The Christchurch City Council has long since missed an Ombudsman's deadline to release details of a tendering process designed to purge the organisation of cronyism.

The new procurement policy, introduced to council by Cr Glenn Livingstone in July 2011, was intended to change the council's controversial contracting practices under chief executive Tony Marryatt.

At an earlier council meeting in 2011, Cr Tim Carter said he was worried about the council's awarding of untendered contracts and wanted to see an end to "jobs for the boys".

The policy was finally adopted by council last September.

A month earlier, The Press requested under the Official Information Act internal documents showing how council staff had created the procurement policy. However, the council's legal unit refused to release them, saying it was withholding them "to maintain the effective control of public affairs through the free and frank expression of opinions by or between officers and councillors".

The Press then complained to the Office of the Ombudsman.

Deputy Ombudsman Leo Donnelly wrote to The Press on May 2 this year, saying he had asked Marryatt to provide "the relevant information at issue", as well as a report on the council's decision not to release it.

Under the act, the council had 20 working days to comply. But more than two months later, it has yet to reply to the Ombudsman's Office.

Livingstone said yesterday he was still none the wiser about how the policy was developed behind the scenes and why it took so long.

"It came out of the [post-February 22, 2011, earthquake] contracts round.

"The intention was for the policy to be transparent itself, so the process around that also needs to reflect that. In fact, if they don't release those documents, it further underlines the need for the policy, based on the very fundamental values of what I was trying to bring to council - transparency, accountability, value for money.

"Those are the auditor-general's guidelines; it's what councils are meant to do. We are dealing with public money and it must be accounted for publicly."