Author: admin

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Leslie on 2014-04-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, which 10 consultancy firms were paid the most by his Department in the last financial year; and how much each of those firms was paid.

Brandon Lewis

The table below sets out the ten consultancy firms that were paid the most by my Department in the last financial year

The data complies with definitions on Consultancy laid down by the Cabinet Office which excludes agency staff and interim (contingent) labour.

Financial Year 2013-14

Organisation	Total Expenditure (excluding VAT)
Local Partnership LLP*	£150,918
PricewaterhouseCoopers	£108,516
Ove Arup & Partners	£66,790
Amec Environment & Infrastructure	£62,509
Ernest & Young LLP	£20,000
Capgemini UK Plc	£17,000
Grant Thornton UK LLP	£8,815
Giant Professional Limited	£6,400
Oakleigh Consulting Ltd	£4,950
Land Use Consultants	£1,345

* Local Partnerships is a company that is jointly owned by HM Treasury and the Local Government Association; it provides commercial expertise on matters of infrastructure, legal and contractual complexity and acts for the benefit of the public sector.

My Department has cut spending on consultancy from £36.6 million in 2009-10 to £0.5 million in 2013-14. This represents a saving of £36.1 million a year (2013-14 compared to 2009-10) and has been achieved through contract renegotiations, terminations and adherence to Cabinet Office controls on consultancy spending.

To put this in context, based on current estimates (which reflect accounting consequences from machinery of government changes) the DCLG Group is reducing its annual running costs by around 40% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15. This equates to net savings of at least £532 million over this spending review period and includes savings of around £420 million from the closure of the Government Offices for the Regions.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Leslie on 2014-04-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, which 10 consultancy firms were paid the most by her Department in the last financial year; and how much each of those firms was paid.

Mrs Helen Grant

The 10 professional services firms that were paid the most in 2013/14 are listed in the table below:

Supplier Name	Total paid in 2013-14 (£)
KPMG LLP	1,934,209.35
Pinsent Masons	950,789.80
Local Partnerships	429,919.24
Grant Thornton UK LLP	401,867.88
Regeneris Consulting Ltd	75,187.00
Andrew Dumbreck Media Limited	62,165.60
National Centre for Social Research	70,732.00
Deloitte (LLP No 2 a/c)	49,480.00
CLAS Co-operative Ltd	29,820.00
SQW Limited	29,413.00

These are unaudited figures from the Department’s financials systems, net of recoverable VAT. The department uses professional services firms for a variety of purposes. In addition to consultancy services, they include expenditure on external legal support and advice on programmes, research fieldwork, evaluation, specialist technical advice and the provision of interim managers. Legal services from the Treasury Solicitors and providers of recruitment services have been excluded in order to arrive at a list of firms that are predominantly providers of consultancy.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chris Leslie on 2014-04-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, which five companies were used most often to provide temporary workers for his Department in the last financial year; and how much in agency fees was paid to each of them.

Anna Soubry

The Ministry of Defence uses a process called “manpower substitution” to engage temporary staff at agreed fixed rates on a national basis through a number of contracts. Manpower substitutes are employed for up to 11 months to fill vacant, funded posts. The majority are brought in to fill medical and dental requirements at military medical centres to cover for military positions that are vacant due to deployment into operational theatre. This enables the medical services to continue to provide the best possible care to members of the Armed Forces.

The five companies most frequently used by the Ministry of Defence in Financial Year 2013-14 to provide temporary workers, and the associated fees paid to each, are presented in the following table:

Company	Type of worker	Number of Temporary Workers	Fees Paid
HoneyBee	Medical & Dental	790	£3.46m
CastleRock Ltd	Medical & Dental	490	£2.61m
Capita Resourcing	Interim Professionals	320	£2.07m
Hayes	Medical & Dental	190	£0.59m
Reed	Clerical & Admin	160	£0.11m

The figures provided for Capita Resourcing cover the period from April 2013 to March 2014. All other data cover the period April 2013 to February 2014. Data is extracted from the MOD’s centralised Manpower Substitution Service database and does not include any localised arrangements that individual Top Level Budget holders may have with other companies.