Ever
wondered how much the government spends on management consultants? Well, the Department
for International Development (DfID) has paid a
handsome sum to free-market ideologues the Adam Smith Institute, totalling
over £34 million in the past six years (War on Want has produced an excellent
report called Profiting from Poverty on
this very issue. It is free to
download).
Over
at Sport England, the bill
for consultants has more than doubled in the last Parliamentary term, and
now comes in at £1,187,697 for 2004-2005.
The
Identity Cards bill may have been scrapped for the moment, but that didn’t
prevent the Home Office from chalking up a £5,716,259
bill with PA Consulting Services for “provision of management consultancy
for the development of the ID card scheme” in the period up to December 2004.
The
overall
Home Office bill for consultants rose from around £7.5 million at the start
of Labour’s term in 1997-1998 to £21,147,058 in 2001-2002, which appear to be
the latest available figures.
The
big picture here is a story of the outsourcing of government during New Labour’s
two terms in office. That’s worth bearing in mind when politicians talk of
cutting red tape (aka slashing civil
service jobs). OR
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