A 'climate of fear' at Hounslow Council's housing arm allowed corruption costing taxpayers at least £58,000 to go unchecked.

That's the verdict of a report into alleged wrongdoing at Hounslow Homes, which claims senior figures at the organisation used publicly-funded labour and materials to carry out extensive work at their private properties.

The findings of an independent investigation from December last year were finally published this week by the council after criminal proceedings against former employees of the organisation were dropped due to a lack of evidence.

The heavily redacted report also states that someone had arranged for email accounts to be wiped before they could be seen and that it had not been possible to examine the mobile phone accounts of those under investigation.

The report, which does not give any names, states how senior employees:

* arranged for operatives to undertake extensive private work, paid for by Hounslow Homes, at their homes and other private properties

* 'misappropriated' materials from Hounslow Homes that were used for private work

* accepted free tickets to international rugby matches at Twickenham without declaring them as gifts

* hired family and friends, bypassing employment policy

Their alleged misdeeds, dating back as far as 2005, were eventually exposed by a whistle-blower in June 2013.

But the newly-published report claims they would have come to light much sooner had staff not been too scared to speak out.

"This failure (to report the alleged wrongdoing) was attributed by some of the people that the investigation interviewed to be due to a climate of fear that went beyond just bullying behaviour... and would make life very uncomfortable financially for operatives or would simply terminate any agency operatives who were not compliant with (blank) wishes," the report states.

Two employees were sacked and one resigned following the independent investigation, which was commissioned by the council and Hounslow Homes.

The report's findings were passed to police and four people were arrested in August this year, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) dropped the case in October due to a lack of evidence.

The alleged corruption was previously believed to have cost the public purse hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The report estimates the value of private work carried out alone to be £58,000 and says the value of materials stolen over a long period of time is believed to have been 'substantial'.

It also refers to a combined profit of £289,000 being made on two properties at which work had been carried out.

Councillors voted in October to close Hounslow Homes and take back control of housing services from the arms length organistation.

They are due to discuss the allegations of corruption next Thursday (December 11) evening at a meeting of the audit committee.

Council leader Steve Curran said: "When Hounslow Homes services return to council control in the New Year, robust, effective management measures will be in place to prevent this from happening again.

"In the meantime Hounslow Homes has tightened up its internal procedures to combat fraud. We will not tolerate corruption in this council."