Cost-cutting police agency blow £2m in public money

Nov 16 2008 By Norman Silvester

A POLICE agency set up to save public money has spent more than £2million on consultants in less than two years.

A Sunday Mail investigation shows the Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) spent £924,437 in its first year on private firms to advise on training, management, computers, advertising and public relations.

The cost of consultants over the next six months was £809,848 - double the rate of spending in the first year.

A further £273,798 was spent by the Scottish Government in the three months before the SPSA was formed, bringing the total to more than £2million.

The same amount would pay for 75 new police officers.

The SPSA control police training, IT, forensics, fingerprints and purchasing of equipment such as cars and uniforms, which were previously the responsibility of individual forces.

They also look after the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA).

Acontract was awarded to Accenture, who employ management consultant Marjorie Strachan, 38, a former neighbour of SPSA chief executive David Mulhern.

And a former police colleague of Mulhern's, David Garbutt, who runs a law enforcement and training consultancy, also won a £25,000 contract.

The single biggest contract of £797,850 was awarded to Glasgow management and IT consultants Real Time Engineering.

Our investigation also revealed that six senior managers at the SPSA are paid a total of almost £500,000 a year.

Mulhern, who retired as deputy chief constable at Central Scotland Police to take the SPSA job last year, gets £113,892 a year.

Mulhern last night defended spending £2million on consultants, saying: "We have used over 50 external companies to help us start up and develop our business in the two years since we were established. This spending represents less than one per cent of the annual budget.

"We are focused on delivering efficient and effective support services to policing in Scotland and getting best value for every pound we spend.

"One of the Accenture consultants is indeed a former neighbour of mine.

"In line with all contracts, Accenture was awarded a contract only after a formal procurement process in which their services and cost were assessed against the best value for the taxpayer."

An SPSA insider said: "You have got to ask where the money came from and from whose budgets. Did it mean organisations like SCDEA who are at the forefront of crimefighting lost out financially?"

The SPSA, with an £80million budget, have been accused of interference by police chiefs, including Graeme Pearson, who quit as head of SCDEA after claiming they strangled his organisation with red tape.

Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken said "It is clear the savings this organisation will make will be limited. Setting up of the SPSA has not been clearly thought out and proper advice taken. It's obviosusly time to review its effectiveness."

'It is obviously time to review the effectiveness of the SPSA'

Tory convener Bill Aitken

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