Shropshire Council “spends 60 per cent on external contracts” - opposition leader claims

Councillor Rosemary Dartnall, leader of the Labour group, made the claim while discussing the Conservative administration's budget at last week’s full council meeting.

Referred to as the Financial Strategy 2025/26 to 2029/30, the papers were signed off by the majority of councillors.

However, both Labour and Green members abstained, while all of the Liberal Democrats voted against it.

Last autumn, a collaborative budget group was set up whereby all leaders said they’d put politics aside to help the council’s finances.

However, Cllr Dartnall said the group ‘have been deeply disappointed about the lack of transparency’ about the council’s third-party costs.

“We have studied carefully 40% of the council’s spending, the non-contracted parts, but the rest is a closed book,” said Cllr Dartnall.

“External contracts undertaken by the Conservative administration account for 60% of the total council expenditure. This imbalance has hampered the council’s ability to transform.

“We wanted to see real improvement in this area, but despite asking, there was never any meaningful access to this vitally important area. Until Shropshire Council takes control of its contracting habits, the financial crisis will continue.”

One of the firms that Shropshire Council works closely with is external consultancy firm, PwC.

However, Councillor Duncan Kerr, leader of the Green Party, said that many members are not convinced that the company offers the council value for money.

“However, they have told us that they are now holding contract meetings with the main third-party suppliers,” said Cllr Kerr.

“It does strike me as bizarre that these were not already in place and we needed to employ external consultants to do this.

“I do wonder whether the contracts written in the heady pre-Covid days included clauses enabling is to recoup costs if our finances changed.

“I suspect that once again we naively trusted the private sector and they are taking advantage.

“I hope we will learn from this in making decisions regarding in-house or procured services in the future.”

Councillor Heather Kidd, co-leader of the Lib Dems, however argued that the transparency the group has been this term has been much better than it was in the past.

“But we still have residents who have no idea what is going to impact on them,” said Cllr Kidd.

“There is little reference to the 14 years in the budget papers of Conservative government cuts in Shropshire, but there’s a lot about the Government’s underfunding this year, which I must say was appalling in shifting the Rural Grant away from us.”

Fellow co-leader, Councillor Roger Evans, added that despite asking the council lots of questions, almost none were given, resulting in the party withdrawing from the process.

“The proposed cuts for this year are again being rolled forward with no, or very little, explanation,” he said.

In response, Councillor Lezley Picton, leader of the council, said that, despite asking lots of questions, the Lib Dems ‘never listen to the answers’.

“There was a huge amount of information given out,” said Cllr Picton.

“What I expected to hear was what the alternatives were going to be. Cllr Kerr and Cllr Towers (Ind) were the only two who talked about looking forward.

“Everything about what the opposition talked about was about giving a knock. Never any suggestion about what they’re going to do for the better in the next four years.

“The finances aren’t suddenly going to get better on May 1. Yes there have been difficulties, but we have got through them, but we’re still here and business is till open.”