Recommendation 3

Government continues to spend too much on consultants to undertake work that could be better done by civil servants, and does not do enough to utilise or develop skills and experience in-house. At the peak, more than 22,000 civil servants worked on EU exit, and at present that number is around 15,000. The civil service responded to this demand by moving staff between departments—two thirds of staff in DExEU came on secondment from other departments. A similar approach has been taken on a larger scale to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been high turnover among staff working on EU Exit, particularly at senior levels. Government has made extensive use of consultants to support preparations for EU Exit, and is also doing so on Covid-19, to fill supposed gaps in the capacity and skills of the civil service. The Treasury anticipates that consultancy and contingent labour will be an area of focus in the 2020 spending review to ensure departments are making the best use of spending in this area. The Cabinet Office intends to reduce government’s spending on consultants, by developing additional capacity and skills in-house to reduce the need for consultants. Recommendation: Government should set out how it will ensure it has a full and frank assessment of the impact of cross-government working/working on complex issues on civil servants. This should include both likely positive outcomes in terms of skills or experience gained from working in different departments, and also negative impacts such as workload, resilience and the likelihood of burnout. Government should accelerate its plans to reduce its reliance on consultants. It needs better challenge of spending on consultants; clear plans to transition skills in-house where there isn’t obvious business need for short-term staff; and then monitoring of progress both in terms of decreasing spending and increasing skills levels in the civil service.