Exclusive: Councils facing criticism over millions spent on consultants

The figures vary dramatically across the region. Barnsley was the biggest spender on consultancy, paying out more than 9m since April 2008, compared with York which spent 442,782.

Wakefield spent the most on redundancy at 3.4m compared with Leeds which spent nothing. However, Yorkshire's most populated city did spend more than 8m on consultants, the second highest in the region.

Four councils failed to respond fully to the Yorkshire Post investigation, submitted under the Freedom of Information Act, Sheffield and Kirklees councils being unable to provide any figures detailing their spending of public money.

The councils were given six weeks to get the details – two weeks longer than the deadline specified in the Act – but blamed a heavy workload and a lack of staff.

Campaigners said the spending showed local authorities were failing to make the best use of public funds.

The chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, Matthew Elliott, said: "These figures paint a shambolic picture of employment practices at Yorkshire councils.

"They are spending far

too much on consultants which either suggests their full

time staff are inadequate and should be replaced, or they are second-guessing their own judgment.

"Better planning on the part of these councils would reduce much of the consultancy and redundancy costs, which represent a huge burden on taxpayers."

The figures were requested for the last completed financial year, March 2008 to April 2009 and for this year so far.

Bradford and Rotherham spent more than 7m each on consultants in that time, Doncaster more than 5m.

There were also some major redundancy packages, Doncaster and Wakefield paying out more than 3m each and North Yorkshire – which failed to provide figures for consultancy expenditure – paying out 2.7m.

In North Lincolnshire nearly 300,000 was spent on redundancy in one year in the department for Children and Young People.

A spokesman for Barnsley Council said much of the funding for its consultants was not met from the council tax budget, but was provided by the Government and other agencies.

He said: "A significant proportion of the consultancy costs relate to major projects and initiatives that the council is currently involved with, including Building Schools for the Future.

"The majority of these costs are one-off in nature and bring with them specific grant or dedicated funding solely for this purpose."

A spokesman for Leeds said the authority used the services of external consultants to deliver "professional expertise, support and advice for a number of purposes". He said the council had delivered a number of major capital projects where the use of external, independent professionals was sometimes a stipulated requirement.

He said: "They have also been utilised to provide specialist professional technical, financial and legal expertise in the development, negotiation and delivery of major Private Finance Initiative contracts. Consultants have also been used to provide specialist services and to carry out a number of specific assignments, such as carrying out specific research projects and providing specialist advice on major transactions and operations.

"In some instances, these major transactions, including the expenditure on consultants, are funded from grants or other associated external income.

"While Leeds City Council will strive to carry out project work internally whenever feasible, the services of consultants have often been procured because they can provide specialist technical expertise that is not available in-house or are used to supplement available internal capacity."