Home Department written question – answered at on 12 October 2011.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what procedures her Department uses when engaging external consultants.
The Home Department has a robust governance process in place to ensure that control is applied to all requests to appoint external consultants for both new engagements and extensions to existing arrangements.
The Department's approvals procedure is implemented through the Departmental Consultancy and Contingent Labour Approvals Board, chaired by the Director General of Financial and Commercial Group. The Board thoroughly scrutinises each business case for the engagement of external consultants and decides whether to approve the request or not, on the strengths of each case.
All new consulting engagements with an anticipated value greater than £20,000 requires the approval of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, my right hon. Friend Mrs May.
Our procedures comply with the Cabinet Office requirement to submit the following three types of request to the Efficiency and Reform Group:
Where consulting engagements are expected to go beyond nine months;
Where the engagement is for procurement services and will cost £20,000 or more and;
To prolong an existing engagement beyond nine months.
Approved consulting engagements are competitively tendered through an appropriate Government Procurement Service framework or, in exceptional circumstances, through an open competition advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Yes0 people think so
No0 people think not
Would you like to ask a question like this yourself? Use our Freedom of Information site.