Recommendation 19

Government has made extensive use of consultants to support preparations for EU Exit, and is also doing so on Covid-19. This Committee has raised concerns in the past about government’s increasing spend on consultants, and on the gap between the Cabinet Office’s and departments’ data on spending across government.50 The Treasury explained that consultants had been used as ‘substitutes for civil servants’, to fill supposed gaps in capacity and skills of the civil service. Both the Cabinet Office and the Treasury agreed with us that this was an area of concern, and plan to take action to reduce this spending in the future. The Treasury and the Cabinet Office have worked to update the definition of consultancy, and now use that single definition for all financial reporting. The Treasury anticipates that this will enable consultancy and contingent labour to be an area of focus in the 2020 spending review to ensure departments are making the best use of spending in this area.51