Councillors in a clash over cash as borough spend goes up and up

THURROCK Council have been criticised for spending nearly £2million in one financial year on consultants.

Between April 2007 to March 2008 the Conservative run council has spent £1,933,681 hiring consultants.

In the same period of time Southend Council, the only other unitary authority in Essex, spent just £428,420 on consultants.

The consultants and interims hired by Thurrock Council are paid anything from £84 to as much as £750 per day, for posts such as ‘Head of Service’ and ‘Operations Manager’.

In many cases the consultants doing the work are paid a fixed salary by their agency, who then keep the rest of the money.

Large sums of money have also been spent on consultants in the previous two financial years.

From April 2006 to March 2007 the council spent a total of £1,061,705 on consultants and £911,756 was spent between April 2005 and March 2006.

The Gazette can also reveal that the tax payer’s purse has received a further dent as the council has been forced to pay out £5million over the last two years in staff sick pay.

Between April 1 2006 and March 31 2008 the council have paid out for 80,728 staff sick days.

This equates to nine sick days per employee in 2006 to 2007, and 9.8 sick days per employee in 2007 to 2008.

These figures include school staff but not any of the borough’s teachers.

Comparatively, neighbouring unitary authority Southend calculated in their last absence review in October 2006 that the annual cost of staff absence is approximately £1.89 million, including all employees who work in Southend’s schools.

Thurrock Labour party leader Councillor, John Kent has now branded the Conservative administration’s leadership a ‘complete failure’.

He said: “The fact that over 80,000 days were lost to sickness in the last two years at a cost to the council tax payer of £2.5m a year, along with the £600k spent on suspending staff over the past two years, the more being £10k spent every single day on paying consultants and a staff turnover rate of, nearly, 25 per cent last year, clearly demonstrates a complete failure of the Conservative administration to offer any competent leadership of the council.”

The leader of Thurrock Council, Councillor Terry Hipsey, hit back at Councillor Kent saying: "And all born about by the government who Councillor Kent disgracefully supports who have failed our borough and this country.

“They have of recent years created a number of unelected quangos (for which Hipsey pockets £15,000 per year) who have created a mountain of bureaucracy and through parliament thrust endless new legislation and red tape onto councils which our staff have to endure and deal with.

“It is no wonder some of our staff are feeling the stresses of local authority work".

"Lets also not forget Thurrock council employs over 5,000 staff.

“All employers have a legal obligation to pay sick pay when members of staff are unwell.

“Where suspensions are concerned, the government have created very tight local authority employment laws so we have to be very careful how suspensions are managed."

He added: "Lets also remember my Conservative administration gave its residents the lowest council tax for 9 years this year and another underspent budget from last year.

“Its a shame Councillor Kent doesn't open his eyes a little wider to see what is happening to families in Thurrock where the Government he supports is robbing everyone blind with taxes.”

Perhaps one day Thurrock residents will open their eyes and see what Thurrock Councillors really are.