COUNCILLORS have played down the amount of money paid to consultants by Dorset County Council.

The Echo revealed on Monday that the overall cost for consultants from April 2014-December 2014 (the first three quarters of the year) was more than £1.4m.

Members of the county council’s staffing committee met to discuss a report by chief executive Debbie Ward.

The report shows consultants have been employed by a number of departments across the authority.

This includes the Chief Executive’s Department, which spent £132,000 between October and December.

Debbie Ward, chief executive of the county council, said: “I think it’s quite important to know where the money’s gone. We don’t spend that money lightly at all. Most of them are related to front line service delivery and how we are working to transform the organisation.”

Ms Ward said the council wasn’t using consultants in ‘a big way’ that left big bills to pay.

She said: “I think it’s worth remembering that even if we spent in the next quarter, what we spent for the past three quarters if you bring it up to an annual level, we have spent less than three quarters of one per cent of the county council’s budget in actually utilising consultants and agency staff.

“It’s still a very moderate amount from an organisation with the roles and responsibilities that we have.”

Ms Ward said legislation such as the Children and Families Act provided additional pressures.

She said: “The majority of spending is going to adult and community services and that’s also going on front line short term sickness cover. It’s exactly where we’d expect it to be going.”

Cllr Peter Finney, chairing the committee, said: “It’s really interesting because an organisation like ours - with the myriad of things it has to do - it cannot possibly look after every single aspect of that. It does make sense not to have full time employees for a small amount of work.

“To bring in a consultant to cover sickness absences is something everybody has to live with. It’s a fact of life.”

Cllr Trevor Jones said there was ‘nothing exceptional’ about these figures.

He said: “When an organisation is making big changes, it needs to take appropriate professional advice.

“It’s normal business and professional practice”.

The Echo is waiting to receive a breakdown of how much individual consultants have been paid and the number of hours worked.

This information is expected to be received by April 16.