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Leeds City Council: £21,000 bill for offices move
Leeds City Council, facing cuts and searching for savings, has just spent more than £21,000 on office alterations for the main political groups.
The spending was sparked by this year's local election results that saw a change to the administration of the country's second biggest local authority, with Labour taking control from a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
The change prompted a series of office moves within the Civic Hall for many councillors and their staff.
To create the office layouts required, alteration work was carried out running up a bill of 21,496.
Among the major items were partitioning at just over 10,700, flooring at 2,230, more than 1,700 for joinery and electrical work at 2,488.
With major public spending cuts expected over the next few years, the council is already looking for major savings.
It recently wrote to all of its 33,000 staff asking for ideas on how money could be saved.
The letter warned that next year's budget would be 19m less than planned and that savings of up to 80m would be needed by 2015.
Against that backdrop, the spending on the political groups' offices has raised a few eyebrows among some council workers.
A statement from the Liberal Democrats said they lost two offices as a result of the reorganisation and staff were relocated in the main office and one small partition wall was installed.
It added: "No new computer equipment, or office furniture was purchased. Surplus office furniture and computer equipment was offered to the other group offices to ensure best use of resources."
Coun Jamie Matthews, Liberal Democrat deputy whip, said "We recognised that as the new administration Labour wanted to re-organise the offices to some extent, but we have attempted to keep any costs to a minimum."
While understanding the motives for the moves, he added: "It could have been done cost free."
Coun John Procter, Conservative deputy group leader, said: "The Conservative Group did not want to move offices and it was on the insistence of the new administration that we were compelled to do so."
A council spokesman said: "The previous office arrangements did not allow the space needed by councillors to perform their duties and therefore things had to be changed."
He added that every effort had been made to keep the costs as low as possible.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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