STAFFORDSHIRE COUNTY Council paid out more than £250,000 for a consultant who considered the closure of its care homes.

This is one of the costs associated with the county council's reorganisation of care services,which have finally been revealed by the authority.

In early February Mr Russell Pantlin, a critic of the Changing Lives programme, demanded that the council be open about its costs.

"There are pertinent questions which I guess no county councillor or indeed any county hall pen-pusher will be too keen to put up their hand to answer," said Mr Pantlin.

He believed it important that county taxpayers be made aware of how much money had been derived from the sale of homes, how much had been paid out in redundancy and the costs of consultation, legal fees and hiring a consultant, Mr Keith Skerman, to consider the future of care homes.

Now, 10 weeks on, the county council has given specific answers.

To date in 2008/9, the authority has received £650,000 from the sale of one home where closure was approved in July 2006.

A council statement said: "It is recognised that the decommissioned sites are of considerable local public interest, valuable and expected to release substantial resources. "Consequently each site receives considerable detailed attention.

"The decommissioned homes are at various stages.

"Some sites are expected to be sold shortly and are being used to stimulate the development of extra care schemes.

"Besides the sale of sites, other former homes will be redeveloped with an alternative usage."

Redundancy payments of £2,258,210 have been paid to staff.

In addition, lump sum compensation payments (under provisions within the local government pension scheme) have been made of £3,874,124.

The cost of employing Mr Keith Skerman, from November 2006 until March 2008, was £259,642, excluding VAT.

He was not an employee of the county council and was employed on a consultancy basis through a company, Rockpools People and Performance Ltd.

The costs of employing Agencia for the public consultation into Changing Lives programme, covering the period March 2007 to December 2007, was £184,083 (excluding VAT).

The costs of all legal fees from April 2007 to November 2008 was £118,312 (excluding VAT).