COUNCILLORS were left concerned after being told money which they had budgeted had been shifted without their knowledge to support extra staffing resources.

Members of Wellington Town Council met on Monday (April 13) where they were asked to “note and approve a likely overspend” of the budget for open spaces and to approve the spending of up to £16,000 from the vehicle replacement reserve to be delegated to the council’s open spaces manager Darren Hill.

A council report indicated that the overspend would amount to nearly £19,000 to support the employment of an extra member of staff for the open spaces team – as agreed by council officers internally.

But that did not go down well with councillors who said it should be them who make the decisions on spending money on staff recruitment.

“I fundamentally object to this,” said Cllr Justin Cole. “There is no justification for an extra person and they should not have been recruited.

“You can’t recruit someone that hasn’t been approved by the council. The numbers don’t add up and we will lose control of the budget.”

Cllr John Thorne added: “I raised more than one eyebrow when I read this, but I do feel that had this been brought to us beforehand we’d have approved it.

“I am in support of the work the open spaces team does, but this has come to us back-to-front.”

Cllr Mark Lithgow said: “You [the council officers] can’t spend money that hasn’t been approved by the councillors.”

He said that the approved budget had “gone out of the window.”

And Cllr Keith Wheatley said: “If there was a need for a new member of staff then the officers should have brought it up at a committee.”

Councillors agreed to discuss the situation again at a future committee meeting in a confidential session to avoid conversations regarding an individual member of staff being had in a public forum.