COUNCIL chiefs have paid consultants more than one and a half-a-million pounds in the last year.

New figures show that a total of £1.6million was forked out by North Ayrshire Council in 2015 - a huge increase on the £469,829 overall spending the year before.

And the shocking figures were only revealed after repeated requests from the Times.

Despite the controversy surrounding Sally Agass - a consultant paid £180,000 by NAC for just over a year’s work - the council have not been deterred in paying out substantially more money to consultants in the last 12 months.

Incredibly, the fees dished out between January and March this year exceed the 2014 overall total.

Consultants were paid £598,752 in that time period mostly for environment and construction advice.

Since 2012, North Ayrshire Council have spent a total of £4.6million on consultancy fees with the overall totals seeing a drop until 2015.

A total of £1.026million was handed out in 2012 which fell to £866,419 and £469,829 in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

The figures were only uploaded to the North Ayrshire Council website on Tuesday, August 9.

The council’s expenditure on consultants had not been updated on the website since 2014 and the Times were told it would take until July of this year for the information to be completed.

But it was not until further requests that the figures were eventually uploaded.

Payments to consultants and agency staff has proven a controversial issue for local authorities.

Back in April, it was revealed that the council had paid nearly £3million to agency staff in the last three years to help manage workloads.

A North Ayrshire Council spokesperson said: “The council seeks to minimise the use of external consultants, securing services only where specific expertise is required to ensure we provide the best possible services to our residents.”