Saturday, May 03, 2025

Birmingham's £91 million consultancy bill

Bankrupt Birmingham and its 13,000-plus employees are spending at least £91 million on consultants as far as I can make out from scrutinising the figures online.

Among these, KPMG has seven contracts worth £7.7 million, PwC has £4.6 million of contracts, Ernst & Young saw its contract worth £1.3 million as “Strategic Partner Programme Support, Early Intervention and Prevention Programme” soar to £6,311,500. Deloitte gets just £210,440 from two contracts.

PwC gets £2,497,000 as ‘a Delivery Partner for UiPath Robotic Process Automation’. This will supposedly save the council £5.5 million though this doesn’t take into account these fees or the £1.9 million worth of redundancy costs involved. Using robots instead of people is good because, “software robots can do it faster and more consistently than people, without the need to get up and stretch or take a coffee break”.

Grant Thornton has an audit contract worth £1.6 million. Originally it was a mere £252,000.

The city’s rubbish is uncollected because of a strike by binmen. Unite union says the cuts would deprive 150 people of £8,000 a year each. If that’s true, the council would save £1.2 million a year.

Maybe one of the many consultancy firms employed by the city council might suggest other ways of saving money.

For instance, American consultancy Oliver Wyman which gets £1,480,000. The company says, ‘We guide clients through high-stakes decisions and transformative moments so they can adapt, grow, and thrive. Our edge? The power of perspective — driven by deep industry insight, specialized expertise, and a spirit of true collaboration.’

Next: The cost of lawyers.

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