Monday 26 January 2009

Beyond Belief

MCFly can exclusively reveal that Manchester City Council paid the London-based consultancy 'Beyond Green' a whopping ₤28,000 plus VAT and expenses for the 50-page Call to Action report, published last week. With VAT, this brings the total to ₤32,900 and we have no idea how much this 'eco-consultancy' has claimed for expenses- the Council's information did not include these figures. All in all this means that the council has paid- hopefully not from the ₤1 million Carbon Reduction Innovation and Investment Fund- over650 per page.

The climate change report has been widely criticized for advocating a 'Green Airport' and has been described by local climate activists as 'very disappointing' and even 'ridiculous'. Considering the amount of money spent on it, 'ridiculous' fits the bill...

by Arwa Aburawa, MCFly editor.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This complete misuse of a fat wad of Council cash really is quite a spectacular example of the slide of the Blair-Brownite Labour Party into doling out money to useless 'consultants.' On a smaller scale than the billions shilled to the likes of KPMG, Ernst & Young and PWC, but then the entities are smaller.
The report, for example, lists business signups and a Council-funded campaign as the 'grassroots' actions being taken on climate change in Manchester - do we think this might be because Beyond Green are a bunch of desk jockeys in London who have no idea at all about what is actually happening in Manchester, and were given too broad a remit to be able to find the right answers in a 10-minute Google search?
And why aren't the likes of the MEN or other local news outlets asking these questions instead of a bunch of unpaid campaigners? Oh, sorry, their PAID, 'professional' journalists are too busy regurgitating celebrity press releases and finding yet another sick toddler to write glutinous copy over. Give me strength.