Darren Fower on Peterborough City Council and Consultants

Darren Fower LibDem Leader on Peterborough City Council talks to the BBC’s Paul Stainton about the delaying of a requested answer to questions about the value for money of Peterborough City Council’s £12 million annual spend on consultants. Broadcast at 08:20 on Thursday 10th June 2010 in the Peterborough Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

PAUL: Now a city councillor has accused the Council’s leadership of a cover-up. Tory councillor Mike Fletcher is still waiting to answers to why Peterborough City Council spent twelve million pounds on consultants in the last financial year. And he says he’s been sidelined by his fellow Conservatives, just for asking awkward questions. (TAPE)
MIKE: And if I get into trouble with the Conservative Group, which I hope I don’t, because I am a committed Conservative ../
PAUL: Do they think you’re being disloyal?
MIKE: Exactly. … then I’m quite prepared to leave the Conservative group and join a group that’s going to support me, which the Independents are doing, including the Liberal Democrats. (LIVE)
PAUL: Yes he’s not a very happy man.(TAPE)
MIKE: Cover up? Paul I don’t want to use strong language here, but (PAUSE) yes. (LAUGHS).
PAUL: (LAUGH) We’ll leave it at that! Mike Fletcher. (LIVE)
PAUL: Darren Fower is Leader of Peterborough’s Liberal Democrat group. Morning Darren.
DARREN: Good morning Paul.
PAUL: Well he’s accused the Council of a cover-up this morning. Are you surprised by that?
DARREN: No. And we welcome the fact that one Conservative has finally put their head above the trench, and is asking these awkward questions.
PAUL: And do yoy expect Peterborough City Council to move on this now and respond?
DARREN: I’m sure they’ll move. As to whether they’ll provide the answers, the full answers that Councillor Fletcher and the Liberal Democrat group have been campaigning for for nearly three years now, I doubt.
PAUL: We have to say that Peterborough City Council say they’ve done nothing wrong here. They told Mr Fletcher according to them that they would be putting this group together, and we would all know the outcome of the results of the group’s findings by September.
DARREN: I can refer back to when we used to have this position of Deputy Chief Executive, which was the first time we’d ever had it. Our group campaigned to find out exactly how much the chap was getting paid. We were told that we couldn’t be told this, because it was commercially sensitive, and it would cause all types of problems. We obviously didn’t rest there. We continued to fight. We got the result. And it was quite an impressive amount of money that one chap was getting for a job that wasn’t previously required.
PAUL: Yes. Is it merely a coincidence that Councillor Fletcher’s departure from the Scrutiny Panel comes after he failed to toe the party line? It goes back to what was being said quite a while ago now, about the sort of bullying nature of the way this council’s being run. It intimates that, doesn’t it?
DARREN: Absolutely. The Conservative group, as far as I’m aware, remain the only political group at the Town Hall with a whip system, ie you do what you get told, otherwise you’re in trouble. And I think it’s obviously positive that one of their troupe has finally thought, well I can’t actually put up with this situation. Because it really is a shame. We have a city council that has got to make what they call huge efficiency savings over the coming years, millions and millions of pounds. Council tax is going up every year. Services are being sold off, assets, the Museum etcetera. So just how good are these consultants?
PAUL: We’d like to know, wouldn’t we I suppose? Peterborough City Council say that the delay is because of the election. Is that fair?
DARREN: Well it’s certainly a reason that they can use. Whether it’s fair, I’ll probably leave that to your listeners, but if we refer back again to the Primary Care Trust financial crisis, one of the areas they talked about changing was the use of consultants to save themselves hundreds of thousands of pounds. Now that was chaired by the Leader of the City Council . He’s now handed his notice in there. But again we did have a situation of contradiction for some time.
PAUL: This is what Peterborough City Council have to say this morning. We asked them to come on, and we are trying to get them on now, to respond to what Councillor Fletcher has said. “The Council is puzzled by Councllor Fletcher’s comments, because it was agreed by the Scrutiny Committee that the Task and Finsh Group set up to review the Council’s use of consultants would report back to that Scrutiny Committee in September, to say it was delayed because the elections. The findings of the work undertaken by the Group will be reported back in September and will be available. So that’s their reaction to that.” You’re saying it’s not soon enough.
DARREN: Well I think this city council is starting to get a reputation of delay, whether it’s fountains in Cathedral Square or simple questions by elected Members. It’s really not a standard that I think the people of Peterborough should accept.
PAUL: Darren Fower who’s Leader of the Liberal Democrat group this morning. Your thoughts on that appreciated. Do we have a right to know right now what the Peterborough City Council has saved on consultants, and what they’ve spent on consultants?