Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many (a) consultancy firms and (b) people have been employed by his Department to work on the Universal Credit programme in (i) the 2015-16 financial year and (ii) this financial year to date; and how much his Department has spent on those firms and people in those financial years.

(i) For the financial year from 1st April 2015 to 31st March 2016, the Universal Credit programme paid for consultancy services from two firms at a total cost of £4.3m. These were service based contracts and we are unable to specify the number of people employed by these firms.

(ii) For the current financial year, costs from 1st April 2016 to 31st May 2016 are available. Over this period £54k was paid to one firm for consultancy services. Again we are unable to clearly specify the number of people employed.