Scottish Water accused of squandering £50million on consultants
Finance Secretary John Swinney called for quango bosses to pay back taxpayer-funded bonuses
Scottish Daily Express - 4th February 2010
Scottish Water officials
were yesterday accused of squandering almost
£50million on outside consultants in just four years.The disclosure comes after it emerged chief executive Richard Ackroyd had openly snubbed Finance Secretary John Swinney’s call for quango bosses to pay back taxpayer-funded bonuses.
He is declining to hand over £101,000 he received in 2009 to top-up his £373,000 a year salary.
And critics claimed the decision, since 2007, to spend £50million of its £800million funding from the Scottish Government on outside consultants “beggared belief”.
Tory MSP Margaret Mitchell said: “What are Scottish Water officials being paid for if their first reaction is always to being in external consultants? These are huge sums of taxpayers’ money which should be improving services.”
Mark Wallace, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “We are continually told that senior management at Scottish Water should have massive salaries because they are talented managers.
“It beggars belief that they need to spend so much on consultants to tell them how to do their job.”
The spending emerged after a Freedom of Information request revealed the public body spent over £7million in 2007, £15million in 2008 and £16million in 2009.
Already this year an estimated £10million has been lavished on external consultants, with a further £9million planned for 2011 and 2012.
The news comes weeks after radical proposals were put forward by a think tank to privatise the body, but continue to have it answerable to the government.
Scottish Water last night defended the spending saying its investment programme often required expertise “not always readily available”.
A spokeswoman added: “We rely on engineering consultants to bring the capacity and the knowledge we need to ensure the programme is delivered efficiently and on time.”
The Scottish Government also backed the body claiming it was “performing well within the public sector” and had reduced operating expenditure by 40 per cent.
See also:
Top Scots public servants feel the heat
Huge cost of government waste reaches £85bn
How to save £50 billion [780 KB PDF ]
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