A TAXPAYER-OWNED school books supplier sold for £6.74 million offered best value for the public, county council chiefs say.

West Mercia Supplies (WMS), quarter-owned by Worcestershire County Council, was sold in April.

WMS, which supplied stationery, books and other education material, was sold to a company called The Consortium (Hedgelane Ltd).

That firm was sold a week later to the UK’s largest newspaper distributor, Smiths News.

Council bosses were not aware of that subsequent sale, but are confident the deal was best value for the taxpayer.

Councillor Adrian Hardman, council leader and WMS joint committee chairman, said: “It has taken the councils involved and me about 10 years to get WMS to a position where it was attractive to sell.

“I’m happy with the price we got.”

He said the further sales to Smiths “was probably not in the pipeline when we first talked about a sale”.

The county council owned 25 per cent, as did Herefordshire Council, Shropshire County Council and Telford and Wrekin, with the company based in Shrewsbury.

A council-backed audit of any proposed sale, carried out by accountants Ernst and Young, estimated a sale price of between £7.4 million and £11 million in 2011.

But that estimate was inclusive of another part of the business, West Mercia Energy, which returns £800,000 a year to its shareholder councils.

That business buys three-year bulk contracts from gas and electricity suppliers to heat and power public buildings such as schools and council buildings, using its purchasing power to lever a large discount.

Coun Hardman said that business had not been part of the sale and its value was therefore not included in the final sale of WMS.

“WMS was not part of our core business,” he said. “It made a return but we felt the business would decline – the next largest of its kind in the UK is 10 times larger.

“With the move of more schools to academies, they are no longer tied to that type of service, and there was a sense the customer base was moving away.”

Public accounts from April 2011 showed WMS had sales of £49 million, making £2.4 million.