Luton Borough Council considers hiring 'specialist' auditors to reduce departmental spending

Tenders will be put out for specialists to take a thorough look at all the local authority’s departmental spending, subject to approval by the executive.

These arrangements would be separate to the council's existing contract with external auditors.

It comes after Luton Borough Council approved an emergency budget on July 14, with £22.5m in cuts to services and 365 job losses. The local authority is keen to ensure it achieves its projected savings.

Labour South councillor Paul Castleman unveiled the auditing plans during a meeting of the council's audit and governance committee last week.

Councillor Castleman said: “The audit and governance committee is being asked to explore alternative specialist consultants to assess the council’s budget targets in the next five years to make sure we actually meet them.

“We’ve got external auditors, so I’m not being detrimental to them. They’re doing what we want them to do.

“What we’re looking for is something entirely different,” he explained.

“The auditors would carry out an insight study, apply process improvement principles and reduce waste in financial services.

“When there are suitable applicants, they can be referred with their draft reports for the committee to choose which option we would like to go with.

“That will have to go before executive for it to sign off because there’ll be extra expenditure to consider,” he added.

“In principle, I’m seeking specialist auditors to carry out a real in-depth look at all the different departments in the council to make sure we’re going along that way.”

Councillors were told it would be customary for the service director of the audit and governance committee to be involved, in consultation with the chairman and vice-chairman.

The committee immediately unanimously approved councillor Castleman’s addition to the recommendation before continuing with other issues concerning the internal audit annual report.

Labour Dallow councillor Abbas Hussain asked whether the portfolio holder in the council's cabinet should be consulted.

Service director finance and audit Dev Gopal replied: “As part of the internal audit, we’ve got to reassure ourselves as a council whether the controls put in place are being followed and if there are areas where we’ve got any weaknesses or breakdown.

“The whole purpose is we report back to the audit committee.

“If councillors are minded to make any recommendation that we extend our scope to include further discussion with the portfolio holder, we can have that conversation.”