Use of consultants and temporary staff inquiry
Closed
What the inquiry looked at
“Government departments spent over £1 billion in 2014–15 on consultants and temporary staff. Although this is much lower than in 2009–10, spending has been rising in recent years and further reductions in civil service staffing may place upwards pressure on these costs. In addition, deficiencies in strategic workforce planning will hamper departments’ abilities to deploy these resources strategically, avoid long-term dependency and achieve sustainable cost reductions. Departments will need to strengthen the skills of their permanent staff so that more of their specialist skills needs can be met in-house. Consultants and temporary staff can be very expensive, and departments need to improve how they let and manage assignments, so that proper approval processes are used and sufficient competition is achieved. The centre of government should provide better support to departments, and increasing the proportion of work let through central procurement frameworks should enable them to reduce costs. This report follows up some of the themes covered in our 2015 report Central government staff costs, on which the Committee has not had a hearing.”
The committee's words, from the inquiry page on parliament.uk ↗.
What it found
Consultants and temporary staff can be a flexible and cost-effective part of the government workforce, for example to provide specialist skills that a department requires for a short period only. However, these resources can cost twice as much as permanent staff and the valuable experience in service delivery they gain during the assignment is lost once the assignment ends and they leave. Their use is therefore justified only when it is not feasible for departments to maintain the necessary skills in-house or to borrow those skills from elsewhere within the civil service. Spending controls introduced by the Cabinet Office in 2010 helped to reduce departments’ spending on consultants and temporary staff from its peak in 2009–10 but spending has been increasing again since 2011–12.
Despite some progress since the previous Committee’s 2010 report on this subject, we are disappointed that concerns identified then have not been properly addressed. We expect to see much better planning of skills needs across government and a clearer view from the Cabinet Office of the place of temporary resources in the overall workforce.
What the government said
No government response is linked to this report.
How the inquiry ran
Each dot is a dated item listed on this page, from the inquiry's opening on 5 January 2016 to its close on 12 May 2016.
- Oral evidence 1 Feb 2016
- Report 22 Apr 2016
What it recommended
The committee's recommendations are not listed here yet. Read them in 36th Report - Use of consultants and temporary staff ↗ on parliament.uk.
Evidence
Oral evidence sessions 1
- 1 Feb 2016No witnesses recordedparliament.uk ↗