Council chiefs 'flout' rules over spending

Local authorities across the region have spent about 70m since April 2008, with more than 17m on redundancies.

A number of councils failed to provide information on how they have spent public money, with North Yorkshire and Scarborough claiming they were unable to get accurate details of consultancy fees.

In spite of having six weeks to find the details, requested under the Freedom of Information Act, Sheffield and Kirklees failed to supply any data at all and blamed staff shortages and workload.

TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott questioned why they "flouted" Freedom of Information laws.

He said: "It is an utter disgrace that they do not think taxpayers deserve to know how their money is spent. They obviously have a lot to hide and that is why they are blatantly flouting the freedom of information laws.

"They should be taken to the Information Commissioner and forced to come clean."

North Yorkshire said that the term "consultancy" can cover a wide range of activities procured in a number of different ways and can be assigned to a number of different expense accounts.

The authority said the large amount of work involved collating the data would exceed the appropriate level, as stated in the Freedom of Information Regulations 2004.

A spokesman for Scarborough Council said: "There are a number of ways in which consultancy fees can be incurred by the Council and accurate overall costs are therefore not available."

Wakefield spent more on redundancy packages than any other council – 3.4m – and said the economic climate meant it was forced to make some tough decisions on staff. Human resources service director Hilary Brearley said: "Many organisations are having to make tough decisions in the current economic climate and jobs have been affected.

"Our financial planning will ensure that the council continues to be financially stable. All decisions are aligned to our corporate priorities, and we seek to minimise the impact on our employees and our services to citizens." She said staff levels were reduced as much as possible through volunteers, following up initial expressions of interest in voluntary redundancy, retirements and changes in hours of working, as well as vacancy management.

Trade unions were consulted and joint consultative committees met specifically to discuss savings plans in an attempt to make sure savings did not affect services or outweigh the cost of redundancies.

Doncaster spent more than 8m since April 2008 on paying outside consultants and paying redundant staff. Chief executive Paul Hart said: "We have a highly skilled workforce but when we need to deliver large scale projects, and comply with Government regulations such as the Building Schools for the Future project, we sometimes require the help of specialists.

"While we cannot always have permanent posts for such specialists we do, wherever possible, ensure skills transfer to existing staff to ensure value for money for the future. Our redundancy costs reflect the reductions of posts we have made across the council to achieve efficiencies and provide better value for money for our tax payers."

Rotherham Council said the figures – which revealed a 7.4m consultancy spend – were not a true representation of the use of consultants because they include figures from both 2010 Rotherham Ltd, the arms-length management organisation for housing, and RBT, the authority's joint venture partnership with BT.

"There is a grey area between identifying consultants and agency staff employed by the council." Consultants "provide specialist technical expertise which cannot be provided in-house – such as the repairs to the dam wall at Ulley Reservoir."