WORCESTERSHIRE County Council is to spend £1.7 million on consultants and a small team to tell it how to make £45 million in cuts.

Opposition members have attacked the plan for experts to help leading County Hall figures slash the budget by 15 per cent over three years.

But finance chiefs said they thought they were justified in spending about £550,000 a year to make the savings, which will almost certainly have an impact on frontline services and mean job losses.

At a meeting of the full council, opposition Labour councillor Peter McDonald said it “beggars belief” the council wanted to spend £1.7 million on consultants and experts.

He said: “It is absolutely deplorable. It’s disgraceful.”

Leader Dr George Lord, Conservative, said the county council had “no choice” but to make about £45 million savings by the end of 2014.

“We have got to do this in a controlled and measured way and the way to do it is to get experts in to actually help us deliver those,” he said.

“We are hoping to still provide 100 per cent of the services with 85 per cent of the budget. That is the challenge and we are up for it.”

Speaking after the meeting, Councillor Adrian Hardman, cabinet member for finance, said the only consultant he knew the council was getting in was a former chief executive of Westminster – and that was just for three days.

He said the rest of the money would be spent on a small team to oversee the reform of services, which could create two additional, temporary posts.

He also said he thought spending £1.7 million over three years paled compared with the council’s annual £300 million budget.

“I don’t think it’s an excessive amount of money,” he said, adding that reforming services costs more than simply making direct cuts.

Meanwhile, at the full council meeting, claims by Labour councillors that the Tory-run administration did not need to make the savings at all were met with laughter.

Coun McDonald said: “You are having a laugh on the back of the council taxpayer.”

But Coun Lord insisted every council across the country was having to make savings given the national debt problem and the likelihood of significantly lower government grants in future.

He said: “We have to make these cuts.”

A public consultation on the proposals is likely to start in the spring.