Transport union RMT today called for a full National Audit Office investigation into the use of management consultants by Transport for London after new figures showed that over £15 million has been spent in one section alone, congestion charging and traffic enforcement, in the past two years. The union are also referring the matter to the Transport Committee of the GLA.

RMT has today submitted Freedom of Information requests demanding details of the consultancy spend in another nine sections of TfL opearations.

The bulk of the congestion charging and traffic enforcment cash has been spent on a consultancy contract with Deloittes whose partners charge TfL an incredible £2,761 a day.

Transport for London are currently looking at a multi-billion pound cuts programme and thousands of jobs are known to be at risk across TfL and the Tube.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said today:

"While TfL staff face the prospect of being thrown on the dole in a jobs massacre, the sky's the limit for the management consultants who appear to be able to charge what they like when they like with no serious accountability to Londoners. That's why RMT are demanding a National Audit Office investigation into the use of management consultants right across Transport for London.

"Some of these management consultants earn in a week what some TfL staff would struggle to earn in a year , yet we get lectures from the same managers who are signing off these grotesque fees about how RMT members should take a hit on pay and job security to help them balance the books.

"We are going to fight for a forensic examination of the use of management consultants at TfL We want to know just who is signing off these millions of pounds of taxpayers money and why they are doing it while thousands of TfL staff face the threat of the sack."

ENDS