Brighton and Hove City Council pours money down the drain while cutting jobs and services

It was quite a revelation in the Argus that the process of recruiting the four "strategic directors" cost £120,000, very nearly the salary for each of the posts.  Most council workers will not be surprised at this kind of profligacy coming, as it does, hard on the heels of the news that the Council has spent £300,000 on consultants to tell it how to save money (I am not making this up). 

Why are we paying councillors and senior managers to.....er......pay consultants to tell them what to do?

Of course, government-by-management-consultant in local government is nothing new - it was a trend very much pioneered by New Labour, enthusiastically carried on by the Tories.

A few questions which you might put want to put to your local councillor

• How did it cost £120,000 for an outside firm to fill four posts?
• How does this represent a good use of public money?
• How did it cost £14,000 to put together a website a sixth-former could have put together?
• Was a comparison done for the cost of filling the posts using in-house HR skills?
• How much is it costing to fire the directors who are being replaced by the new ones?
• How many care assistants, social workers, youth workers, streetcleaners, teaching assistants could be employed for all the money spent?