Northumberland County Council criticised for £100,000 report
Aug 17 2010 by Brian Daniel, The Journal
A CASH-STRAPPED North East council criticised for paying £500,000 to consultants for a cash-saving exercise has given another company £100,000 for help with a green study.
As reported by The Journal on Saturday, Northumberland County Council has come under fire for spending around £513,000 on a consultancy to help it with an exercise intended to save the authority money. The expenditure was criticised at a time when the council has to make £10m savings this year, £30m next and may have to cut up to 1,000 jobs. Now, it has emerged the council has spent over £100,000 on another consultant to help with an Open Space and Green Infrastructure Study.
And a draft version of a report prepared by the company has been described as ‘a complete mess’ and ‘garbled to put at its kindest’ by a senior councillor, who called on the council to seek to renegotiate the amount it is paying the firm.
Last night, the further expense was condemned by another councillor, who claimed his colleague’s criticisms of the work proved it was “a waste of money.”
The council commissioned Strategic Leisure late last year to help with the green study, which will include an audit of existing open space and green infrastructure and develop locally-based standards for open space, sport and recreation.
The authority is paying the Warrington-based management consultants, which specialise in sport, leisure and culture, to carry out an online survey which will identify what residents think about open and green spaces in the county. But Ian Lindley, the authority’s executive member for neighbourhood services and the environment, has criticised the draft version of the green infrastructure prepared by the company.
On his councillor website, he wrote: ‘As currently written, it is a complete mess (all officers I have spoken to agree with me and are happy it has been picked up as such).
