Consultants add to council's costs

However, there will be occasions when this expense can be justified – and one such example is the 1m consultants bill that has been accrued by Doncaster Council's crisis-hit children's services department.

This sum appears, at first glance, to contradict Peter Davies's promise to cut staff payments when he became the borough's elected mayor nearly a year ago. Yet a proportion of this expenditure pre-dates his mayorship, and the cost, thus far, is a tiny fraction of the council's 600m annual budget.

It must also be remembered that this is the most dysfunctional council in Britain, according to a damning Audit Commission report, and that years of management failure have now culminated with Government intervention.

This is also the council where seven vulnerable children have died – and which, with others, was negligent over the torture attack on two boys in Edlington. Doing nothing was not an option.

Of course, the council's lack of clarity when responding to Freedom of Information requests does not help. Better record-keeping is required. And, as the Audit Commission's report concluded, the high turnover of consultants and interim appointments has not brought about the continuity of leadership that Doncaster so badly needs.

It's important that such roles are not counter-productive – but, frankly, it is the only way forward until Doncaster's chief officers, mayor and elected councillors prove that they are capable of working together to improve key services, like the care of vulnerable children.

It should also be remembered that outside assistance would not be required if the Government, and the town's taxpayers for that matter, had confidence in Doncaster's decision-makers. That assurance cannot be provided. For too long, personal acrimony has ruled in the borough. And, until the animosity is taken out of Doncaster's politics, the use of consultants and outside expertise will be a necessary and justifiable expense.