Council uproar over £500,000 spent on cost-cut consultants

OPPOSITION councillors and trade union leaders yesterday condemned plans by cash-strapped Aberdeen City Council to recruit external consultants at a cost of more than £500,000 to help deliver £120 million in spending cuts over the next five years.

A firm of leading accountants has been hired to provide specialist advice on the possible outsourcing of some key departments under the council's five-year business plan. Council sources have told The Scotsman that they have been hired at a cost "close to 600,000".

The recruitment of the unidentified company has angered trade union officials and opposition councillors, who have attacked the decision to bring in consultants, despite an agreement last month to delay approval of a final draft of the business plan to allow fresh talks between Valerie Watts, the new chief executive, and the trade unions.

The decision was taken by ten votes to three behind closed doors at a meeting of the council's urgent business committee.

Councillor Willie Young, the secretary of the opposition Labour group, declared: "It's unbelievable. What is so annoying is that the administration have said one thing and done the exact opposite. They agreed last month at a meeting of the full council that they were handing back the business plan to the chief executive so she could take a fresh look at the proposals. But they have now gone back on their word.

"They are bringing in consultants to see how they can outsource our staff before the business plan is due to be discussed again at a meeting of the council next month. The whole thing is in disarray."

Councillor Young continued: "We were left with Hobson's choice at the meeting - take it or leave it. We are spending money - a high six-figure sum - on consultants without us having all the options available to us. It's criminal."

And he claimed: "We don't even know if we are going forward with this business plan in the first place. And we have got ourselves involved in a contract that may be worthless if we change the business plan."

Karen Davidson, the secretary of the local branch of Unison, said: "We are very disappointed. We welcomed the decision by the full council to get back round the table with the trade unions. And the meeting just came as a bolt from the blue. We had no real explanation on why it was considered urgent business."

But Councillor Callum McCaig, the leader of the council and convener of the urgent business committee, defended the committee's decision.

He said: "It is something that the officers felt we needed to move on with, otherwise it would cause huge issues further down the line."

Councillor McCaig explained: "Key budget decisions were taken by this council last February to accept a wide range of budget options which will be part of our five-year business plan. Those decisions require us to commission external support to ensure that we take the right decisions on service delivery which are value-for-money and which allow us to achieve the level of savings that we must make over the next five years."The committee agreed that we need to bring in the external support now, to allow us to get on with the job of providing services in new ways with no unnecessary delay.

"To postpone a decision would have risked holding up the progress of the business plan and potentially hampering our ability to make the necessary savings."