York council's consultancy bill trebled to £2.7m last year

City of York Council's accounts show that the sum council bosses spent on outside consultants and interim managers went up from around £833,000 in 2013/14, to £2.7 million just a year later.

Unions have greeted the news with anger, saying the money is being steered away from hard-working council staff.

The council is now run by a joint Lib Dem and Conservative executive, and the current leaders have criticised the previous council's attitude outside experts.

Council leader Chris Steward said: "Although we will on occasions need to employ consultants, the previous administration was too willing to do this, without proper consideration of the cost or sufficient democratic oversight. We have been clear that attitudes must change and the level of consultants should be minimised."

But the Labour council group - in charge until May's elections - has blamed the consultancy bills on the need to cut budgets in line with dwindling government grants.

The group's finance spokesman Cllr Neil Barnes said: "Use of consultants goes up and down year to year depending on need at any given time, but for much of the past few years consultants have been used to help the council best apply the former coalition government’s cuts whilst protecting frontline services.

"This led to the council making savings of over £63 million over the past four years, whilst balancing the budget in every year of the previous Labour administration."

From left, Labour councillor Neil Barnes, finance chief Ian Floyd, and council leader Cllr Chris Steward

About £339,000 was spent on work badged "rewiring" or "transformation" - both part of the council's projects to implement budget cuts.

The council defended the extensive use of consultants.

Council finance chief Ian Floyd said: “There are times when it is necessary to utilise external expertise; when we do not have the expertise internally or to ensure that the delivery of our services continue during unexpected short-term peaks in demand.

"This is always subject to the proper procurement processes and undertaken with value for money in mind.”

York Unison's lead convenor Heather McKenzie said the soaring bills are part of a worrying brain drain trend in a the public sector where staff jobs are cut to save money, only for outside expertise to be brought in when local authorities cannot cope.

She added: "Organisations like ours are making people redundant in order to balance the books year on year, reducing our capacity to deliver significantly, but then having to employ others as consultants on expensive day rates to plug the gaps or do short term pieces of work to assist in keeping services running and finding ways of changing to cope with the effect of the cuts."

The GMB union also criticised the soaring bill, and called consultants a "nightmare" that do not give value for money for taxpayers.

The union's Steve Jennings said: "Each visit from a consultant costs more money; they don’t come back for free to help you out.

"Staff not external consultants have an understanding of the authority’s wider objectives and ethos as well as the sector they work in. As well concerns about the costs of consultants, using directly employed staff means that skills and experience stay within the organisation."

Documents obtained by The Press show by far the largest amount - about £650,000 - was spent on consultancy in public health or adult social care.

Interim managers were particularly costly, with a single firm billing £166,900 for a director of adult social care and £142,200 for a director of public health, in a little over six months.

Around £72,000 was spent on work for the Tour de France and Tour de Yorkshire - both of which occurred in the 2014/15 financial year.

Transport projects together cost around £440,000; Local Plan work including legal advice, database work, and other help cost up to £200,000; and work on the Community Stadium project cost around £110,000.

Almost £180,000 was spent on communications consultants.