Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on consultancy fees in each year since 2021.

The government is committed to restoring the public finances and delivering value for the taxpayer.

As part of this wider mission, the government has pledged to reduce wasteful spend on non-essential and expensive consultants in order to save over £1.2 billion by 2026.

The latest available data that has been audited and published as part of the Group Annual Report and Accounts, is linked below:

• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-education-consolidated-annual-report-and-accounts-2021-to-2022
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-education-consolidated-annual-report-and-accounts-2022-to-2023
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-education-consolidated-annual-report-and-accounts-2023-to-2024

The data for post-March 2024 is live and unaudited. Additionally, due to the department’s accruals accounting, the partial year’s data may be incomplete and misleading. Therefore, we are unable to provide data beyond March 2024.