Row over advisers’ fees on job cuts

Global business consultancy experts Deloitte have been drafted in to oversee reforms of the city council’s business support section that will see 240 jobs axed.

The cash-strapped authority, which shed more than 1,000 jobs last year, said earlier this month it was paying the company £330,000 to help “replace a largely paper-driven bureaucracy with a more focused, modern and efficient business model”.

However, it has now emerged that interim chief executive Darryl Stephenson yesterday signed off payment of a further £65,000 to Deloitte so it could assist with an IT software upgrade.

Including the cost of staff seconded onto the scheme at the Labour-led authority, it has been claimed that the total spending on the project is now £565,000.

Coun Mike Ross, deputy leader of the opposition Liberal Democrat group, said his party was now concerned about other “hidden costs” driving the bill up further.

He said: “We all need to keep a close eye on the costs of these consultants. I think it is very likely that the costs will continue to rocket and the only thing the Labour administration will have to show for it is cuts to jobs and services.

“We said when the proposals first came out that there were serious issues about how it had been handled and it looks like we have been proved right.”

He added: “Labour spent all their time in opposition saying they wouldn’t cut jobs and services and now after being in office just over a year that is exactly what they are doing.

“To add insult to injury, they are giving consultants an extra £65,000.

“I think people are right to question what the Labour administration’s priorities really are.”

Representatives of staff whose jobs are at risk are still waiting to hold further talks with council bosses over the plans.

Adrian Kennett, Unison branch secretary at the council, said: “We are still waiting for the meeting. There’s no costing for lots of the redundancies so we don’t know what that’s going to be.

“We need a jargon-busting session because a lot of the report doesn’t make sense to us and we need to see the meat on the bones.

“There’s a big reliance on IT systems that raises concerns for us because there’s no substitute for people in these situations, and we don’t want to be moving towards to ringing up the council and ‘pressing three’ for all services.”

Mr Kennett said he shared the Lib Dems’ concerns about the consultants’ fees – but accused the party of hypocrisy after its own record on spending on advisers when it was in office.

He said: “IT and services do have to be fit for purpose but people will look at this money being spent on consultants and say ‘Wait up, there are a lot of highly paid managers at the council - why can’t they do that’?”

He added: “But from our point of view it’s a bit rich the Liberal Democrats complaining about spending on consultants because they frittered away millions on consultants.”

Mr Stephenson said: “Officers do not wish to get involved in any political debate but for the sake of accuracy need to make it clear that there is no £500,000 contract with Deloitte, it is for £370,000 for both stages of the work tendered. In any event the specialised work to upgrade the Oracle computer system, necessary to make a start on the £5.7m per annum projected savings, would have to have been undertaken by outside consultants. The £65,000 for this additional work comes from an already agreed existing budget set aside to upgrade Oracle and is not new money.”