Andy Gall interviewing Mark Wallace Campaign Director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance on BBC Radio Peterborough at 08:10 am 1st March 2010 icw a legal challenge to the release of details of payments made by Peterborough City Council to consultants.
Andy Gall interviewing Mark Wallace Campaign Director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance on BBC Radio Peterborough at 08:10 am 1st March 2010 icw a legal challenge to the release of details of payments made by Peterborough City Council to consultants.
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AG: Now in the past hour we’ve heard that Peterborough City Council is still spending millions of pounds a year on employing consultants. And we’re not likely to find out what they’re being used for, as the consultancy firm is threatening legal action preventing information from being disclosed. Cllr. Mike Fletcher Chairman of the Sustaianble Growth Scrutiny Committee says the taxpayer has a right to know where their money is being spent. Here’s how he found out about the threatened legal action:
(Cllr Mike Fletcher TAPE: On Monday 22nd February, I received an email in the evening, and was going to have an Interim Meeting the next day, but it was received without any prior consultation whatsoever, which had been issued by the Solicitors to the Council.
AG: Right.
MF: And it states: “on the instructions of the Solicitors to the Council, the Informal Meeting of the Sustainable Growth Scrutiny Committee tomorrow is required to be cancelled” The reason being, the Council is being threatened with legal action, over the release of information, and she needs to fully consider what we propose to release, with the lawyers acting for the consultants concerned. She has requested ten working days to sort out this issue. I find that to be somewhat astounding.)
AG: Now Mark Wallace is Campaign Director at Taxpayers’ Alliance and joins us now. Good morning Mark.
MW: Good morning.
AG: Thank you for joining us. Now councils .. do councils normally spend this sort of money on consultants?
MW: It’s actually been an area that so far has been very secretive. Not really in the past because firms have threatened to sue in this disgraceful way, but actually because councils have found it very difficult to put a figure specifically on how much they spend on consultants. That’s partially because obviously you have things like engineering and road development consultants, IT consultants, and management consultants. there’s always been a bit of debate. But it does seem clear that most councils spend at least a few million pounds on this. And I think most people will be shocked to learn that it’s that high.
AG: Where’s the culture gone of being open and honest though, and transparent? That seems to have disappeared when it comes to this little area of consultancy.
Continue reading “Interview with Mark Wallace: 1st March 2010”
