HAMPSHIRE County Council has created its own consultancy team – despite splashing out millions of pounds on external management consultants.

Permanent jobs on offer include two £59,000 principal consultants, three £44,000 senior consultants and two £37,000 consultant posts. A job advertisement called them ‘transformation team consultants’.

Based at the council’s Winchester HQ, it stated their role is to ‘drive key transformational programmes and projects across the organisation’.

The aim is to reform services and cuts costs to cope with reduced government funding. As revealed in April, the Tory council is spending millions of pounds on external management consultants while cutting frontline services including rural buses, libraries and social care for the elderly.

The biggest slice of cash – up to £18 million – was handed to Deloitte, an international consultancy firm and the council’s private sector partner to support ‘transformational change’ 2013-15.

An analysis of the figures shows more than £3million was paid to Deloitte between December 2014 and June 2015 for services, including ‘core support’, ‘workforce development’ and ‘cost reduction’. This works out at about £27,500 per day, excluding weekends.

The council previously defended spending on external advisors, saying it was more “efficient and cost-effective” than recruiting permanent staff and making posts redundant.

But now it has emerged the council has also created an internal consultancy team to work alongside Deloitte.

A council spokesman declined to say how many consultants it employed but said their role was to manage specific programmes and it was anticipated “costs will be completely dwarfed by savings generated”.

The internal consultants report to ‘head of transformation’ Michael Lee, appointed in July 2014. As a deputy chief officer, his pay is believed to be between £73,000 and £110,000.

Spending taxpayers’ money on internal and external consultants has angered anti-council tax campaigners, Unison and opposition councillors.

Christine Melsom, of IsIt- Fair anti-council tax group, said: “Why do they need both? If Hampshire County Council is employing its own management consultants, why does it also need Deloitte?

“This sounds less like austerity and more like reckless spending. Will the council now get rid of Deloitte?”

Dave Anderson, Hampshire Unison branch secretary, slammed it as “an entirely ludicrous situation”.

At a meeting last Thursday, Tory council leader Roy Perry was asked by Basingstoke Labour Councillor Criss Connor how much Deloitte was paid, but did not tell councillors.

Instead Cllr Perry promised to send councillors the information adding that paid advisors helped slice £300m from the budget and Hampshire had the second lowest council tax of any county in England.

After the meeting, Lib Dem opposition leader Cllr Keith House said: “Explaining that this was about achieving low council tax failed to explain how spending millions of pounds of public money on external and now internal consultancy teams could protect services that are being cut ruthlessly.”