£860k spent on communications consultancy by Peterborough City Council

Peterborough City Council spent more than £860,000 on a communications company during a five year period where it made large cuts to services.
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The money was paid to Westco Trading Ltd, a trading body set up by Westminster City Council, for “specialist” support”.

The expenditure has been criticised by local political leaders with Peterborough having made multi-million pounds of cuts over the past decade after seeing its core government grant largely wiped out, while demand for services has also risen.

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The council said Westco is a “national leader in local authority communications” with consultants first employed when Peterborough was in the national spotlight over high profile child sexual exploitation criminal cases.

£860k has been spent with communications firm Westco by Peterborough City Council£860k has been spent with communications firm Westco by Peterborough City Council
£860k has been spent with communications firm Westco by Peterborough City Council

Following that period the company was also employed to cover maternity absences.

In total, £868,540 was spent between 2013 and 2016, and from 2018 to 2020.

During this time the council has made dozens of redundancies and cut funding for charities and youth support while Calling on the the Government to provide more money.

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Leader of the council’s Liberal Democrat group Cllr Nick Sandford said: “The figures appear to show that a substantial amount has been spent on comms services from Westco Trading over a number of years.

“I accept that occasionally the council might need specialist expertise but, given that we now have joint working arrangements with Cambridgeshire County Council, it seems strange that the services of this external company are being used on such a consistent basis.”

The council communications team merged with the team in Cambridgeshire over the past year.

During the last three financial years, the city council’s external communications budget (including all money spent with Westco) shows it spent £380,704.

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Over the same period it spent £970,250 on its own communications staff.

Labour group leader Cllr Shaz Nawaz said: “I appreciate we need to use consultants from time to time for specialist work. I struggle to see how communication fits in with that especially given the amounts spent with Westco.

“We could’ve employed people locally who have expertise in communications.

“I understand Westco may have delivered successful models of reputation management. I am yet to see how they successfully helped the council use those models.

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“I know communication is a key element of any organisation. This is why it’s important to have an internal team. We need to get better at communicating with residents on a number of issues and that would be best managed by having a strong communications team based at the council, not London, or elsewhere for that matter.”

Background:

The council’s current chief finance officer Peter Carpenter was head of finance for Westminster City Council when Westco was established in 2008.

However, a Peterborough City Council spokeswoman said: “His role as finance lead concluded in 2014 and then he joined Peterborough City Council in 2017.

“The arrangement to use Westco predates Peter’s appointment with Peterborough.”

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Asked if due diligence was carried out before Westco was appointed over other communications companies, the spokeswoman replied: “An exemption from the council’s contract rules was sought to authorise the direct award of a contract to Westco.

“Westco was chosen as it was a national leader in local authority communications and had delivered successful models of reputation management, high quality campaigns and won national awards. In addition, and reference to the due diligence, Westco had undertaken previous work for the council and had prior knowledge of processes, procedures etc.”

Council response:

“Like every council in the country we use contractors when there is a need which cannot be met in-house. This might be when a level of expertise is needed which we do not have in house, or if there is a short term need for additional resource.

“The council first contracted the services of Westco for communications leadership and support around a number of high profile child sexual exploitation criminal cases which attracted national interest. At that time, this area of communications was quite specialist and there was not the capacity in-house to manage the level of work and media attention it created. Westco also went on to provide temporary leadership to cover maternity absences.

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“Overall, the council has reduced its spend on communications in the past decade (down from £736,096 in 2010/11 to £515,666 in 2019/20) and a reduction in staffing often meant there was a need to use external companies when there were large scale pieces of work which couldn’t be handled in-house or to cover long term periods of leave.

“We have reduced the spend on communications even further this year, with the communications teams of both the city council and Cambridgeshire County Council now working as one with a shared head of communications. This has generated further savings with the 2020/21 budget for communications set at £344,294.

“This merger of the teams has not only generated a saving for taxpayers across the whole county, but it has allowed greater resilience and reduced the need to use external suppliers to cover large scale communications issues and periods of leave.”

Figures:

Total spend with Westco, including VAT, by financial year:

. 2013/14 - £154,356.83

. 2014/15 - £370,849.32

. 2015/16 - £126,899.10

. 2018/19 - £118,260.00

. 2019/20 - £98,175.00

Spending on external communications providers:

. 2017/2018 - £74,235.26

. 2018/2019 - £141,050.00

. 2019/2020 - £165,419.00

Spending on internal communications staff (salary costs):

. 2017/2018 - £244,142.07

. 2018/2019 - £331,722.30

. 2019/2020 – £394,386.10