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PRESS RELEASE

7 February 2008

PN 10/08

Public Accounts Committee publishes report on
“Use of Consultants in Northern Ireland Departments”

The NI Assembly Public Accounts Committee (PAC) published its report “Use of Consultants in Northern Ireland Departments” today.
The report looks at consultancy expenditure in Northern Ireland departments and their related bodies over the 5 year period 2002 - 2007. Committee Chairperson John O’Dowd, MLA said:

“Spending on consultants has more than doubled over the 5 year period to 2007 amounting to £42 million in 2006-07 alone, and despite the scale of this expenditure, it is clear that it is not always well managed and best practice guidance is not being adhered to across the public sector.

“The Committee is concerned that the Public Sector has not learned lessons from these consultants who are increasingly charged with designing and managing public services.

“It is also disturbed to find that good practice guidance in the use of consultants was consistently ignored by departments, and welcomes the Department of Finance and Personnel’s undertaking to increase its testing of departments’ consultancy expenditure to ensure compliance with existing guidance.

“The Committee agreed that competitive tendering offered the best means of ensuring value for money and is astonished to learn that over 10% of consultancy contracts are awarded through non competitive tendering.

”It strongly advocates the use of Centres of Procurement Expertise (COPE) in competitive tendering in order to ensure that professional skills are brought to the procurement process.”

Notes to editors:  

  1. The Committee heard evidence from departmental representatives that recent increases in consultancy costs were due to factors such as Public Sector Reform Agenda, the introduction of Resource Accounting and a number of large scale Public Private Partnership infrastructure projects in the area of roads and water.
  2. The Committee found evidence of frequent and large-scale increases in contract costs. In Department for Regional Development there were enormous overspends on its six largest consultancy projects.
  3. The Committee heard evidence that the performance of consultants resulted in additional expense the public purse, with no recompense.
  4. The Department of Finance and Personnel and the Department for Regional Development couldn’t provide a single example where the results of a post project evaluation had been used to recover losses arising from poor consultancy advice.

The PAC Committee members are:-
Mr John O’Dowd, (SF) Chairperson
Mr Roy Beggs, (UUP) Deputy Chairperson
Mr Trevor Lunn ( Alliance)
Mr Jonathan Craig (DUP)
Mr Simon Hamilton (DUP)
Mr David Hilditch (DUP)
Mr Ian McCrea (DUP) * Ms Dawn Purvis (PUP)
Mr Mitchel McLaughlin (SF)
Mr John Dallat (SDLP)
Mr Patsy McGlone (SDLP)

* Mr Ian McCrea (DUP) replaced Mr Mickey Brady (SF) on the 21 st January 2008

  1. Standing Orders under Section 60(3) of the Northern Ireland Act 1998 have provided for the establishment of the Public Accounts Committee (the Committee). The main statutory function of the Committee is to consider accounts and the reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland (C&AG) laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly.
  2. The C&AG is head of the Northern Ireland Audit Office (NIAO) and is empowered to investigate any area of expenditure and has a statutory right of access to all files and papers in Departments and public bodies.

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Email: kieran.dougan@niassembly.gov.uk
Website archive.niassembly.gov.uk