Tories turn down chance to save money - Brooks
November 30, 2006 12:00 AM
Tories have turned down a chance to save money
Councillor Jeff Brooks, who chairs the Overview & Scrutiny Commission (the council's accountability mechanism), has expressed his disappointment that the Conservative administration has failed to implement money-saving opportunities they had previously agreed. He will be asking a question at this week's meeting of the Council's Executive to uncover how much in savings the council has missed out on.
Councillor Brooks commented:
"I spent 18 months with the Leader of the Council looking at service procurement - i.e. how the council goes about buying the things it needs. We decided between us that appointing a procurement specialist would effectively reduce council tax as it would reduce the cost of buying services and goods. We calculated that in the first year of appointment, this position would be cost neutral, and by the second year would be delivering savings by having a professional procurement manager in place."
Councillor Brooks continued:
"This proposal has been to the Council's Executive, which agreed the appointment of the procurement specialist. Twelve months down the line, West Berkshire Council still does not have this person in post actively saving the tax payer money. This is just typical of the laziness demonstrated time after time by the Tory leadership. I will be asking the Tory leadership at this week's Executive what the savings from this post could have been if they had implemented it straight away. Why bother to agree something if you're not going to bother to put it into action?"
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