Procedures will be reviewed after Poole council admitted it had no idea that a consultant it employed had a criminal record.

“It’s not a good day for us,” admitted Peter Pawlowski, strategic director for Borough of Poole, acknowledging that the whole affair had tarnished the council’s reputation.

“It is extremely unlikely we would have employed someone who had a relatively recent conviction of that nature,” he said.

But the council lets many service contracts and the level of checks is not as rigorous as with employees, he said.

“We don’t ask for the same level of disclosure as we do with employees. Criminal records checks are done on employees in sensitive posts, not across the board,” said Mr Pawlowski.

Adam Osman, whose Cambridge-based company Granta Associates was taken on for a six-month contract to find efficiencies, followed a personal recommendation from Poole’s head of finance, Liz Wilkinson.

But last week anonymous information sent to the council’s chief executive revealed that Osman, formerly Ozakpinar, had in 2007 been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail for corruption.

While head of procurement for the Crown Prosecution Service, he took £18,000 in bribes from friends to whom he gave work.

Mrs Wilkinson had worked with him under his previous name at the City of York Council – before his conviction.

“She knew nothing about his background other than the working relationship at work,” said Mr Pawlowski. “They had a good experience in that the work was delivered to a high quality.”

His name change aroused no suspicions because a plausible reason was given – to avoid misspelling and mispronunciation.

“A person changing their name from something even I found extremely difficult to pronounce is not unreasonable in business, in terms of the explanation given,” said Mr Pawlowski.

However, before the contract between Osman and the council was abruptly terminated on Tuesday, his work had highlighted potential savings of £300,000-£350,000 a year in three areas, he said.

The six-month contract was worth around £65,000 and Osman has been paid about £30,000.

“We won’t be paying him any more of the contracted sum,” said Mr Pawlowski.

David Howard, chairman of Parkstone Bay Association, said: “This just confirms my views that they are totally lacking in any business experience or acumen. They do not do any due diligence at all and this is our money. It’s appalling.”