Suffolk Police have been accused of squandering an “absurd” amount of cash on the Force’s website after splurging £45k on their domain.

A BBC Freedom of Information request revealed that the Force gave the contract out without going to tender, awarding it to Reading Room who simply replicated Norfolk Police’s site (which had already cost £254,000).

The move is in breach of Suffolk Police’s own procurement policy which states that all work valued at greater than £30k should be put out to tender.

Suffolk Police claim that the £45k website contract was exempt because the Reading Room were able to replicate an existing site within the required time frame and with no additional development costs.

Dave Cattermole, director of web consultancy Solstice, told the BBC: "Small businesses are often over-looked, even though we could have delivered this - it's bread and butter stuff for us.

"I'd say we could have done both sites for a quarter of the total cost, if not a fifth, and they certainly know about us.

"This is just an absolutely absurd amount of money."