Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how much the Office spent on the Government Consulting Hub in financial years of (a) 2020-21, (b) 2021-22 and (c) 2022-23.

The Government Consulting Hub (GCH) opened in May 2021, and operated on a cost neutral basis for the Cabinet Office, charging government departments for consultancy work undertaken and collecting a subscription fee for training and other services. It was tasked with helping to develop capability and ownership of consulting work within each department, triaging consulting requirements and establishing a “Consultancy Playbook” to establish best practice. A key focus of GCH was to develop capability and ownership of consultancy work within each department.

GCH enhanced the skills of a total of 526 civil servants across a variety of programmes. In FY 2020-21, the capability offer was stood-up. 189 received training in FY 2021-22 and 337 in FY 2022-23. In total, 414 civil servants received training via the main offer “Core Consulting Skills for Government”; this included 96 Fast Streamers and 14 Director Generals via a Senior Leaders workshop.

These skills continue to be deployed through the Civil Service.

The estimated fee differential associated with Government Departments using GCH for consultancy rather than external suppliers was £4.3 million.

The triage service has (since GCH was wound down on 31st January 2023) transferred to the Crown Commercial Service, building on the work done by GCH with each department. This transition is a recognition of the maturity level of the service, which means it can now integrate with CCS work on consultancy procurement strategies across Whitehall.

The GCH capability programme, supporting civil servants to adopt consultancy type skills where appropriate, has now onboarded to Civil Service Learning, and will continue to be available to all civil servants. By improving these skills in the public sector, we can continue to ensure the Government is only using consultants when absolutely necessary.

The Consultancy Playbook was well-received and set a new bar for how we get best value from external firms. It will now be integrated into the suite of playbooks owned by the Commercial Function.