Members of North Lanarkshire Council voted against looking into ways to reduce the local authority’s spending on consultants and legal advisors.
A motion from Progressive Change North Lanarkshire councillor Gerry Brennan (Motherwell North) asked the council to establish a working group to look into reducing its reliance on outside consultants and legal fees in favour of delivering more solutions in-house.
Councillor Brennan described the amount the council had spent in the last five years as “quite colossal”.
He added: “Bearing in mind that for two of those years we were largely disrupted by Covid and that limited our operations in certain areas of business. Nonetheless we managed to run up a bill of almost £17 million. Yes, you did hear it correctly, £17 million used on external consultants and legal advice.”
Councillor Brennan further said that parents were pleading with the council to change direction on its school transport policies but had been told there was no money available in the budget.
The motion was opposed with an amendment from finance convener Councillor Andrew Duffy-Lawson (Labour, Motherwell North) who said that external consultants and legal advisors played a critical role in the council’s decision-making processes and any move to curtail access to them would have far-reaching consequences.
He added that in a world of rapid change the council was not always equipped with the specialist skills to meet these challenges and sometimes relied on seasoned professional consultants from various sectors.
He added that despite the high skill and competence of the council’s own officers it was not always possible to cover every aspect of law or be the bearers of all knowledge, and that without expert guidance the council would be exposed to legal pitfalls that could undermine its integrity and public trust.
He added that restricting access to consultants would “stifle” the council’s ability to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of local government, with negative implications including delays in projects including the construction or repair of schools and housing.
Councillor Duffy-Lawson added that the amount the council had paid was lower than Councillor Brennan had claimed, at around £13.5 million over five years, and later described consultants as “essential partners” whose contributions should be celebrated.
The majority of the chamber sided with the administration, with the subsequent vote ending 63 to eight in favour of the amendment.
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