Plymouth Herald: £4m on Consultants

Private firms earned more than £4million between them in just one year after being employed as consultants by Plymouth City Council.

Figures released to The Herald under the Freedom of Information Act show that in 2006/7 £4,218,136 of taxpayers cash went on lucrative contracts to huge firms, most of which have no Plymouth base.

These included architects LDA Design and law firm Bevan Brittan.

And accountants/professional services giant PricewaterhouseCoopers pocketed the biggest single payout, £442,707 - after being brought in to find ways of saving the council cash.

The authority has now spent £18million on outside consultants since 2002.

South West Devon's Tory MP Gary Streeter said the 2006/7 sum was "a little bit on the excessive side".

And the public spending campaign group Taxpayers' Alliance said Plymouth taxpayers would be "shocked" by the figure.

The council stressed that the spending - which included £1,323,861 paid by children's services and £1,101,936 by the director of development's department - amounted to just 0.6 per cent of its £697million budget, and that some of the cash came from central Government.

John Cremins, the council's head of strategic procurement, insisted: "The council utilises consultants to carry out specialist work for which we do not have the capacity."

Critics, however, say hiring consultants has become an "easy option" for the public sector generally, and a way to protect itself from risk.

But they say this does nothing to build and retain staff and increase skills.

Mr Streeter said: "Both national and local government is reaching for the consultants' telephone numbers too quickly.

"It's becoming a fashion that needs to be changed."

He said the public sector must give proper consideration to "what can be done in-house" with an eye to building "a long-term employment base".

And he added: "There's risk aversion in the public sector. Not just in Plymouth but everywhere.

"Bringing in something from outside is seen as protecting your own back. That's unfortunate. It should be about the best quality job for the right value."

Mark Wallace, campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "People who have seen their council tax go through the roof in recent years will be shocked to find so much money being lavished on bringing in outside consultants.

"Often councils pay through the nose for consultants to do work that local authority staff should be able to do themselves.

"The solution is to improve local performance, not hire costly specialists.

"It is no defence to point to consultants who are identifying waste and inefficiency, either - surely the people paid handsomely to run the council should be able to eliminate waste and spot the organisational problems right under their very noses."