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Spending on consultants is budgeted to soar to $62.2 million this year, despite a promised crackdown on a culture of waste at Auckland City by Mayor John Banks and his Citizens & Ratepayers allies.
The $62.2 million spend is 9.6 per cent more than the $56.7 million due to be spent on consultants in the current financial year. Three years ago, the bill was $42.6 million.
The Herald also understands that law firms, which cost ratepayers a further $8.4 million a year, are seeking a 10 per cent rise in their fees.
A package of measures to control spending on consultants and ensure value for money was passed by the finance and strategy committee yesterday.
The committee heard how the council hired consultants to review consultants.
Mr Banks, who did not attend the meeting, later admitted the measures were clearly not enough. Better disciplines on spending were needed, particularly when consultant costs were going up and capital expenditure was going down.
Mr Banks said consultant costs should be at least held to last year's level because ratepayers did not have the cash to pay for extra costs at this difficult economic time.
Finance general manager Andrew McKenzie said spending on consultants was not a bad thing.
"The fact that we use a resource with a tagline, consultant, rather than staff member doesn't make it wrong. It's the cost of delivering the service and whether it is value for money," he said.
In many areas, he said, an external expert or adviser was by far the most cost effective way of getting the quality of service we want.
Mr McKenzie said a large chunk of the coming year's increase in spending on consultants was for work on the redevelopment of the Auckland Art Gallery and upgrade of Aotea Square.
The $113 million art gallery project includes a $15.1 million budget for consultants on things such as architectural design, engineering work and project management.
Mr McKenzie said some firms had not had an increase in six years and there would be no overall increase in legal costs.
Finance committee chairman Doug Armstrong, who wanted to slash $20 million on things such as consultants while he was in opposition, said C&R was committed to chopping the consultants' bill but it was not easy.
"It's a question of whether we get value for money for individual projects, rather than the number of consultants we employ," he said.
