Last updated 05:36, Friday, 19 September 2008

Local authorities have been contracting out their services for many years so we should not, perhaps, be surprised that Cumbria County Council spends large sums on consultants’ fees.

But £32.7m in six years is surprisingly large – and would have gone some way to offsetting the £50m the council anticipates it will need to settle equal pay claims.

Local government is now so complex and so mired in regulation that it is inevitable that specialist consultants will sometimes be brought in at district and county level, whether to assess the need for a major supermarket development or highways scheme or find greener means of disposing of waste.

Councils have to monitor and evaluate every keystroke and phone call and have to meet – or explain their failure to meet – long lists of performance targets.

They are also required to strive for ‘best value’ in everything and to consult residents on planning applications and ahead of any big change in the way services are delivered.

This quest for transparency and accountability is vitally important but often cumbersome in practice, taking too much valuable officer time and doubtless bumping up the consultancy bill yet higher.

Public consultations, whether undertaken in-house or contracted out, often leave the taxpayer suspecting the authority has sought their views to tick the right boxes but has not really listened to what they have to say.

There is nothing to beat local knowledge and experience and there have been moves in the past few years towards stronger grassroots government in which parish councils, for example, are given greater responsibilities.

The trend for hiring outside consultants may now be undermining the value placed on local knowledge and local people’s instinct for what is necessary, fair and deliverable.

Too much detailed research and too many computer-generated models can also bog down decision making to the point where funding is lost or a project becomes out-dated.

Cumbria County Council should look again at its own resources and see whether it is trusting sufficiently in the expertise and local know-how of its officers and elected members.