Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to report of the Corporate Director Regeneration & Community Services/Head of Regeneration & Development.

The Corporate Director Regeneration & Community Services presented the report which provided information requested by Members in relation to expenditure incurred during 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 on the use of consultants to support, supplement and complement the work of Officers across the Council.

He said consultants were widely used across the whole public sector including Welsh Government for a number of different purposes, and with Blaenau Gwent, consultants were used in a number of way, i.e.

·        To provide assistance in specialist areas where there was no or limited expertise or experience within the Council

·        To provide independent advice and a different perspective (challenge)

·        To supplement resources where there was insufficient capacity to undertake a specific, identified task e.g. because the work has come into the Council unexpectedly, or where the work needed to be progressed within a specific / limited time period.

·        To provide training to BG staff to enhance their own expertise e.g. changes to legislation

·        A substantial amount of the consultant costs was associated with project delivery and funded through external grants

He said the advantage of engaging Consultants was also that they were only required for a short period of time enabling an organisation to pay for that skill on demand only when needed. This was often an effective use of the Council’s resource and avoided / replaced the need to employ additional staff, with specialist knowledge & skills, on a permanent basis.

During 2018/19 and 2019/20 the Council spent a total of £0.7m and £1.1m on Consultants across all services, and the attached Appendix identified those Consultants, the costs and the reason for engagement relating to the Economy portfolio.

A Member endorsed the explanation provided by the Corporate Director for the use of consultants.

Another Member stressed the importance of using consultants wisely and only when absolutely necessary, as he was aware of a number of occasions where consultants had been used and the resulting reports had been shelved.  He also referred to the consultancy costs incurred as a result of the test track and Revive & Thrive initiative.

In response the Corporate Director said in terms of the prospective test track facility and the potential opportunity for Blaenau Gwent, further external expertise would be required to support the project which was a large project with a number of aspects that would require specialist and industry knowledge.  Hopefully the further use of consultants on this project would be done in partnership with our partner LA’s, who were also supportive of taking the project forward and the additional work to explore opportunities.  However, he stressed that consultants were only used for specialist expertise or for additional capacity.

In terms of the Revive & Thrive initiative, the Head of Regeneration & Development confirmed that the company was used to help set up the bid for both the Rassau and Tafarnaubach and this work was now complete.

A Member said looking at the figures over the 2 years he felt  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8