Recommendation 5

NHST&T’s continued over-reliance on consultants is likely to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds. Our previous report found that NHST&T was overly reliant on expensive contractors and temporary staff and recommended that it needed to reduce this. Despite NHST&T committing to reduce the number of consultants it employed, the number of consultants employed was higher in April 2021 (2,239) than in December 2020 (2,164). The Department pays consultants an average of £1,100 per day but some are paid more. NHST&T does not have a firm grip on its overall spending on consultants. It estimates that it will spend a total of £195 million on consultancy in 2021–22, but at the same time, indicated it would be spending £300 million on its top ten consultancy suppliers alone. The skills that NHST&T is currently using consultants to fill are in short supply across the civil service. Over a third of the 523 recruitment campaigns run by NHST&T up to the end of May 2021 failed to appoint anyone. The Department asserts that it has detailed plans in place to reduce the number of consultants it employs and that it expects this to be lower by the end of March 2022. Recommendation: UKHSA should write to the Committee by the end of November 2021 detailing how it will reduce its dependency on consultants and write to us again in March 2022 and June 2022 setting out its progress against this.