Council spends nearly £1m on consultants for cost-cutting project

Nicholas Thomas, local democracy reporter

A local authority has spent nearly £1 million on outside consultants for a project aimed at saving money.

An outlay of £924,192 to date has bought Caerphilly Council a “roadmap” to multi-million-pound savings, workshops for council bosses to “create a shared change narrative”, and the introduction of agile working to “inject pace and transparency”.

The council has defended the deal, claiming “there will clearly be a significant return on our investment over the next few years”.

However, the spending has prompted questions over value for money, given the council’s recent announcement that it could mothball two of its most well-known cultural attractions.

‘Staggering’

Cllr Lindsay Whittle, who leads the council’s Plaid opposition group, called the sum spent on consultants “frankly staggering”.

Independent councillor Kevin Etheridge said news of the spending was “quite astonishing” considering the uncertain future of community arts centre Blackwood Miners’ Institute and the Tudor manor Llancaiach Fawr.

“This sum is quite unacceptable and would pay for these sites to remain open for over 12 months,” he added.

Together, the two sites receive £832,000 in council subsidies each year.

The local authority’s Mobilising Team Caerphilly project is designed to improve efficiency in council spending and service delivery, amid warnings further savings are necessary over the next two years to avoid financial peril.

Hypothetically, the consequences of a budget collapse would be severe – councils in that position must effectively declare bankruptcy and cede control to a team of commissioners until the books are balanced.

To help prevent this, the council turned to Perago, a Swansea-based consultancy firm specialising in service delivery.

On its website, the company said it had achieved for Caerphilly Council a “roadmap” for £65 million of efficiency savings, a “change narrative” for the local authority, and the introduction of agile working for staff and more “user-centred” service design.

Reviews

Recent measures to trim spending in Caerphilly have included reviews of the council estate, with several regional offices set to close and workers moved into the authority’s headquarters, as well as reforms to individual services.

But other new money-saving proposals are proving contentious – moves to mothball Blackwood Miners’ Institute and Llancaiach Fawr have drawn vocal opposition, as has a plan to axe a meals on wheels service.

A spokesman for Caerphilly Council said the authority has to save an extra £45m on top of the £20m from last year, and “cannot deliver these huge financial savings without undertaking a significant programme of transformation across all parts of the organisation”.

“To support this major piece of work, the council has engaged the services of specialist external consultants to work with us as we navigate through this new way of working,” he added.

“This support will help us deliver our ambitious savings targets and there will clearly be a significant return on our investment over the next few years.”

Officers

But the council did not respond to a Local Democracy Reporting Service question asking whether officers already in its employment could deliver the services outsourced to the consultants.

“Does the council not have the in-team capability and if not, why not?” asked Cllr Whittle of the consultants’ role, adding that councillors should be given a “detailed breakdown of where the money has been spent”.

“The people of Caerphilly county will rightly question Labour’s priorities,” he added. “They can find a huge money to spend on consultants while at the same time proposing to close the precious meals on wheels service to our most vulnerable, as well as planning the mothballing [or] closure of Llancaiach Fawr, Blackwood Miners’ Institute and The Winding House in New Tredegar.

“It seems perverse that while proposing all these closures more than £5m of public money has gone into Ffos Caerffili, a new leisure centre is planned and Labour want to invest millions pounds in a new train station – that’s really going to be of comfort to the poor older resident losing his or her meals on wheels service.”

Perago was also contacted for comment.