by political editor Paul Francis

Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman has launched a fierce
attack on Kent County Council over its decision to pay consultants
£5.4m to advise it on how to save tens of millions of pounds from
its adult care budget.

Ms Harman waded into the row when she visited Dover (pictured
right) as part of a Labour election campaign visit.

She described the decision as "absolutely wrong" and said the
council was allowing an outside firm to "do its dirty work".

Ms Harman said: "The priorities should be set by people who
pay the council tax not by people coming in from outside.

"It is almost like getting people in to do their dirty work for
them. This is absolutely the wrong way to do it... they are getting
somebody else in so they can say 'this is what we have been
professionally advised'."

She added: "This is about political priorities, it is not a
technical issue. What KCC needs to do is allow people some sort of
say in what is going on rather than taking that say away from them
and giving it to consultants who will be paid God knows how
much."

Kent County Council is to appoint a company called Newton Europe
on a two-year contract that it says will help save as much as £40m
each year from its adult care budget without cutting services.

Speaking about the decision,
council leader Cllr Paul Carter said the authority was right to
call in outside consultants, arguing that they had the
expertise to deliver savings that KCC needed to make. Ms Harman was speaking on a visit to the
Age Concern centre in Dover's Riverside Centre where she heard from
people concerned about the impact of the government's welfare
changes.

During the visit, she acknowledged the party's policy on
immigration was still evolving.

Asked if she thought voters had a clear understanding of the
party's position on the issue, she said: "The point about getting a
good immigration policy is not just to make it sound tough but make
sure it is tough.

"We want to work out how to do it right but we could always be
doing more to get our message across."