Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department spent on external consultants in (a) 2017 and (b) 2018.

The level of consultancy spend by the core Department for each of the last two financial years is as follows:

The Department utilises consultancy services where it is necessary and prudent to do so. The increase in spend between 2016-17 and 2017-18 relates to programmes of a short-term nature that require specialist support not available within the Department. These resources primarily support development and implementation of a new supply chain model to produce procurement efficiency and value for money for NHS services and the Corporate Services Improvement Programme.