An away day by top council officers to discuss Merton’s looming financial crisis, held in the same week that hundreds of council redundancies were threatened, has been attacked by staff.

The two day event for directors and senior managers included meals and overnight accomodation at an unidentified hotel in Cobham - although the venue was only about 15 miles from the borough. The corporate outing came in the same week the council predicted the loss of 100 to 300 jobs in a bid to close a £14.5m gap in its budget.

Today the council said they could not reveal the cost of the event, as the officer responsible for booking it was not available. Council leader David Williams said he did not know the details of the excursion.

One council employee told this paper: “The Civic Centre has a large council chamber, committee rooms and meeting rooms, and the directors offices are large spacious rooms, so why do senior management need to go to a hotel in the first place? And why is it deemed necessary to include evening meals and overnight accomodation as well?

“I for one would like to know the total cost to the tax payer of this little jolly, at a time when apparently budgets are tight and all services and staff costs are being cut back.”

Ged Curran, the council’s chief executive, said: “The council is about to embark on a radical transformation programme which will span across the next five years and will completely change the way in which we work as an organisation.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the next five years are going to be incredibly difficult at every level in the council and it is absolutely essential in carefully planning for that senior managers make time to prepare how we’re going to make that change happen while still keeping the needs of our residents at the heart of our business.”

A spokesman added that the overnight accomodation was needed because of the “intense” programme of discussions that ran late into the night.

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