Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many consultants his Department has hired in each year since 2016; and what the cost of that process has been to the public purse.

The Home Department does not procure external consultancy services on an individual consultant basis but as discrete packages of work from consultancy providers therefore it is not possible to provide costs or numbers of individual consultants engaged.

The Departments spend on external consultancy services is published in the Departments Annual Report and Accounts, which are available here;

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ho-annual-reports-and-accounts

Spend for the Financial Year 2016/17 was £13.348M (page 60)

Spend for the Financial Year 2017/18 was £12.728M (page 72)

Spend for the current Financial Year is being assessed at will be published in the 2018/19 Annual Report and Accounts later in the year.