§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what the cost was to his Department of the use of external consultants in each of the last four years. [21263]
§ Mr. BlunkettThe available information held by my Department on cost for the use of external consultants over the last four financial years is as follows:
£ 1997–98 7,627,016 1998–99 4,588,445 1999–2000 10,302,672 2000–01 27,877,286 The increase in expenditure on consultancy in 2000–01 is primarily due to a major investment programme in the modernisation of the Home Office and in particular on IT related modernisation. This breakdown on expenditure is as follows:
2000–01 £ IT related consultancy 12,550,540 Non-IT related consultancy 15,326,746