I often write about NCC's prolific use of consultants and generally like to mention how much cash said consultant's trouser each time.
However, they've found a new trick to stop me doing this. Although they have to report a decision to use a firm of consultants they are hiding behind their 'framework agreement' with PricewaterhouseCoopers in order to avoid disclosing the cost of each project. See this decision notice to use PwC for a review of business support.
Ah yes. This was in the local media a while back but I forgot to mention that NCC spends 8.7% of its staffing budget on consultants (approx £12.1m), the highest proportion in Nottinghamshire. It also spends 7.1% of the staff budget on agency workers.
See this report from UNISON for more details.
This is happening all over the council at the moment - even more than it used to. There is a freeze on all job vacancies because of the impending cuts. So some teams are getting round this by hiring consultants at great expense.
ReplyDelete