ORC consultant spending criticised

Spending by the Otago Regional Council on consultants and lawyers has ‘‘absolutely staggered’’ one councillor, who has asked for clarification.

The council’s work should be done instead by existing or new staff based in Otago, Cr Gary Kelliher told the council at a recent finance committee meeting.

His concerns are about information provided to the committee that showed the council had spent $1million so far this year on consultants, and $137,000 on their travel and accommodation.

The figures also showed legal costs had gone over budget by $810,000.

‘‘I am astounded, absolutely staggered, at what we are spending on consultants,’’ he told the committee.

He asked staff for a breakdown on the number of consultants and what work they did, but council chief executive Sarah Gardner said staff were busy with the annual plan and would not be able to respond immediately, offering instead a report to council by the end of July.

After the meeting, Cr Kelliher said he was disappointed with that response.

‘‘I am aware of some ... so their charge-out rates, I suspect, will be pretty high.’’

He believed most consultants were from outside the Otago region and said staff should consider bringing them in-house.

‘‘For some of these long-term roles I just cannot see why we cannot have people relocating here and permanent positions created for them.

‘‘I just do not see much advantage for Otago in it.’’

He was aware of complaints from the public about having to bear increased costs, which people believed were partly due to the use of consultants or lawyers from outside the region.

At the meeting, Mrs Gardner said the council had been significantly understaffed and used consultants to keep up with the required workload.

‘‘There are times when consultants provide specialist skills for specific work that would not justify a full-time employee or be available in the market for a full-time position.’’

It had also used ‘‘a lot’’ of Otago-based legal resources, she said.

As for going over budget, it was difficult to predict how much work was needed, as the amount of work required had increased.

Cr Hilary Calvert said staff should inform councillors whom the legal advice was coming from, in what areas, and at what rate.

‘‘Not because it is not appropriate for Sarah to do, but [because] other people are paying the costs of the people we have chosen.’’

She said it would put councillors in the position to respond if their decisions were questioned.

Cr Bryan Scott said it was good practice to have a balance between consultants and staff.

‘‘We have tasked the chief executive with some significant challenges and expected high standards and scrutiny — at the very least we should allow [her] to have a good team, fit for purpose.’’

The specifics requested by Cr Kelliher from staff would be provided in a council meeting on July 22.

molly.houseman@odt.co.nz