New guidance for councils to cut the cost of consultants

With funding from the London Centre of Excellence (LCE), the guidance has been drawn up jointly by the City of London Corporation and the London Borough of Hounslow and seeks to make a 10% year-on-year efficiency gain on consultancy spending. According to LCE figures, £170 million a year is spent on consultants by London boroughs alone.

Called the ‘Commissioning toolkit for the procurement of consultancy and professional services’, the guidance sets out the steps necessary to realise efficiency gains and achieve good value from the use of consultants. It shares best practice and encourages councils to collaborate on procurement. And while it recommends a structured approach to reviewing and engaging consultants, it encourages councils to make better use of their own resources first.

To support the use of the toolkit in London, a package of training designed to boost commissioning skills and a web-based knowledge centre to allow boroughs to benchmark costs, share details of projects and monitor performance will be available shortly.

The Regional Centres of Excellence (RCEs) will be considering how best to implement the toolkit across the other eight English regions as part of the wider RCE Procurement Programme.

The move has been prompted by the mounting cost of procuring management consultants. A recent report published by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that public sector spending on consultants had increased by a third in three years, with much of the growth accounted for by the NHS, although local government’s bill is expected to rise if spending goes unchecked.

Mark Gilks, Chief Executive, London Borough of Hounslow, said, “Local government contains huge talents and skills and yet the sheer complexity of the task faced means that local authorities will need to commission external consultants. This requires real skill which has been captured by this project and presented in a highly understandable and useable fashion from which all authorities can benefit. It has also been a delight to share this work for the Centre of Excellence with our colleagues at the City of London. Sharing learning makes for stronger local government.”

The toolkit addresses consultants that provide advice, development and project implementation services to local authorities in areas such as strategic planning, management, ICT, legal, financial, environment and housing.

Copies of the toolkit are available at www.lcpe.gov.uk.