Spending on costly consultants soars opposite Whitehall

Spending on expensive consultants has soared across Whitehall, defying the recession and Gordon Browns pledge to halve costs within two years.

Taxpayers paid out more than 22.7 million extra on consultants in the last financial year than the previous 12 months.

Despite the Prime Ministers promise to slash consultancy costs by 2012/13 with his ;smarter government initiative, spending is rising in at least seven government departments.

Officials at supposedly cash-strapped government departments even blamed the recession as an excuse for the rising costs.

Gordon Brown�s pledge to halve costs within two years, spending on expensive consultants at Whitehall has soared

Consultancy costs at the Treasury more than doubled to 54.6 million from 24.1 million.

The banking crisis has been blamed for most of the extra cost, with executives from the guilty industry brought in to advise officials how to avoid a repeat disaster.

The department said that 90 per cent of those costs had been billed to the bailed out banks.

As majority shareholders in the troubled institutions, however, taxpayers would still be ultimately landed with the bill.

Officials at the Department for the Work and Pensions also blamed its rising consultancy bill up 19 million or nearly 25 per cent on the recession.Costs at the department went up from 76.5 million to 95.2 million.The Home Office has seen its consultancy costs rise by 46 per cent, from 96 million to 140 million.

Most of the extra cost was put down to counter-terrorism, the contentious identity card programme and security.

The rise in the last year is in stark contrast to the 52 million reduction between 2006-07 and 2007-08.

Childrens Secretary Ed Balls presided over a 12.9 per cent rise in consultancy costs at his department, where the bill rose from 62 million to 70 million.

The Department for Transport spent 77.5 million in 2007-08 compared to 68.3 million in 2006-07 - a rise of 13.5 per cent.

With council workers facing the sack across the country, the Department for Communities and Local Government still spent 44.7 million on consultants, half a million pounds more than the previous financial year.

Lord Mandelson"s Business, Innovation and Skills department also spent more on consultants.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Cabinet Office both saw their spending rise slightly.

Analysis of 19 government departments consultancy bills shows that the bill for consultants is nearly 874 million (873,645,197) for 2008-09. This is a rise of 22.7 million from the previous year.

The latest figures do not include the Department of Energy and Climate Change and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which were not available.

Liberal Democrat cabinet spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy, who the figures said the lavish spending was irresponsible.

;These astonishing sums of money being spent on outside consultants beg the question of what the Civil Service is for, she said.

;At a time when budgets need to be tightened, it seems entirely irresponsible for ministers to be throwing money around like this.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said: ;At a time when there needs to be restraint after Labour maxed out the nation"s credit card, ministers seem happy to carry on casually spending the money of the hard-pressed taxpayer. Labour have taken economic incompetence to a new level.

TaxPayer"s Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: ;Its extremely disappointing that consultancy spending is still on the rise, despite all the talk of getting it under control.

All three of the main parties have pledged to slash consultancy spending.

A Treasury spokeswoman said that central government spending on consultants had fallen by 31 per cent in three years.

She added, ;The Smarter Government announcement in December committed to a further reduction of 50 per cent by 2012-13.

;Consultancy support has proven central to the successful delivery of many government projects where no internal resource is available, however it is essential that Government ensures consultancy spend is accountable, appropriate and cost effective.;The consultancy value programme is working well to help departments in driving greater value from Government"s use of consultants.A National Audit Office investigation in 2006 found Whitehall was spending around 1.8 billion a year on consultants without properly assessing whether existing staff could do the work.