Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many consultancy and professional services contracts of or over £500,000 in value or at least 9 months in duration his Department has (a) approved and (b) rejected in the last five years, by department; and what the total value of those contracts are.

The approval of consultancy and professional services spend of over £500k or 9 months duration by Cabinet Office is subject to central government spending control since October 2021. Prior to this, approval of consultancy and professional services spending of up to £10m was delegated to departments and other central government bodies. As a result, the data requested is not available.

The approval of contingent labour spend for engagements with day rates of £1,000 or over, excluding recoverable VAT and (b) durations of 18 months or over by Cabinet Office is subject to central government spend control since November 2021. Prior to this, spend decisions were fully delegated to departments and therefore no central dataset was collected on this specific spend.