Council's £8m bill for outsiders' help
FEES paid to consultants are being reviewed after it was revealed Stoke-on-Trent City Council paid out almost £8 million over the past year.
Consultants were recruited to help the authority in all manner of roles, from £139,960 paid to a firm for financial advice, to £100,225 paid to Mike Maunder during his six-month term as interim assistant chief executive.
Much of the cost of hiring external consultants came from outside sources, such as North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership (NSRP), but £1.8 million of the cost was still met from the city council's already overstretched budget.
At the end of December there were 33 individual consultants working in directorates and 52 firms of consultants commissioned to provide services for the council.
The authority has refused to provide comparison figures detailing how much was spent on consultants in previous years.
Councillor Mike Barnes, pictured, who raised the issue with the city council, said: "We are going through the budget at the moment and there are a lot of problems, with people being made redundant.
"My main thrust was how many individuals have been paid more than £500-a-day, which I think is 17. Anyone on that is being paid more than the chief executive.
"One name on the list, Mike Maunder, was only there for six months and yet he got paid £100,000. Is that value for money? Should we be paying consultants that amount of money to provide cover?"
Councillor Peter Kent-Baguley, who has joined a working group formed to look at consultancy fees, said: "There is a role for consultants, where we don't have the experience, but recently it has got out of hand. It has become the easy option.
"There's quite a bit of use for project management which is not justified.
"The other danger is where we have made redundancies. I don't think those roles should be filled by a consultant."
The city council had planned to axe 240 jobs to go someway towards plugging a £10 million hole in the budget. However, only about 150 staff agreed to accept voluntary redundancy packages in December.
Colin Walton, convener of the city council branch of Unison, said: "Always there will be skills that are not easily obtainable and, yes, we need consultants in those roles.
"But we remain to be convinced that the skills are not in-house.
"We seem to use consultants an awful lot for things like advice and restructuring, when in the past we had our own in-house people do that.
"But efforts are being taken to reduce the numbers of consultants used."
Councillor Ross Irving, leader of the city council, said: "The city council uses consultants to provide a range of specialist services to support work on one-off projects.
"We use consultancy firms for projects where the council does not have the expertise needed in-house and where it would not be practical or cost-effective to recruit permanent staff.
"Specialist firms are assisting the council in driving forward many of the city's major building and regeneration projects, including the Central Business District, the University Quarter and the refurbishment of the Mitchell Memorial Theatre.
"Most of the cost of using consultants is met by the council's partners and not the council taxpayer.
"The council has made a priority of reviewing its use of consultants. A group of councillors is working with officers to make sure the whole process gives value for money."
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by Andy Boys, Meir Hay
Monday, February 08 2010, 6:19PM
“Under Freedom of Information legislation I raised questions about the Coty council's recruitment of consultants about 18 months ago. Some appeared to have been previously connected in one way or another with the former Council Manager Steve Robinson. Several were appointed as stand-ins for a seemingly large number of senior officers who had left the authority often because the council was undergoing yet another restructuring exercise. I'm certain that the loss of so many senior officers resulted in a virtual wipe out of the council's corporate memory. So called temporary or interim replacements on inflated consultancy day rates not only failed to fill the the vacuum they appeared to generate reports, often on the same subject by successive consultants that didn't cut the mustard. Backbench councillors, especially in the Improving Communities Overview & Scrutiny Committee, identified considerable weaknesses in some of these reports. The nagging question is, how many other half-baked reports by these consultants were implemented and will come back to haunt the council at some later date? I wish Mike Barnes and like minded councillors every success in trying to cast light in some very dark corners of the council's decision-making processes. Hopefully the new Chief Executive's emphasis on councillors being more closely involved in decision-making and the fact that he is relatively new to local government rather than a time server will bring about a cultural change in how the council is organised, managed and responds to the city's needs. Hopefully it will also mean that any consultants that are still around but not up to the job will be shown the door. Preferably without ridiculous payouts that some have received in recent months.”
by mikefire, neckend
Monday, February 08 2010, 5:17PM
“Mike Barnes is quite correct when he says, "we have problems with people being made redundant". The people that are being made redundant are obviously the wrong ones. The people who are redundant are the council, and the sooner we make it so the better. When you vote ' them" in do you consider if they have any useful qualities that will enrich the council? How many of them give us an idea of their educational achievements their business acumen, anything other than they were working class, they drink at the local, I keep whippets, and have a pigeon loft. All good things to aspire to, but not qualifications to be let loose on millions of pounds of our hard earned money, (or more likely our benefits)
I bet midlands T.V. is losing interest in us now, it;s all getting a little repetative.”
by Jules, Potteries
Monday, February 08 2010, 2:07PM
“They pay this money so they can point the finger & say 'it wasn't my fault' when it all goes wrong. If they are so incapable of making decisions then they shouldn't be in the job & wasting our hard earned money.”
by andrew, weston coyney
Monday, February 08 2010, 1:05PM
“So why are we paying all these high flying executive council officers huge salaries if they have to get outside help in to do the job?”
by Mel, Bucknall
Monday, February 08 2010, 12:38PM
“They paid for special consultants over the school plans - producing schemes which take no account at all of local conditions, needs or wishes. They do they same over the 'regeneration' plans, bulldozing people's homes and wishes alike. Most of the projects referred to by Mr irving have either been proven a complete waste of money or will soon prove to be so. Who needed consultants to advise on the theatre rebuilding project? You either refurbish it or you don't, what's to 'consult' over? It's just throwing public money into private pockets in an effort to look like they know what they're doing - which they clearly don't. Try consulting with the residents of this city once in a while!”