Hotel ‘waste of money’
Reporter: BEATRIZ AYALA
Date published: 05 March 2010
COUNCIL bosses have been slammed for wasting money on an away day to an out-of-town country club . . . to discuss saving money.
A total of 20 Liberal Democrat councillors and council officers spent a night at the four-star Marriott Worsley Park Hotel and Country Club, it was revealed.
The cash-strapped council, which is set to make 500 job cuts over the next few years, spent £2,900 on the overnight stay, despite having recently spent £500,000 upgrading meeting rooms at Oldham Civic Centre.
The Chronicle understands they were discussing how to deliver better services with reduced funding from the Government.
Oldham’s Labour opposition leader, Councillor Jim McMahon, called the spending a waste of money. He said the event could have been held in Oldham.
He added: “It is a spend that can’t be justified so in that sense, it is waste of money. The administration has just spent £500,000 upgrading the civic centre rooms so to go outside the borough is bizarre. Every councillor lives in Oldham so they could have gone home had it been held here. The council is already under a lot of pressure for planning to make 500 redundancies.”
The money was spent on the hire of meeting rooms, accommodation, food and “refreshments”.
Council leader Howard Sykes was driven to the venue in a civic car. Chief executive Charlie Parker was also in attendance.
A council spokesman said spending £145 per delegate was “competitive and good value.”
He said: “As part of planning for the future, the council’s senior leadership team holds two of these 24-hour strategic events each year. All officers and politicians attended this in their own free, unsalaried time.
“Most councillors have day jobs, which is why the event had to be held starting on a Friday afternoon and into that evening, before running throughout Saturday daytime.”
He added that away-day events were common among many local authorities.
