MOVES towards making £44m in “efficiency savings” at BCP Council are making snail like progress – according to opposition councillor Mike Cox.

“Two years on the only milestone I can see is appointing a consultant," he said.

“Has the last year been wasted? We don’t seem to have made much progress” he told a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee.

The savings target is anticipated to come from streamlining services, including some job losses, as the three former councils begin to work better together.

The attack on the council’s transformation programme led to a strong defence from council leader Cllr Drew Mellor who described the programme as “realistic” and said he remained confident of achieving the savings and the council being regarded as “a vanguard authority”.

He said despite the pandemic, which had caused some delays, progress was still being made and systems and partnerships were being put in place which would accelerate change.

“We are going to do this right. We are not going to rush this,” he said, later claiming that the process at BCP was the most complicated reform of local government ever undertaken.

“This is going to be difficult. It’s going to be highly ambitious, but we will deliver it.”

Poole councillor Mark Howell said despite the claims that the programme was on target councillors were not being given the information to make an independent judgement on that.

“We have had two years when officers have been given the freedom to develop a model but that’s been largely un-scrutinised…we need to understand more about what the targets are, whether or not they are being met and the risk assessments,” he said.

He said councillors on the overview and scrutiny committee needed more information to know if the transformation programme was on target, or whether it was drifting off-track in any way.

“It has been suggested that there are significant obstacles in the way of us reaching our objectives,” he said.