MORE than £10m of taxpayers' money has been spent on consultants by Manchester council in just one year.
That works out at £27,000 a day and represents 10 per cent of the council tax pot - the equivalent of £60 from every council tax bill.
Opposition councillors have criticised the costs and said work should be carried out by the 24,000 council workers or new staff should be taken on.
The figure includes a multi-million pound fee for a single contract.
Surrey-based Axon Solutions was paid £4.1m to set up and help run a new `back office' computer system.
The system took 15 months to phase in and was so complex that `a number' of other consultants were brought in when Axon reduced its presence in Manchester.
Other fees paid to consultants in the financial year 2006-07 include:
£859,000 to Turner & Townsend to transfer the City Works organisation, which repairs houses, from direct council control to a joint venture;
£231,000 to Public Sector Consultants to provide temporary senior finance staff in the education department to cover vacancies;
£200,000 to PricewaterhouseCoopers for `financial advice' over job cuts at Manchester Care, the council-run organisation that employs 1,200 people and runs homes for the elderly.
The £10.08m total does not include a contribution to the cost of Greater Manchester's bid for £3bn from the Transport Innovation Fund. The £6.6m costs of that, revealed by the M.E.N. last month, were fuelled by consultants' fees shared by the region's 10 councils.
Marc Ramsbottom, from the Lib Dem opposition, said: "These huge costs have added at least an extra £60 to everyone's council tax bill.
"If there are jobs that need doing then they should be employing Manchester people to do them, not hiring expensive consultants are inflated prices."
Bernard Priest, the council's executive member for finance, said the town hall did have `in-house capacity to cope with all routine and predictable needs'.
But he said: "The challenging agenda we set for the city requires that we have access to a full range of professional expertise pretty much on demand and it would be far too expensive to maintain the kind of specialists we need in-house.
"We have extensive audit and scrutiny arrangements which maintain an effective overview of all expenditure.
"The fact we have achieved, year after year, council tax increases which are among the lowest in the country is a strong indication of the council's sound financial management."
What do you think of the council's use of consultants? Have your say.
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Tubby Scruff (01/10/2007 at 08:27)
The cynic in me says, the Council doesn't trust it's own, hence the £10 million.
I would ask the people of Manchester to ask the Council to justify this cost to them.
I imagine this would present a similar result to giving me the names of 3 famous people who have dies through passive smoking.
Simon B, www.manchestertolltax.com (01/10/2007 at 08:28)
20 million in total.
ebble (01/10/2007 at 09:10)
At least consultants can be hired by the hour, rather than being given a guaranteed job for life.
John, Salford (01/10/2007 at 09:24)
Still wet, Behind the Ears (01/10/2007 at 09:59)
judie collins (01/10/2007 at 10:28)
judie collins trafford
ace, manchester (01/10/2007 at 10:34)
tricia jonson (01/10/2007 at 11:13)
Blip, Manchester (01/10/2007 at 13:13)
better off red (01/10/2007 at 13:17)
Before I went to work for one of these lot, I always thought it was better to employ from within, rather than pay through the noise for external companies to do the work; mainly because I thought they employed monkeys.
Well, now I work for them, I can safely say that they do employ monkeys; at least about 80% of the people here are monkeys who can't think for themselves.
Manchester council, wake up and smell the coffee.
You've just poured £10M down the drain.
Stop wasting more money on external consultants and instead employ new staff who will bring in new ideas. Not some monkeys in a suit (and a lot of respected companies out there, will send in excellent salesmen who sell you the world, then let the monkeys loose).
'nuff said, rant over.
red (01/10/2007 at 14:36)
Mr Manchester (01/10/2007 at 14:47)
Couldn't agree more. Another peanut, BOR?
WILDBOY, MANCHESTER UK (01/10/2007 at 17:26)
Surely the time is now right for Manchester to have an elected mayor of proven ability and influence, and experienced executives of similar standing
Timberman (01/10/2007 at 17:48)
Now if somebody in the private sector wasted money like that, instant dismissal and possible prosecution.
If the councilors are made to pay for their wastage of public money maybe they would think twice about bringing in these "consultants". With the resources that Manchester has on it's doorstep, universities and the like we should be self sufficient in experts.Yours Rick Wilde.
thrillhammer, HYDE (01/10/2007 at 18:38)
Dave Pickup (01/10/2007 at 19:03)
rammylad, ramsbottom (01/10/2007 at 19:18)
The biggest bonus here of course is that it free's up a stack load of road and car park space.
I have always voted labour but never again.
ace, manchester (01/10/2007 at 21:50)
Trumpet (01/10/2007 at 23:15)
All councils employ consultants! Lib Dem Stockport has spend millions over the last few years on such as "Town Centre Master Plan"; failed sell off of Council housing.
Why are the opposition Lib Dems in Manchester bleating! Pure politics, nothing else.
Does Manchester have the in-house capacity to carry out these works? Some may be, but would it be at the expense of other programmed works. Who would be complaining about the work being done? It cannot have staff available for every opportunity. No Council, public authority or company can - you bring in specialists to do the job.
It is not the process. What will expenditure on external consultants bring should be the criteria, not how much costs in itself.
Look at the scale of the operation - Manchester spends at least £1,000,000,000 per year - a billion. £10 million is less than 1% of its expenditure.
Having read the previous comments I wonder if any of them understand what is happening in the real world
S P In exile, Tameside (02/10/2007 at 02:19)
So Bernie does this challenging agenda extend to your job.
Colin W, Abroad (02/10/2007 at 06:18)
Pete (02/10/2007 at 12:24)
Count Bobelesque (02/10/2007 at 13:04)
ace, manchester (02/10/2007 at 13:45)
Trumpet (02/10/2007 at 15:04)
Your correspondent Pete does not understand that any Council when buying property has to pay the market rate. This can work both ways people living in houses as there were in East Manchester may have only been over a few thousand pounds for their property as it was almost worthless, on the other hand a property well-maintained and in demand ....... Councils cannot just agree an arbitary price- there is an independent body, the District Valuer, who has a number of roles including generally looking at property sales and also acts as an appeal agency when people dispute their valuation. An addition check is that loacl authorities are an audited yearly and if there are any transactions that are questionable the auditors can raise objections. Equally if a councillor or member of the public queries a transaction it may be subject to consideartion by the National Audit Office.
If Councils were to pay too much for property residents would start screaming about big brother taking them over and not given them the right money!
My plea is find out the facts before firing off!