Lambeth Labour slammed over £300k survey
Labour councillors have been slammed for spending more than £300,000 to conduct surveys on children in care with cash that could be spent on providing better services for them.
Labour-run Lambeth is to hire market research firm Ipsos Mori to conduct interviews with “looked-after” children and young people in the borough over the next three years at a cost of almost £317,000.
The surveys will be funded using cash from the council’s Looked After Children’s Educational Achievement Team, which works to “improve educational outcomes” for children in care between the ages of five and 16. But the department is using ”efficiency savings” from elsewhere in its budget to fund the market research project.
Opposition Conservative leader, Councillor John Whelan, has slammed the expenditure.
He fumed: “It beggars belief that Labour-run Lambeth is removing money from the budget from vulnerable kids in care of the council to pay for yet more surveys and questionnaires, most of which go straight in the bin or hamster tray.”
