Recommendation 17

We asked the Cabinet Office whether it intends to reduce departments’ spending on consultants, which has been high and increasing following Brexit and COVID-19. The Cabinet Office told us it has a strong programme to try and cut the external spend, and that departments should only use external staff when they offer unique skills which would not be efficient to have permanently within government.39 The Cabinet Office aims to develop skills and capability within government and make better use of the civil service’s knowledge and experience of difficult programmes.40 We asked the Cabinet Office how it would prevent any attempted efficiencies through reducing staff numbers merely leading to replacement with temporary staff or consultants. The Cabinet Office referred 33 C&AG’s report, paragraph 24 34 Committee of Public Accounts, Thirty-first report of Session 2012–13, Department for Transport: Lessons from cancelling the InterCity West Coast franchise competition, HC 813, paragraphs 7, 14–16; C&AG’s report, para 25 35 Q 97 36 Qq. 92, 93, 95 37 Q 95 38 Q 99 39 Q 92 40 Qq. 92, 109 Efficiency in government 13 to controls to prevent this from happening, such as limits on the number of staff who can be employed in this way, controlling the money available, and controlling departments’ freedom to procure consultants externally.41 Tracking progress