County Hall, the 'home' of Kent County Council

by political editor Paul Francis

Consultants awarded a lucrative county council contract to help cut the costs of caring for vulnerable adults were also paid separately to advise on what savings were possible, it has emerged.

Kent County Council has confirmed it has appointed a company called Newton Europe as its "efficiency partner" to advise on how best to save tens of millions of pounds from adult care.

The KM Group recently revealed how the £5.4m fee on offer had sparked a major political row.

Now the council has confirmed the same company was also contracted to assess the possible savings as part of an earlier budget review last October.

KCC said there had been no advantage to Newton Europe as other companies in the running for the £5.4m contract were provided with the analysis before submitting their own bids.

In a statement, KCC said: "Newton Europe carried out a review of the service in October and identified potential efficiency savings.

"The key results of this work were made available to all qualifying competing organisations bidding for the contract in order to make the tender process as fair as possible."

"we are in unchartered territory and we have to find different ways of doing things. we cannot afford to make a mistake " – mark lobban, director of strategic commissioning

However, opposition parties say they want answers to questions about the contracts and will formally "call in" the decision to a backbench scrutiny committee.

In another development, KCC has clarified it aims to save much more than the £18m identified in this year's budget.

It says it cannot say how much because it is commercially sensitive but County Hall sources say the two-year savings are expected to be between £25m and £40m more than the £18m already identified.

Social services chiefs have strongly defended the appointment of outside consultants.

Mark Lobban, the council's director of strategic commissioning, said the growing pressures caused by an ageing population meant the council had to look at doing things differently.

He said the partner company would have to work within an already established set of policies already agreed by the council.

"The organisation has a track record in social care. Everything they come up with will have to be consistent with what is in our blueprint and so they cannot come up with anything else."

He acknowledged the savings were "big numbers" but the council had already identified where it could be more efficient.

"We are in unchartered territory and we have to find different ways of doing things. We cannot afford to make a mistake - we are getting to a critical point nationally where if we do not do something, there will be problems."

KCC spends £355m supporting vulnerable adults and older people each year, of which £156m is spent on nursing and residential care and £44m on home care.

With a growing elderly population, budget pressures are forecast to rise substantially, with the number of over-65s in Kent expected to increase by more than 43% between 2010 and 2026.

The number of people living with dementia in Kent is due to rise by 8,000 to 33,000 in the next ten years.