“Could the Cabinet Member state how much this authority paid in consultancy fees during the last financial year, including towards joint or regional projects?”
Minutes:
“Could the Cabinet Member state how much this authority paid in consultancy fees during the last financial year, including towards joint or regional projects?”
Response by Councillor Alun Lenny, Cabinet Member for Resources:
“You will appreciate of course that this is the most busy possible period for our officers as we try to draw together the most difficult budget in this Council’s history. As you will see from the following reports in this meeting and as will be discussed at the seminars this week in Llanelli. Despite this, officers are pulling together the data that you asked for but we will need to ensure consistency and clarity regarding the definition of Consultants as defined by other Authorities in Wales. As soon as we have a definitive figure, I will of course provide you with an answer. However, I think that it is worth saying at this point that Consultants may have negative overtones so it is worth explaining that consultancy fees are paid to companies who are specialists in their field and are commissioned by this Authority to do a specific job for a specific period of time because we do not have the staff or capacity to do so. I can assure you that every commission is rigorously scrutinised by the relevant Head of Service in order to give our Council Tax payers the best possible deal. This demand will obviously vary from year to year depending on what projects we are doing that require specialist support. Otherwise projects would not be able to be delivered and that includes town centre redevelopment, zero carbon affordable housing estates, new schools and a state of the art leisure centre for Llanelli. The level of consultancy fees is directly related to the activity which is improving the quality of life and employment opportunities for the people of Carmarthenshire. As you know, this Council has a very ambitious regeneration programme. The flagship development is the £200m Pentre Awel project which will be an incredible boost to Llanelli and the region as a whole and create almost 2000 jobs in due course. It would be impossible to deliver that project without employing a whole range of external specialists i.e. design, engineering, ecology and so on. Some of the Consultants are very specialised indeed in their field i.e. thinking of Burry Port Harbour, only a handful in South Wales are specialists in harbour dredging and again Pentre Awel, where ground conditions required driving pyles some 25m into the ground. Employing such specialists as full time staff, even if we could attract them which I doubt, would be hideously expensive and we might have them sitting around doing nothing for much of the year, as would other specialists if we got them in house. As I said earlier, as soon as a definitive figure is available, I will of course provide you with it but I am afraid that is where we stand this morning.”
Supplementary Question by Councillor Rob James:-
“Thank you for that response Councillor Lenny. I appreciate that there may be need for research into the true figure. Is it the intention of this administration to reduce the amount that they spend on Consultants generally?”
Response by Councillor Alun Lenny, Cabinet Member for Resources:-
“Yes, obviously we are very prudent in what we spend on anything including outside experts like this. As I said earlier, Heads of Service scrutinise very thoroughly the need for employing external consultants or specialists. So, I can assure you that that will continue and where we can make employ people or make use of the skills of people inhouse then certainly we will do so.”