UK govt urged to cut $5.6 bn spending on consultants

Lawmakers urged the UK government to cut spending on consultants, which reached 2.8 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) last year, pointing out that almost half of civil servants say money has been wasted.

The all-party Public Accounts Committee said 40 percent of officials who had hired consultants admitted using them inappropriately, sometimes to provide a scapegoat for failed projects. Government departments didn't keep track of spending on consultants or check whether they had the required skills in- house before taking on help, the panel said in a report on Tuesday.

``Departments routinely do not agree with the consultants any measurable benefits to be expected from the contracts,'' said Edward Leigh, a member of Parliament from the opposition Conservative Party who leads the committee. ``Consultants are often paid simply on the basis of the amount of time worked and not on what the work has achieved.''

The committee estimates that cost controls could cut the bill by 500 million pounds a year. Money paid to management consultants rose by a third between during the three years through April 2006, the National Audit Office said in December.

The NAO said top suppliers of consulting services in 2005 included International Business Machines Corp., which earned 275 million pounds; LogicaCMG Plc, 175 million pounds; and Accenture Ltd., 130 million pounds.

“`It is misleading to suggest that the government is not achieving good value for money in its use of external consultants,” the Office of Government Commerce, a wing of the Treasury, said in an e-mailed statement. “The government is leading a major reform of the public sector, so it is only right that external expertise is brought in.”