REPORT: Keith Vaz warns DCA it must explain outlay

The Department for Constitutional Affairs' (DCA) soaring consultancy expenditure is now larger than those of the Department for Education and Skills, the Treasury, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport combined, according to a report given to the Gazette by former DCA minister Keith Vaz.


The MP's research revealed that since 2000/01, the DCA's bill for consultants has tripled from £3.4 million to more than £10.6 million in 2004/05.


Mr Vaz accused the department of creating a 'culture of secrecy' because Minister of State Harriet Harman refused in May this year to detail what the consultants do for their money. In a written parliamentary reply, she said the information 'is not held centrally, and could be obtained only at disproportionate cost'.


In his Value for money? report, comparing the spending on consultants by 13 of the 20 government departments, Mr Vaz questioned how the DCA itself can 'adequately assess the cost-effectiveness of employing consultants' if there is a dearth of centrally recorded data.


Mr Vaz warned the DCA in his report that it will face further questions over why it cannot tell the public what it is spending its consultancy budget on, if its next annual report does not come clean.


The Public and Commercial Services Union - many of whose members face losing their jobs because of cutbacks at the DCA - backed the report, telling the Gazette that the steep rise in spending on consultants is a problem endemic across government.


A spokesman said: 'There's no control in terms of how much is being spent on consultants, and no great understanding on what they're actually doing.'


Nobody from the DCA was available for comment as the Gazette went to press.


Rupert White