Report on the use of external consultants by Northern Ireland departments : follow-up report, fifth report, together with the minutes of proceedings of the Committee relating to the report and the min

Over the period 2005-06 to 2010-11, Northern Ireland departments (including agencies, non-departmental public bodies and health trusts) have spent more than GBP150 million on external consultancy services. During its previous hearing on this subject, the Committee noted that the cost of external consultancy to Northern Ireland Civil Service departments and related bodies had more than doubled in five years, looked like it was out of control and too often used in an attempt to provide protection for civil servants' decision making. Since then, there has been a significant reduction in the amount of spending on external consultants. The latest annual spend is approximately GBP14 million, compared with a peak of GBP42 million in 2006-07. It is unacceptable that so many external consultancy assignments are undertaken without a thorough assessment of the potential for skills transfer. Post-project evaluations results should be shared more widely across the public sector to ensure that key lessons are identified and disseminated. Where single tender actions occur, they must be fully justified, subject to a challenge process and reported transparently with each departmental Accounting Officer making their details publicly available. The Committee recommends the use of fixed price or incentivised contracts with well-defined outputs rather than simply paying external consultants for the amount of time they spend on the project, which risks being open-ended. It welcomes the proposed improvements to Account NI coding which should make information on external consultancy and other types of professional services more robust and accessible. It also recommends that options for expanding the coverage of Account NI be considered