The already generous expenditure on consultants' fees by Northern Ireland's government has doubled in the last five years, with the bill now coming in at a cool £42 million.

The figures were released in a report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which acts as a spending watchdog on the various government departments. The report said the spending on consultants is not always well managed and that departments had "consistently ignored" best practice advice on employing consultants, published by the Finance Department.

Many government departments use consultants for advice on a range of subjects such as finance and implementing large projects, often at a notoriously exorbitant price. The PAC is questioning if much of this spending is justified.

Committee Chairman John O`Dowd said the management of public services was increasingly being left to private sector companies.

"Spending on consultants has more than doubled over the five year period to 2007 amounting to £42 million in 2006-07 alone," he said.

"And despite the scale of this expenditure, it is clear that it is not always well managed and best practice guidance is not being adhered to across the public sector.”

He added: "The committee is concerned that the public sector has not learned lessons from these consultants who are increasingly charged with designing and managing public services."

Government practice was given further reprimanded by the PAC who criticised many civil servants' approach to the acceptance of hospitality offered by such consultancy firms.

The committee published a list of many of the extravagances on offer from large consultancy firms documented by departments as part of their in house procedures, such as nights at the opera, concerts and sporting occasions.

However, it is widely speculated that some undocumented gifts from the larger consultancy firms can include property and overseas breaks for lucky heads of departments.

(DW)