Reform in Leicestershire to hand consultants £1.3m of pubic money to tell it what to do

Leicestershire County Council is run by a minority Reform UK administration. And like Reform up and down the country, it took power with no policy agenda beyond banning the flying of the Pride and Ukrainian flags.

So, reports BBC News, Leicestershire is to spend £1.3m on consultants to carry out a review of council spending.

The council leader claims the consultants will find savings worth many times their fee. That sounds like sheer guesswork to me.

Michael Mullaney, the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the council, sounds more authoritative:

"£1.4m is a lot of money to spend on consultants to cut costs. The reality is the council has been cutting its spending for years and if there were more savings to be found, they would have been identified."

Before May's council elections, the Leicester Mercury reminds us. Reform accused the then-Conservative leaders of the authority of "wasting staggering sums" including through spending "more than £35 million in consultants in just three years".

They also made noises about existing council contracts being "fraudulent", but we've heard no more about that since they took power.