I HAVE discovered that I am not the only one who realises that consultants advising government bodies, local authorities and companies are in the biggest rip-off business in the country.
I said ‘I told you so’ to myself when my eye caught a headline on the front page of the new economics weekly The Business on Monday.
“Rip Off!” the headline shouted – and below it ran the words, “The scandalous inside story of the management consultancy money machine.”
The article lured you in with a story in the first paragraph about a 19th- century US outlaw who was asked by a journalist why he robbed banks.
“Because that’s where the money is,” he replied.
Why did he always use a gun? “Because charm and wits alone are usually not enough to get banks to hand over the money,” said the outlaw.
If he were alive today, says The Business edited by Andrew Neil, the outlaw wouldn’t be a criminal he’d be a management consultant – because that’s where the money is. And where wit and charm are enough to get people and companies to hand over the money.
In an alarming analysis, the article said that whenever salesmen, employed by consultants, were pitching people they were under strict instructions never to go below a ‘margin’ that would pull in a minimum of a 300 per cent profit margin. Bear in mind that many businesses only make five per cent, 10 per cent or, at the most, 20 per cent profit!
I wonder whether Town Hall officials – or the councillors responsible for rubber-stamping contracts – ever worry about how much money they are pouring in to the coffers of consultants.
Since the growing privatisation of council services began in the mid-1990s, consultants must have made bucket loads of cash out of the Town Hall. Or, to put it another way, out of taxpayers in the borough.
It is almost impossible to discover the size of the ‘rip off’ business in Camden because council officials, hiding behind their interpretation of the law, keep their deals secret.
That is, secret from the people who pay their salaries.
In short, from our readers whose taxes fill the Town Hall kitty.

Education chief Ruth Kelly relaxes at homea

Exterminate... all journalists!

THE nation’s education chief Ruth Kelly – the one who speaks with the voice of a Dalek – came to Camden for a photo-shoot on Tuesday and made it off-limits for me and my fellow local hacks.
She was playing a visit to the Sure Start Centre in Coram’s Fields in Bloomsbury.
Camden leader Jane Roberts turned up as well as her colleague Theo Blackwell but the time and place was kept a secret from the local press.
Readers may recall that when Chancellor Gordon Brown dropped in for another photo-shoot at Coram’s Fields during the election campaign he dashed out refusing to answer questions from either myself or any of the other journalists.
Spin and secrecy seem the life-style of cabinet ministers.

Feathers fly at annual quiz

It was just one point that separated the winners from the losers when two of Highgate’s leading societies went head-to-head at the traditional annual quiz.
Despite winning the friendly battle for the last three years, it was the turn of residents’ group, the Highgate Society, to lose this time, stumped according to chairman Robin Fairlie, by some “devilishly fiendish” questions.
He said: “There was a question on the middle name of Donald Duck, for example – Fauntleroy – which was particularly tough.
“But it was a wonderfully convivial evening, as always, chaired extremely well by the Highgate Scientific and Literary Institute.”
The prize for the winners, a silver-plated mug donated by one of the founders of the Highgate Society, Isla Merry, will now sit in the headquarters of the HSLI. But not for long, if Mr Fairlie has his way.
He said: ”It is always quite a fiercely fought affair. People do long to be on the winning side.”

The dee-lightful and dee-lovely Janie’s back

Janie Dee and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber

IT was a triumphant return to the stage for award-winning actress Janie Dee, at Euston’s Shaw Theatre last week.
But apart from singing entrancingly, as usual, she also paid fulsome tribute to composer Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber who then accompanied her on the piano with a new song.
After she had described him as Britain’s “greatest musical theatre composer” who is “young, vibrant and gorgeous”, a blushing Lloyd Webber took to the stage.
After the show she told me she had taken a seven-month break following the birth of her second child.
As well as showstoppers from Oklahoma and Carousel, Ms Dee included some lesser known Spike Milligan ditties – dedicated to her seven-year-old daughter Matilda – and a touching tribute to her new baby with “What’s it all about Alfie?”

‘Mini Milburn – God’s gift’

THERE are so few Labour activists following the exodus from the party in recent years that I wasn’t surprised councillors such as Anna Stewart and Raj Chada had to give a hand to Emily Thornberry struggling in Islington South.
They left Frank Dobson in the battle for Holborn and St Pancras on Thursday afternoon and scuttled off to Islington.
The council’s education chief Nick Smith had already joined Thornberry a week earlier to mastermind the last days of her campaign.
Thornberry had described him as a “gift from God!”. I wonder if his colleagues in Camden who have nicknamed him as the ‘mini Milburn” think the same.

Relief at the ballot

I AM used to having the door shut in my face – but it was a first when it looked as if I was going to be barred from voting at my local polling booth on Thursday evening.
My exposé of postal ballot fraud the other week had clearly rattled the Town Hall.
Checking the electoral list, an official looked up and told me that as I had applied for a postal ballot form it didn’t look as if I could vote.
I remained tight-lipped. There seemed no point in explaining that, in fact, I had applied for a postal ballot using a different forename to the one I was registered with – in order to show how easy it was to rig a ballot.
But a Town Hall official, who recognised me, came to my rescue.
As the patient queue of voters lengthened, the official rang the Town Hall, confirmed what I had made clear in my exposé that I did not intend to use the postal ballot I had applied for – and then gave me the go ahead.