Voters pay for council largesse

The last two years have seen some of the worst of times, as Charles Dickens would surely have recognised. The recession and a decade of Labour excess have left councils facing a spending squeeze. So it is extraordinary that councils in this region have spent about 70m on outside consultants and redundancy payments in just two years. It is also wrong.

The details of the largesse are hard to justify. Wakefield spent the most on redundancy – 3.4m – compared with Leeds, which spent nothing. Yet the effect of such prudence in the region's largest city appears to have been cancelled out by its decision to splash out more than 8m on consultants.

Few would dispute that loyal and hard-working staff deserve decent redundancy payments after years of service. While the private sector has felt the pressure on salaries and extra payments in the economic slump, the public sector, however, has failed to

limit the sums paid out. It has not reflected the new economic realities of debt-laden Britain.

Similarly, while there are some cases where bringing in consultants can add value to the work of a council, such occasions should be known for their rarity. The moment that consultants become part of regular spending, then their reviews should be done more cheaply in-house.

Some local authorities pointed out that much of the funding for their consultants is provided by central government and other agencies rather than being met from their own budget. This distinction is virtually meaningless. Taxpayers' money is taxpayers' money, whether it is handed over as income tax or council tax.

Local authorities need to concentrate on getting the basics right. Running schools, gritting roads and emptying people's bins. Government spending cuts mean the country faces an age of austerity. Councils need to wake up to this.

Dickens also described the age of wisdom and the age of foolishness as co-existing. Many will suspect his words to be true today.