Sheffield Council Spend £4.7M On Consultants In Last 12 Months

[Penistone999 10]

At a time when Sheffield council are closing sports centres and libraries ,and many council employees are losing their jobs, the council spent £4.7M on consultants over the 12 months to the end of November 2012. The council have been paying one consultant £800 per DAY ,and other £600 to £700 per DAY .

 

"The Star can reveal the authority has been paying one adviser £800 a day for providing ‘high quality expertise’ to its special educational needs team.

 

Meanwhile, unions say several more consultants are currently on £600 to £700 a day working on a redesign of social care services."

 

All this makes you wonder why many top level managers on sheffield council are earning £50K a year, when they clearly cant do their job ,and need help from expensive consultants .

 

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/local/scandal-of-sheffield-council-s-consultancy-fees-1-5318282

[Staffy23 10]

Thats an insane amount of money in our times of supposed austerity.

[Tony 10]

You're failing to understand (or acknowledge ) the nature of a consultant.

 

In an ideal world pretty much everything would be outsourced and we'd see the cost of running council services go through the floor while seeing service standards soar.

[alchresearch 214]

You wouldn't believe how many millions councils wasted in employing liaison consultants to schools when they were doing the school's BSF project.

[ReggieBlade 10]

They need consultants because the management is full of career managers who just move from one ambiguous job title to another.A friend of mine says the council has contracted out their I.T dept...yet the council's I.T dept still has at least as many people in it as the contractors team. So,to me it looks like we're paying well over the odds in just that little sector.

[WallBuilder 10]

I'd be rather interested to see a full list of the consultants, what they did, how much they were paid and more importantly what the benefits to the work of the council was. As the article mentions a few councillors by name i might do a bit of digging just to satisfy my own curiosity

[PapaLazarou 747]

But you've only got one half of an argument.

 

Its all well and good saying what a disgrace it is that the council is spending almost £5m on consultants, but what savings might those consultants have introduced to the organisation as a result of their work? Do you know? What if their work has brought £6m, say, of cost savings? Therefore a commercially astute move by the council. £1m to the better.

 

You need all the facts before you say "its wrong".

 

For example, only last week, there was a story on Radio Sheffield where members of the public where in uproar regarding the cost of outsourced consultants at Rotherham NHS Trust. Its was, aparently, a disgrace, that £750,000 had been spent on a consultant. What the media had failed to report however (and with flames fanned, of course, by Radio Sheffield), but was later clarified by the interviewee, was that that outlay had directly brought about >£3m savings.

 

Isn't that, in that instance, consultancy money well spent?

 

Doesn't make good headlines that though, does it.

Edited January 16, 2013 by PapaLazarou

[Tony 10]

You can view every council transaction over £500 online, though having worked with councils as a consultant in the past you wouldn't even begin to get a flavour for what they did or why they were needed.

 

I've not personally come across consultants that don't earn what they are paid for but I tend to work among people who have very defined technical and/or management roles, rather than ex council officers recently made redundant and re-employed as consultants. I have come across council officers that don't understand what consultants do until they sack them and try to do it themselves! The consultant usually comes back quickly.

 

For what it's worth, I usually charge more than £800/day, but I'm often worth 4 ordinary workers in terms of knowledge and generally get the job done in half the time, plus I leave the building when the task is done. Swings and roundabouts.

Edited January 16, 2013 by Tony

[lazarus 68]

The old metal street lamps that are being replaced by new ones, the ones that have the two arms on are being just thrown in skips and being taken away. Why arent the Council selling these as Industrial Antiques instead of paying people to take them away. The waste of money that can be seen at every Council Depot is absolutely shameful.

[ReggieBlade 10]

The elephant in the room is why is the council employing people who don't give value for money...then have to get in consultants to bale them out?

[strangerthe6 10]

You're failing to understand (or acknowledge ) the nature of a consultant.

 

In an ideal world pretty much everything would be outsourced and we'd see the cost of running council services go through the floor while seeing service standards soar.

 

So standards of service have soared since I.T. Housing Benefits, Fraud etc. were outsourced? I don't think so. As the Council create a "Client" section for every contract I doubt whether costs have come down much either although they can probably disguise that fact with a bit of creative accounting.

[gnvqsos 10]

Many self-employed and landlords engage consultants for tax advice.They are called accountants and their fees are easily funded by the savings generated through tax-avoidance.The OP himself will engage one so why cant the council do the same?