting that the mayor spent the public money to plaster a double-decker with photos of him and his dog for “political gain” against government rules.

North East Somerset and Hanham MP Mr Norris has denied any wrongdoing and was not allowed to give his side of the story to the official carrying out the initial inquiry into how the taxpayers’ cash was spent on the publicity stunt.

Grant Thornton’s report said the mayor’s office failed to communicate with senior officers at WECA who were therefore “not sufficiently informed to enable them to intervene” to ensure the bus wrap did not breach guidelines.

During a grilling by WECA’s overview and scrutiny committee on Monday, September 16, the West of England mayor said: “What I would say about the whole report is I don’t recognise a lot of things that are in it, to be honest, because I know what happened.

“No one asked me. Isn’t that interesting that I was never asked what happened?

“It seems to me that if you want to know what the truth is, you need to get the stories of everybody to get a complete picture.”

He said there had never been an issue with officers or members contacting him and he always made himself available.

A separate independent review by Solace – Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers – in June 2024 found the red-box system of communication between the mayor and senior officers was “not comprehensive or consistent enough” and that it was “not fit for purpose for modern regional government”.

But Mr Norris said: “I’m not going to remove the red-box system.

“It’s used by government ministers, it’s been built up and developed over hundreds of years and it works well for government ministers so it should work well for us.”