Issue - meetings

Report FSD19090

The Committee considered a report detailing total expenditure on consultants in 2018/19 and expenditure on consultants to June 2019 for both Revenue and Capital Budgets.

Noting that the year to year split for capital budgets was presented over two pages, the Committee asked that for future reports the information for both years be presented on one page.

The Committee sought further clarification for the following items of expenditure:

·  Appendix 2 – Gartner UK Ltd – response to be provided by the IT Division

·  Appendix 2 – Bell Phillips – why was the car park capacity study not part of the retender exercise – response to be provided by the Property Division.

The Chairman expressed concern that some of the contracts (in particular Gartner UK Ltd and In Form Consult Ltd) had been approved by waiver.

In response to a question, the Chief Accountant confirmed that consultants were engaged where there was not the in-house capacity or expertise to complete the work.  This made comparisons between the cost of engaging consultants and completing the work in-house difficult.

A Member expressed concern that with a large in-house HR Team it has been necessary to engage a consultant for a Member Appeal Panel due to lack of relevant specialist skills.  It was confirmed to the Committee that a third party HR specialist was commissioned due to the circumstances of the case.  It was suggested that this work should be listed under ‘insufficient in-house resource’.

The Chairman suggested that this needed to be monitored and if necessary a Task and Finish Group would be established to consider the issue in detail.

RESOLVED: That

1.  The overall expenditure on Consultants as set out in this report be noted;

2.  The report be referred onto individual PDS Committees for further consideration.