Councils are spending £41m a year on four ‘unnecessary’ roles – including political advisers, European officers and climate change specialists – according to the Taxpayers’ Alliance.

Town halls have also been criticised by the centre-right think-tank for employing diversity officers, despite evidence the use of such roles has improved councils’ awareness of issues such as equal pay and fair employment practices covering black and minority ethnic (BME) staff.

‘These non-frontline workers are doing jobs that could be cut, without putting frontline services at risk,’ the TPA claimed on 11 October.

‘This is just an example of four roles that we requested information about; the true cost of unnecessary jobs is mush higher and represents a large sum of taxpayers’ money that can be painlessly saved.’

The TPA’s research showed that 141 full time equivalent staff worked as ‘political advisers’ across England’s councils during 2009/10 at a cost of £5m.

Climate change officials accounted for 350 full time roles over the same period, at a cost of £10m.

Around 183 full time equivalent employees worked as European officers during 2009/10 at a cost of £6m. Almost 550 diversity-related roles were also filled, at a cost of almost £20m.

Anything more than a cursory analysis of these figures will show that what the TPA call unnecessary jobs actually help to ensure that hardworking people get value for money for the taxes they pay.

Local Government Association chief executive John Ransford

The UK council with the most officials in these positions was Birmingham, Britain’s largest authority, at a cost of £2m over the year. The TPA also highlighted what it believed to be high spends, as a proportion of local budgets, at Glasgow and Caerphilly councils.

Chris Daniel, TPA policy analyst, said: ‘Many household budgets are under huge pressure and council tax has doubled in the last decade, but this money isn’t necessarily going on the services households rely on most.

‘Cutting down on staff doing unnecessary jobs is one way councils can save money without affecting those frontline services. These jobs are all the result of councils going too far in following the edicts of central government, instead of focussing on local priorities; or chasing grants that are, in the end, more than paid for by British taxpayers.’

Grant Shapps, CLG housing minister said: ‘In far too many cases there's a duplication of roles in councils with the taxpayer left to pick up the bill. ‘Councils need to be able to justify every penny to the electorate, yet some local authorities seem to have forgotten whose money it is.’

But LGA chief executive John Ransford dismissed the TPA research as ‘slapdash’ and claimed it failed ‘to acknowledge the huge savings that these members of staff bring to the work of their councils’.

‘Anything more than a cursory analysis of these figures will show that what the TPA call unnecessary jobs actually help to ensure that hardworking people get value for money for the taxes they pay.’

Tax Payers' Alliance