Cheshire East Council believes it will have slashed its school transport costs by more than £3m by the end of the financial year, writes Belinda Ryan.
But they have hired Edge Consultants at a cost of £733,000 to help it bring down the cost of transporting children and young people to school.
A paper to the children and families committee stated: “The overall cost of engaging Edge as consultants for the transformation programme will be £733k with financial improvements forecast to achieve around £3.1 million by the end of 2024/25, a return on investment of £2.37million (323%).”
In November 2022, the consultants revealed that Cheshire East was paying £3,000 more per pupil than most equivalent councils to transport some children to school each year.
Since then, the council has been working with Edge to reduce its costs for school transport.
Claire Williamson, director of education, said travel support would always be in demand and the cost would always be subject to external factors such as local provision and fuel prices.
“Overall, a review of the programme shows the transformation of travel support has been successful,” she said.
“Most of our key indicators in relation to the cost of transport are showing a positive trajectory.”
Committee chair Carol Bulman (Middlewich, Lab) said: “We were all very worried about transport costs a year ago, two years ago, but it seems that Edge’s recommendations do seem to have worked.
“This £733,000 we’ve paid them, but the savings definitely justify that outlay don’t they? It feels all the trends are in the right direction.”
Gill Betton said it had been a team effort between the consultants and council staff.
Cllr Brian Puddicombe (Macclesfield, Lab) added: “I do frequently have misgivings about the cost of consultants, but Edge have clearly done a good job in this respect and always pleased to hear it’s been great in-house working as well.”
CEC has applied to put taxes up 9.9%, Without negotiation, more corruption,, Police need to get involved!
This item on the Agenda is on pages 269 to 282 of a 294 page document Having quickly looked at the items and in particular this one, the reports are an exercise in verbose practice.
They even have a page marked “This page is intentionally left blank”
You need to read it to asses the way things are reported and the terminology eg “The dynamic purchasing system (DPS)” etc etc.
The Edge report was compressed into 2 years rather than 3. Therefore, it would possibly have cost near to £1 million for 3 years.
Is it any wonder CEC is a problem when so much time is taken to produce many many paragraphs which say very little.
Yet Again Cheshire East Council has admitted to a huge waste of council tax payers money. Sadly if you do not have executives, directors and senior managers that lack the ability to make substantial savings and have to hire consultants to find solutions, the individuals should be dismissed under capability. A key objective of any manager is budgetary control, effective use of public funds providing value. It is absolutely shocking that you can allow this vast amount of money to be wasted in the first place. Officers have allowed 3.1 million Pounds to be wasted which includes £733,000 in Consultancy Fees
This is nothing to be proud of . It is a total disgrace . It proves beyond any doubt that Cheshire East Council is incompetent.
Transpose this waste across the Country and try to work out the total loss to the tax payer. It will be billions of pounds.
You are shouting this from the roof tops as some great achievement.
I don’t know what you think with. Sadly not very much is the answer I would suggest?
£733000 Ratepayers money for ‘Consultants’???…Gordon Bennett Wept!!!
Needs Close Scrutiny and Investigation for sure?…
More ridiculous spending
So what exactly did the consultant recommend, could it have been as simple as removing some of this service or just looking for a more competitive quote by putting this provision out to tender to achieve a lower price.
Call me cynical but couldn’t any of our overpaid councillors have come up with the cost saving ideas,probably not,here is some advice for free and will save you a load of money, let’s get rid of the dead wood within the council.