Tag: Chris Leslie

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

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, 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.

Mr Francis Maude

The Prime Minister’s Office is an integral part of the Cabinet Office.

Before the last General Election, including for the entire period while the Hon. Member was a minister in this very department, there were no effective cross-Governmental controls on consultancy spend. Nor were spending controls exercised on other areas such as procurement, advertising and marketing, and IT spend.

That’s all changed and ministers – supported by Cabinet Office officials – now closely scrutinise what we spend on consultants and temporary labour. Departments saved over £1billion in 2012-13 (the last year for which we have audited figures) compared to the spending levels in the final year of the last administration, 2009-10. This helped us save taxpayers £10 billion in 2012-13 against a 2009-10 baseline.

We will continue to spend money on consultants and temporary labour when there is an appropriate business need to do so. Indeed in some cases engaging temporary labour is more flexible and cheaper for the taxpayer than taking on new staff. But we are also ensuring that the Civil Service has the skills needed. Our Capabilities Plan is designed to address long-standing gaps in four particular areas: digital skills, project management skills, commercial skills, and the leadership and management of change.

We publish all spend data over £25,000 and contracts over £10,000 on Gov.uk and Contracts Finder.

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

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, 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.

Mr Francis Maude

The Prime Minister’s Office is an integral part of the Cabinet Office.

Before the last General Election, including for the entire period while the Hon. Member was a minister in this very department, there were no effective cross-Governmental controls on consultancy spend. Nor were spending controls exercised on other areas such as procurement, advertising and marketing, and IT spend.

That’s all changed and ministers – supported by Cabinet Office officials – now closely scrutinise what we spend on consultants and temporary labour. Departments saved over £1billion in 2012-13 (the last year for which we have audited figures) compared to the spending levels in the final year of the last administration, 2009-10. This helped us save taxpayers £10 billion in 2012-13 against a 2009-10 baseline.

We will continue to spend money on consultants and temporary labour when there is an appropriate business need to do so. Indeed in some cases engaging temporary labour is more flexible and cheaper for the taxpayer than taking on new staff. But we are also ensuring that the Civil Service has the skills needed. Our Capabilities Plan is designed to address long-standing gaps in four particular areas: digital skills, project management skills, commercial skills, and the leadership and management of change.

We publish all spend data over £25,000 and contracts over £10,000 on Gov.uk and Contracts Finder.

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 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.

Brandon Lewis

In answering this question, we have used the Cabinet Office definition for contingent labour (temporary staff) which includes admin and clerical agency staff, interim managers and specialist contractors: use of such staff for short-term or specialist work can be better value for money than hiring staff on permanent contracts.

Details of the five companies that my Department has used most often in the last financial year for the provision of contingent labour are set out below:

Financial Year 2013-14

Organisation	Total Expenditure (excluding VAT)
Capita Resourcing Ltd	£1,736,580
Reed Employment Services	£172,702
Reed Specialist Recruitment Ltd	£136,335
Manpower UK Ltd	£40,423
Premier Employment Group Ltd	£22,677

To put this in context, my Department has cut spending on contingent labour from £14.4 million in 2009-10 to £3.3 million in 2013-14 as a result of the tightening of its internal management controls, institutionalising these in its systems and adhering to Treasury and Cabinet Office spending rules. This represents a saving of £11.1 million a year (2013-14 compared to 2009-10)

In addition to the savings on temporary workers, our departmental audited annual accounts for the core Department show that staff costs fell from £216 million in 2009-10 to £99 million in 2012-13, a reduction of 54% in cash terms, or a further saving of £117 million a year.

These savings also reflect the Coalition Government’s agenda of decentralisation, ending the micromanagement of local government, the abolition of regional government, and the broader need to tackle the deficit left by the last Administration.

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.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, 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.

Anna Soubry

The top ten companies which provided external assistance to the Ministry of Defence in financial year 2012-13 are listed in the attached table.

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, 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.

Elizabeth Truss

Under this Government’s transparency programme, details of spend for the Department for Education are published on gov.uk which are available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=department-for-education

To provide the level of detail requested in relation to agency fees would incur disproportionate cost.

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