MSP hits out at council’s spend on consultants

Apr 24 2008 By John Rowbotham

SOUTH Lanarkshire Council’s spending on consultants increased more than 600 per cent in four years.

The cost of using professional advisors jumped from the 2003-04 total of £350,164 to £873,409 in 2004-05 and £1,155,879 the following financial year.

In the 12 months from April 2006, the consultants’ bill amounted to £2,219,659.

Central Scotland Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell, who obtained the data under the Freedom of Information Act, described as “staggering” the overall bill of £4,599,111.

She is now asking the council for a breakdown of the amounts spent on consultancy fees over the last four years.

She called on the council to be “totally accountable and transparent about exactly how the money was spent”.

She added: “In particular the ruling administration should be able to guarantee that the money spent represented best value for council taxpayers and crucially, was absolutely necessary.”

Mrs Mitchell wants to know whether work commissioned could have been done in-house by council officials.

“Given the level of salaries among the council top brass, I am frankly surprised at the need to buy-in such a large amount of expertise,” she added.

However, Council Leader Eddie McAvoy said consultants’ fees represented 0.3 per cent of council expenditure.

He said the council had drafted in professional advisors such and specialist lawyers and accountants to advise on complex projects such as the £1.2 billion schools modernisation scheme, and the £400m council house refurbishment.

Councillor McAvoy added: “Mrs Mitchell appears totally unaware of what is going on in South Lanarkshire.

“We are undertaking what is arguably the biggest municipal building programme in the country, benefiting every section of the community and giving work to several thousand people in the process.

“We are also building 17 new secondary schools and refurbishing another two as well as rebuilding or refurbishing every one of our 124 primary schools.

“Mrs Mitchell fails to match the figures she quotes to the projects that are helping create the South Lanarkshire that people tell us they want.”

Advisors had also been used on regeneration projects such as Hamilton Ahead and the £400m redevelopment of East Kilbride town centre.

Councillor McAvoy said their spending on professional advisors had been scrutinised and approved by public accounts watchdog Audit Scotland.

In August, 2006, the Advertiser told how the amount spent on consultants, used up until then on the schools modernisation, stood at £1.3m.

It had gone up 41 per cent in 11 months.

Extra money was required to pay firms which had helped the council with contract discussions, preferred bidder negotiations, audit, and meetings aimed at “tying up financial loose ends”.

Additional money was also needed to pay for work aimed at “satisfying the demands of the Scottish Executive relative to the terms of the contract, and finalising funding”.

A further £85,000 was required to “secure the professional services of the council’s approved external advisors”, Turner and Townsend.

They were needed to ensure compliance with planning consents, and fire service, and building control conditions, councillors were told.