Birmingham's Tory opposition leader has hit out at the decision by Labour council chiefs to spend £1,100 per day on a new consultant at a time when the council is making brutal cuts to services.

Conservative leader Robert Alden has also accused his Labour counterpart Sir Albert Bore of bypassing normal recruitment processes to hire the troubleshooter Sarah Homer.

Ms Homer has been hired by the cash-strapped council to oversee cultural transformation of the authority in the wake of the damning Kerslake review which concluded the council leadership needed extra help to drive through necessary changes.

The £1,100 a day charge for her services is paid to her employer Green Park, a London-based agency which specialises in finding candidates for top jobs.

But Coun Alden (Con Erdington) said: "I have a lot questions over this appointment. £1,100 per day is a huge sum of money at a time when the Labour leadership says it has no money. This is going to cost a lot of money, pro rata the fees are twice the salary of the council chief executive."

He said there was usually cross-party co-operation over senior appointments but, by using an agency, this had been sidestepped.

"She could be an ideal candidate for the role and very capable but we don't know because we have not been consulted," he added.

The council has defended the appointment, saying that civil servant Sir Bob Kerslake had highlighted the lack of management support for the chief executive following years of cuts to senior staff.

By using an agency, the council says it is avoiding many of the heavy costs usually associated with top level appointments.

A city council spokesperson said: "The need for strengthened management to support the chief executive was a key point raised in the recent Kerslake Review.

"We are addressing the issue through the appointment of Sarah Homer who offers a great deal of knowledge and expertise in many areas of council business.

"The reported figure of £1,100 per day is the amount paid to Green Park, the organisation we have used to secure her services.

"This is an all-inclusive figure that offers us value for money as it reflects the going rate for someone of Sarah's seniority and experience and also covers recruitment, advertising and all other on-costs associated with hiring an employee."

A former American Express executive, Ms Homer's remit includes the Future Council Programme which covers the redesign of support services, development of a workforce strategy focused on recruitment and retention of children's social workers and instigating a plan for city devolution.

The role also includes day-to-day running of the authority's HR department and its customer services operation, Service Birmingham, which has recently returned to the control of the city.

She will also head communications and PR, policy and performance, commissioning and the Service Birmingham's partnership with outsource provider Capita.

Kerslake's highly critical report claimed the authority was failing to get "basic services" right, such as street cleaning and bin collections, and was pouring cash into city centre projects while residents in poor out-of-town neighbourhoods were left without jobs or skills.

The hard-hitting report also called for major changes in the way the authority was managed.