Social Development Minister defends consultancy fees

The Northern Ireland Department for Social Development has defended statistics that reveal they spent just under three quarters of a million pounds on consultancy reports.

The figures were brought to light by a question put to Stormont Social Development minister Maurice Morrow by Monica McWilliams of the Women’s Coalition.

Ms McWilliams expressed alarm at the high cost - £843,480 – and the closed nature of consultancy studies the department had carried out.

She said: “This is a surprisingly large sum of money: almost one million pounds was spent last year on some 39 projects. The public has a right to know about this and also ask questions about whether it is being spent properly, in the most efficient way, and on the most urgent social needs.

“It raises real concerns about open government, even now, we do not have the full facts what research was carried out or know what is happening in other government departments. Much of the research was not published. The information should be available to the public and those working in the public sector in some form.”

She also raised concerns about the cost of employing outside consultancy firms instead of utilising the civil service staff.

The Minister for Social Development, Maurice Morrow however defended his department’s expenditure on the use of consultants. He claimed that professional advice could lead to cost savings: “The expenditure of £800,000 last year should be seen against the Department’s annual expenditure of £3.7 billion – it amounts to a small fraction of one per cent. The use of consultants allows my Department and others to access independent and specialist advice on a range of complex issues and can be more efficient than engaging and training the extra staff.”

One of the studies commissioned by the government department aimed at advising the Social Security Agency about the implementation of its Welfare Reform and Modernisation Programme cost £228,000, while a report on the West Belfast Festival cost £21,500.

A spokesman for the Department of Social Development explained that some reports remained unpublished for a number of reasons: “Alongside the fact that publication of every report would be costly, these reports are sometimes too technical for public consumption and can be confined by the constraints of commercial confidentiality. The use of outside help has proved very useful in conducting these reports, indeed the department would be criticised for carrying out internal evaluations into social issues.”

(AMcE)