CORK’S two local authorities have spent €9.2m on external consultants in an 18-month period — but the spending of City Hall has come under the spotlight amid claims it’s out of sync with its overall budget.
The City Council has spent almost the same amount on external consultants as Cork County Council, despite having a total budget half the size and only a fraction of the geographical area to cover.
Between them, the two councils spent €9.2m on consultants over an 18-month period to June this year.
City Hall spent €4.4 million on consultants between January 2015 and June 2016, while the County Council spent close to €4.8 million during the same period.
The figures have raised questions over City Hall’s spending, given that the county council covers a much wider geographic area, has three times the population, and had a total budget of €295 million for 2016, compared to €151 million in the City Council.
City Councillor Terry Shannon criticised City Hall’s spending and said there was something to be learned from the County Council’s approach.
“The County Council are far more prudent, and we need to follow their example in that regard. That we would be spending that kind of money is crazy. There is a need for a certain level of consultancy, but nowadays it seems like if we are getting a bit of paving done, we get a consultant in,” he said.
However, Sinn Féin County Councillor Des O’Grady called the County Council’s spending “incredible,” criticising the local authorities spend on agency workers in particular.
The County Council spent €581,265 hiring agency staff in 2015, and €238,626 for the first half of 2016, deploying them in finance, organisational development, and water services.
“The council should be doing these jobs. They are hiring agency workers for water services. That is incredible given the taxpayer’s spend on Irish Water. That needs to be questioned,” he said.
He said that the recruitment embargo needed to be lifted, especially if the council lacked the expertise to put projects together without outside help.
The post City council criticised for consultancy spend appeared first on Evening Echo.