Council leader Mike Bawden£100m shelled out on council equipment each year, yet no one is ensuring our money is best spent.

AS shopping sprees go, it is in the mega league every year Swindon Council splashes out £100m on new equipment with taxpayers' money.

Yet there is no central purchasing department overseeing buying and ensuring that the public's money is spent prudently, the Evening Advertiser can exclusively reveal today.

Council leader Mike Bawden (Con, Old Town and Lawn) is scathing of the free-spending culture that he claims has dogged Swindon's local authority for 25 years, leaving it "as ship-shape as the Titanic".

"I have been appalled by the state of affairs I inherited," said Coun Bawden, whose Conservative group formed the new administration last May.

In a New Year appraisal of the council operation, which was branded "poor" in December by an independent Audit Commission inspection, Coun Bawden said that nothing short of a complete cultural change would suffice.

He said he was shocked by the fragmented and unrestrained way public money was spent on buying anything from new vehicles to stationery, without an overlord ensuring that the council got the best bargain, the way a private company would.

Coun Bawden said: "I'm going to have to preside over a massive overhaul from top to bottom.

"Cosmetic changes and tinkering won't be enough. This has to be a complete re-build. We'll need three years of restructuring.

"It's not over-dramatising to say that we're trying to save a sinking ship."

As an example, Coun Bawden cited the £1m spent annually on stationery alone. A third of that, £330,000, comes out of the budget of Swindon Services, which is responsible for street cleaning, refuse collection and recycling.

But Swindon Services manages to buy its stationery 16 per cent cheaper than any other council department.

"I have to find out what on earth is going on," said Coun Bawden. "It's as if the heads of departments don't speak to one another and share information.

"We spend £1.2 million on temporary staff each year, using six different agencies, without any central control.

"It's the same with furniture with anything in fact. Each department does its own thing."

The annual council staff cost is around £130m.

"If we could cut that by just one per cent it would result in two per cent off council tax," said Coun Bawden.

Pruning expenditure by 15 per cent would see a dramatic 20 per cent shaved off council tax bills.

"It's something we have to go for," said Coun Bawden. "We need a quick hit, but there's going to have to be a hell of a scrap for it to be achieved."

mlitchfield@newswilts.co.uk

He hinted that street cleaning and refuse collection would have to be placed on the open market for tendering and the council's direct labour force would have to compete against bidders from the private sector.

"It will be controversial, but we have to become more efficient and cost-effective.

"This has to be the year of delivery. I'm making this a personal commitment. If we fail to improve significantly, then it's my head that must roll."

He also believed that Swindon had been "stuffed" by the Audit Commission inspectorate because of the "unacceptable behaviour" of a certain few, but high profile, councillors in the past.

The Mayor Coun Derek Benfield (Lab, Covingham and Nythe), who was deputy leader of the council for seven years, said: "I set up a bulk buying system years ago. If it's gone back to fragmentation, then that's wrong a recipe for financial disaster.

"I find it hard to believe that there's the sort of expenditure Coun Bawden's talking about or the possible savings he predicts."