Harrow Borough Council is due to approve its budget for the next two years this evening.

The Labour-run authority plans to introduce a two per cent increase in council tax, cuts of more than £650,000 from the street cleaning, rubbish collection and park maintenance budget and make 230 staff redundancies.

This week figures obtained by Councillor James Bond revealed a total of £4,078,040 was spent on consultants between May 2010 and September 2012.

The Independent councillor, who represents Headstone North, compared it to paying someone to tell you how to do your job and thinks the council should stop spending so much on outside advice while making some many cuts.

Last week, deputy leader of Harrow Conservatives, Cllr Barry Macleod-Cullinane, accused the council of creating a new ‘portfolio advisor’ role which would cost the taxpayer £65,000.

The authority said this was completely inaccurate and the new position would not cost the public an extra penny as the portfolio holder would have to share their existing allowance with the advisor.

Earlier this month a funding agreement was reached with Harrow Young Musicians to receive £50,000 of funding split over two years, with the organisation receiving £30,000 in 2013, followed by £20,000 in 2014.

The arrangement was reached after a public outcry over the organisation’s potential closure following the loss of its £58,000 per year in council funding.

The council is hoping to balance the books by 2015 by saving £75million with its new budget plan.

Councillors will be voting on the proposed budget at the meeting beginning at 7.30pm.