Directors for Doncaster Council airport operator yet to be finalised despite conflict of interest concerns

Governance arrangements for the City of Doncaster Council’s arms-length airport operator are “yet to be finalised”, amid conflict of interest concerns raised by external auditors.

Two of the council’s most senior staff members, chief executive Damian Allen and executive director of corporate resources Debbie Hogg, are set to sit on the board of directors for FlyDoncaster Ltd (FDL), the company established by the local authority to run Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA).

This arrangement was cause for concern for the council’s external auditors, Grant Thornton, who warned in a November 2025 report that “this raises questions around the management of potential conflicts of interest”.

The auditors wrote that public sector guidance suggests the chief executive should be “overseeing and scrutinising company performance from a council perspective”, rather than from the side of FDL.

Issues were also raised with the management hierarchies within the council, particularly that the Section 151 officer, Faye Tyas, and the monitoring officer, Scott Fawcus, who are currently planned to be overseeing the DSA project from the council side, both report directly to Ms Hogg.

The report said: “The arrangements as set out expose the council to a risk or both real and perceived conflicts of interest.

“This is a key issue and would be a significant cause for concern for us, as the council’s auditor, if not addressed in a timely manner.”

Doncaster Council is currently working to reopen DSA with a public funding package worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

In a meeting of the council’s Audit Committee on May 21, 2026, Ms Hogg suggested that legal advice the authority had commissioned after Grant Thornton’s concerns were raised had been returned.

During that discussion, it was suggested by Ms Hogg that she would remain as a director on the FDL board, with Ms Tyas overseeing it from the council’s side – seemingly no change to the initial arrangement which prompted Grant Thornton’s concerns.

However, a spokesperson for the council said: “FlyDoncaster is not yet trading, as such the constitutional requirements and governance arrangements are yet to be finalised. This will be resolved in the coming months as works progress to fully reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport.”

The council did not respond directly to questions about what position Mr Allen would hold in the arrangements, as it was not mentioned during the Audit Committee meeting.

Additionally, Grant Thornton recommended to the council in November 2025 that the governance arrangements be prepared “in advance of FDL becoming active, to enable effective scrutiny”.

At the time, Georgia Jones, from Grant Thornton, told the Audit Committee: “It’s a big project for the council and there will be risk around that project, whether that’s financial or reputational.

“Often what you need when you have a company linked to the council, you need that separation of governance between the two and the separation of key officers.

“Even if you try to stay objective, if you’re an officer of the council does the council’s interests prevail, or if you’re also sitting on the board of the company, does the company interest prevail?”

She warned that, in some cases, authorities undertaking significant projects are too slow to cut their losses when things do not work out.

She said in November: “Sometimes with these big projects, a lot of money goes into it and then if it does start to go wrong at what point do you draw a line and say ‘right, we’re pulling out’.

“The temptation always is ‘we’ve put all this money in, we can’t let it go, we need to put more in’, so you need that idea of where do you draw the line. Where is your off-ramp?”

Council papers have previously expressed that careful consideration had concluded that Mr Allen and Ms Hogg should maintain “tight control” and “be as close to the decision making as possible”, which is why they are listed as FDL directors.

The project to reopen Doncaster Sheffield Airport still awaits the renegotiation of the lease between the council and The Peel Group, the site landowners.

The South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (SYMCA) have stipulated that £160million worth of funding for the reopening will not be released to the council until a new lease agreement is reached.

It is understood those negotiations were put on hold during the period of uncertainty when a £57m loan, also supporting the reopening, was up for rescission. However, when the loan was re-approved on May 11, 2026, negotiations resumed soon after.