Private Consultants Cost Tax Payers £7.2billion

TONY Blair and his cronies have never been afraid to look for outside help. (Pic: The Spine)

Indeed, even when there is absolutely no need to, the Government will pick up the phone and call on the services of a private consultant. Just for the sheer hell of it. And it’s costing us rather a lot - £7.2billion over the past three years, to be exact.

A report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee has revealed the sheer scale of the profligacy, with £2.8billion frittered away by the public sector on private consultants last year alone.

Even more worryingly is the fact that many Government departments are apparently not even sure how much they have spent on outside advisors, with two out of five departments also admitting they had used consultants when it wasn’t even necessary.

MPs on the committee claim that at least £500million a year could be saved by the Government if it curbed its addiction to consultants and adopted recommendations proposed by the National Audit Office.

Edward Leigh, the committee’s Conservative chairman says: “It is impossible to believe that the public are receiving anything like full value for money from this expenditure. In fact, a good proportion of it looks like sheer profligacy.”

But how do we know what value for money is? And who consults the consultants?

Anorak

Posted: 19th, June 2007 | In: Money Comment (1) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink