Transport for London has come unfer fire for spending £15M on management consultants in just one of its operations over a two-year period.
The RMT union has called for a full National Audit Office investigation after submitting a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to uncover the figures. The ‘grotesque’ fees were used for consultants in TfL’s congestion charging and traffic enforcement operation, with most of the money spent on a consultancy contract with Deloittes, whose partners charge TfL £2,761 a day.
RMT, which has submitted FoI requests for details on another nine sections of TfL’s operations, has warned that thousands of jobs are at risk as part of the organisation’s £2.4bn efficiency drive.
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: ‘We are going to fight for a forensic examination of the use of management consultants at TfL. We want to know just who is signing off these millions of pounds of taxpayers money and why they are doing it while thousands of TfL staff face the threat of the sack.’
But TfL said it had significantly reduced spending on consultants in recent years, and only hired specialist skills when not otherwise available among its staff.
‘We have already reduced the number of consultants working within this [congestion & traffic enforcement] department by over 80%, and have no plans to employ any consultants at all once the new contract for the congestion charging scheme is successfully delivered,’ a spokesperson said.
‘Any reduction in staff as part of our programme of at least £2.4bn in savings and efficiencies will first be met through not filling vacancies and ending the use of contractors and other temporary staff, avoiding compulsory redundancies wherever possible.’
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