Councils across Greater Manchester have revealed exactly how they have spent more than £250m of taxpayers’ money.
New rules are forcing all town halls to publish every payment they make over £500.
To download the full list of payments from the Manchester council website, click on this link
Manchester council has only published details for last month – but it still reveals more than 4,000 individual payments totalling £60m.
They range from £750 to a catering firm for a chicken and vegetable hotpot at a community event in Moston, to £5,000 on festive lighting over Christmas.
It spent £20,000 hiring rooms at the Manchester City ground seven times in December, due to it having large conference spaces unavailable in council buildings.
There was a £675 bill for children’s yoga at SureStart schemes across the city, plus £1,275 on kickboxing for youngsters.
In the same period the council spent £100,000 on publicity and marketing and £1m on agency staff, including temps.
It also paid out more than £7m to building contractors as part of its £500m Building Schools for the Future programme.
And £675 was paid to Remploy for bookbinding services during the move of St Peter’s Library.
There was a £1,200 bill for cleaning uniforms and £700,000 on compensation expenses and payments.
A spokesman said: “Recent research has shown that 85 per cent of our top 300 suppliers are from Greater Manchester, with more than half based in the city itself.
“More than 5,000 Manchester residents are employed as a direct result of this spending with our top suppliers, demonstrating that our procurement practices have a significant impact on the local economy.”
To download the full list of payments from the Manchester council website, click on this link
If you spot anything on the list which you would like our journalists to ask the council about, please email newsdesk@men-news.co.uk
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'why such a large amount on temporary workers? move the less busy staff around. Too long have some of these blighters been allowed to sit and do nothing. Nows the time for the councuil to dump the less efficient staff and make those that are efficient more useful. Look at lost sickness days, days off for non essentials and then say byeeeeee maybe then the bill for temps wont be so high.
Mollysue, good point.
If you assume a rate of £8.00 per hour, £1,000,000 would buy 125,000 worker hours per month. This is equal to more than 750 full time (37.5 hours per week) employees, at a time when the council is talking about getting rid of (paying off) 2,000 employees.
Okay, so it's not exactly THAT simple, but surely something can be done here ?
I for one would like to know how much councillors claimed in expenses and foriegn trips on alledged council business
The agency staff bill is high due to long-term sickness rates, maternity leave and the high number of secondments amongst full-time staff. The temps situation has been misused to such an extent that most of the 'temps' remaining actually have full employment rights. MCC haven't got a grip on capability or employment law, which will account for some of the £70k bill for compensation. Not sure if consultants are included in the agency bill, but a lot of money is paid out to consultants too. Temporary employees are paid less than other staff and don't get 'perks' like sick pay, MCC holiday entitlement, increments, pensions or staff discount cards - they actually cost less than the employees they are covering for.
waste waste waste, the sooner the redundancies start the better
I am neither offensive or ignorant. I have been "One of those temps" - never had i worked in such and environment - many long term employees see the town hall as a "Job for life" those are now becoming in short supply. The ones that want redundancy because of the nice pensions should be got shot of. I was told to slow down as i was getting through the files too quickly and would make the long termers seem lazy. Walk around those offices and look - yes there are some emloyees who love the job work hard and are happy to be employed, not many f those have been there a long time those waiting for retirement mostly dont care.
"In the same period the council spent £100,000 on publicity and marketing and £1m on agency staff, including temps."
It's very important to tell us how well money is being wasted!
Agency staff - what a bad joke!
The amount of money spent on temporary staff also tends to show that many full time staff are actually overpaid and easily replacable, therefore not as important and irriplacable hard working people they like to believe they are. No wonder so many are off with stress it must be hard doing nothing all the time.
Does anyone know how much City pay to the council for Eastlands ? At least we're getting some of it back !