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Council taxpayers want to see their roads gritted, but will they be happy to see money spent on consultants?

As you may remember, I did recently suggest that a study of our councils' spending records might be a perfect cure for insomnia.

But it seems one Northumberland councillor has managed to stay awake long enough to comb through the details.

has Eric Pickles to thank, as it was the Communities Secretary who asked all councils to publish every item of expenditure over £500.

last year.

Cllr Bridgett, who's an Independent Lib Dem, has been running through them with a fine tooth comb and a pocket calculator.

There are some interesting facts - £13,000 spent on leased cars, £16,000 on mobile phone bills.

Sounds a lot, but then they are the kind of items you would expect a council of Northumberland's size to spend money on.

He was more concerned though by the figure he found under the heading of Professional, Consultancy and Other Agencies.

That amounted to £1.5m in just one month.

From that you can remove £1m the council spent on managing its housing stock and on the Connexions careers service, as they are effectively services.

But Cllr Bridgett says that still leaves around £500,000 of what he calls "sickening waste".

Cllr Steven Bridgett says spending money on consultants is sickeningly wasteful.

He believes it is criminal for the council to spend money on highly-paid consultants at a time when it is considering making hundreds of its staff redundant.

And you can see his point. Northumberland County Council has to save £60m in the next financial year.

So spending thousands in just one month on outside consultants in management, the environment, transport and even fraud might seem profligate.

But is it that simple?

The council says no. It says that £500,000 actually covers a whole range of services it has to buy in - and not just consultants.

The figure also includes court fees, advice on complex childcare cases and payments to subcontractors - money that it's hard to avoid spending.

It also says consultants can offer value for money. It says one firm - which was paid £64,000 in December - has come up with a plan to save the authority £1.9m a year.

Cllr Bridgett asks though why the council had to go outside for that expertise instead of finding it within its own staff.

So who's right?

To be honest I'm not sure I'm qualified to say.

The row almost raises as many questions as it answers.

Consultants can often be brought in by councils for short periods because although they might seem expensive, unlike staff, you don't have to pay their pension and national insurance contributions.

It is also unlikely that a council will have an expert on all subject areas within their staff.

But we are now living through tough times for our local authorities.

And it is right that every penny spent should be scrutinised.

Council taxpayers losing their libraries or community centres are entitled to ask whether spending money on consultants is wise.

Councils then will have to justify every bit of expenditure.

Especially as councillors and taxpayers can now see for themselves just how much is spent on what.

And all of this is of course going to be increasingly sensitive.

We have seen 90 senior Lib Dem councillors protest about the cuts in a letter to The Times.

They included several from this region, including the Newcastle City Council leader David Faulkner and the Lib Dem group leaders in Cumbria, Hartlepool, Durham, South Tyneside, Gateshead and Richmondshire.

They say the cuts imposed by the Government are too deep and too fast.

But of course there will now be increased scrutiny of council spending to see whether the kind of front line cuts they are worried about are inevitable.

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