Ministers spent £1bn on wasteful contracts, says audit office

The government spent more than £1bn on consultants and temporary staff last year, hiring them on wasteful contracts and failing to manage them properly, according to the spending watchdog. Although spending on consultants fell slightly in the last four years, the National Audit Office concludes the government is not getting value for money because it does not keep tabs on what they do once they are hired. Nearly 80% of the Treasury's staffing costs now go on consultants and some Whitehall departments have drastically increased their reliance on external advisers in recent years. Civil servants are failing to define what they want from consultants, measure whether they provide it or hold them to account when they fail, the NA Office report says. The government is still too reliant on consultants to provide basic work, which could be more cheaply carried out in-house. In addition to the £1bn bill in Whitehall, quangos spend an estimated £700m more on consultants. The NAO's unusually blunt assessment will be seized upon by the coalition as justification for their freeze on the hiring of consultants. It identifies the departments most reliant on consultants. Last year the Department of Health spent £108m on consultants, transport spent £96m and education £74m. Nearly 80% of the Treasury's staffing costs were on consultants (though 90% of this was charged to financial institutions), 70% of Transport's staff costs were spent on consultants and 50% of the Department for Education's. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: "Although total spending on consultants has fallen in recent years, this is not the result of effective management and control. "Departments need better information and skills in order to achieve good value for money from their use of consultants."