A savings target of £4m. was set for 2026, of which £2.5m. was to come from reduced consultancy and contractor spending within general revenue, and £1.5m. from capital projects. The Budget reports that consultancy spending within general revenue has fallen from £15.5m. in 2024 to £12m. in 2025, with 2026 currently forecast at about £10m.
But Scrutiny claims the general-revenue reduction amounted to around £2m. – half a million short of the £2.5m. target – and that even that could not be traced in the figures, because the money was accounted for through the Budget Reserve rather than cut from committee budgets.
With total revenue spending barely changed year-on-year, Scrutiny president Andy Sloan said that any saving was impossible to see.
‘The whole savings target for 2026 was £4m. out of an £800m. budget,’ he said.
‘The commitment to savings is questionable by the public if we can’t even deliver in full £2.5m.’
P&R finance head Gareth Fooks said the discipline of requiring each area to justify its consultancy costs had reduced their use, and that the committee expected a corresponding sum to be left unspent in the Budget Reserve.
He said the exercise had also brought ‘operational benefits’, with departments better understanding their costs.