BOURNEMOUTH council is being accused of “massaging the figures” to mask the fact that it is on the verge of entering into a financially disastrous outsourcing deal.

Labour leader Cllr Ben Grower claims the council could end up paying a private company more to deliver its services than it currently costs in-house.

He has also said that proper scrutiny of the outsourcing deal is virtually impossible because of the council’s refusal to disclose all the relevant information.

His comments come as Bournemouth council prepares to decide whether or not to enter into a 10-year partnership with private firm Mouchel to deliver their ICT, facilities management, revenues and benefits services.

Officers claim the deal would represent an annual saving of 5.9 per cent and would create new jobs in the town.

But Cllr Grower said: “The tender is more expensive than what we’re paying at the moment. They are massaging the figures to make it seem as if it’s better but it’s not. It’s just creative accounting.”

One of his requests has been to see a copy of a report by PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC). Cllr Grower said he was initially told there was no such report, before being told there was but no-one read it and it was sent back to PWC. He was then surprised to see the PWC report referred to in the final business case.

He has also asked for a copy of the original Section 151 officer’s report. Judith Martin, the officer whose job it was to ensure the council acted legally, was made redundant in a recent council shake-up. She was believed to have been critical of the outsourcing plans.

Pam Donnellan said members had all the financial information available to them ahead of the scrutiny meeting on Monday, November 8.

She said it was “over-simplistic” to concentrate just on the savings related to the four services that form the first phase of the partnership and insisted there was the potential for a 40 per cent budget reduction over the next decade.

“Add to this the guarantee of 350 new jobs in the town, again underpinned by financial guarantees, and it is the officers’ view that this represents a financial win for the council, economic growth for the town and better services for local people,” she said.

“Any comments made by the previous Section 151 officer relate to the former business case, which has now been updated. At that stage there was not a final Section 151 report and any initial views are now superceded by the version provided by the Deputy 151.”