Rotten Boroughs : Suffolk County Council

Financial Expert Michael Gower has resigned from his job Suffolk County Council and accused them of wasting millions of pounds of taxpayers money at a time when budgets are tight.

Gower was brought in by the Council to manage a big contract with BT. Fewer that 2 years later he has resigned saying he feared that costs were rising out of control. The council insists the contract has led to better services and better value

In an interview with BBC Look East, Gower said "My attempts to manage a massive contract with BT to improve council services was ignored by those at the top. I felt that we weren't getting value for money. I felt that we were letting down the council tax payers. I felt that we weren't being professional."

6 years ago SCC and Mid Suffolk District Council partnered up with BT to form a joint company called Customer Service Direct (CSD). It would provide a call centre and web service for people to access council services, an overhaul of the councils communications internet and human resources, and a new internal finance system.

BT would plough £52m into the venture . The county council agreed to pay £323m over 10 years for the CSD contract. That has already jumped to £417m

"Now the council didn't want to put anybody up for interview" said the BBC, "but have pointed out that the extra £94m it spent is partly down to inflation . It said that the CSD contract has developed services which in turn has increased its value. It also points out that the project wasn't specifically set up simply to save money."

LibDem county councillor Andrew Cann commented "Well that's absolutely rubbish because I can remember all the hoo hah at the time and the council were saying it was a £300m contract that was going to save us £60m"

Michael Gower says that BT have done nothing wrong. "They were being extremely commercial and the council were being rather naive. The contract wasn't set up properly at the outset and that lead to us paying for a lot of services - or some services - which should have been included in the original contract. It led to ambiguity over what was in the contract and what was out of the contract."

Last year, the council's chief executive Andrea Hill attended two week long courses run by BT. They were based in San Francisco and Boston. Her costs were not funded by the council. That, says Michael Gower, could set the wrong impression.

"Well come on. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If you are taken to the United States on a training course there is bound to be some expectation that there will be some return on this" he said.

The council says that BT's training course is attended by council executives across the public sector. Both courses were fully approved by the monitoring officer and the council leader.

While Michael Gower takes 'time out' Suffolk County Council maintains that the contract is on course to deliver both savings and efficiencies.

Yeah - right! As far as I can see, this is a typical case of council ineptitude - a badly defined contract, spending out of control and dubious judgements.

This is a council led by a grossly overpaid Chief Exec (£220,000 per annum) who is not concerned about what other people think of her. Come on Pickles - get her and the others like her on their bikes now...