Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether any (a) external contractors and (b) consultancy companies engaged by his Department have charged more than the initial price agreed for their services since May 2010.

(a) Expenditure for external contractors is aligned within the Ministry of Justice to that of Cabinet Office Controls. Contractors are sourced via Pan Government contractual arrangements and rates are set by the contract in line with contractors experience and the job role required. Contractors are not able to charge more for their services than the initial price agreed at time of appointment. Pan Government arrangements date back to 1/4/11 and no information prior to this date is available.

(b) Since May 2010 there have been around 70 contracts awarded by The Ministry of Justice to provide the provision of consultancy.

To establish whether a consultancy company have charged more than the initial price agreed for their services we would need to interrogate both the files and companies to obtain the information required and then review and collate that information. By doing so we would incur disproportionate costs in answering this question.

Temporary staff and consultants are only used to fill business critical posts and provide essential services where they can provide a fast, flexible and efficient way to obtain necessary skills that are not currently available in house.