GRAHAM HISCOTT PWC feasts on Carillion crash Firm collects more than £20m from collapse

ACCOUNTANTS are raking in £865 an hour to deal with Carillion’s collapse.

MPS yesterday labelled Pwc’s charges for acting as liquidators “superhuman”.

It emerged PWC has already earned more than £20million for its work in handling the aftermath of the construction giant’s sudden demise in mid-january.

David Kelly, special manager at PWC, told the business and pensions committees yesterday it was billing around £1.4m a week for its work, with staff charging around £360 an hour. However, Kelly’s rate is £865 an hour – 115 times the National Living Wage of £7.50 an hour for over-25s.

PWC will also be one of the first to be paid when money owed to Carillion is dished out, he said.

Labour MP Rachel Reeves branded the fees “superhuman” as PWC admitted it could not give a final estimate for its work.

“If I pay someone £20.4m working for eight weeks, I would expect them to have some grasp of how much it might cost,” Reeves said. Kelly hit back, saying the firm had worked “very hard” to recover as much money as possible for suppliers and others.

PWC is one of Britain’s big four accountancy firms – along with Deloitte, KPMG and Ernst & Young – which made £70m between them in fees from Carillion-related work over the past decade. PWC was picked to deal with the liquidation because it was the only one without an “immediate conflict of interest”.

It is estimated that the taxpayerfunded collapse of Carillion will cost £150m.

TOT IT UP Myleene Klass has a line at Mothercare