Government under pressure to cut contractors, with DfT alone spending £70m a year

Think-tank the Policy Exchange today puts pressure on the Government to cut spending on contractors, claiming it could save £1bn this Parliament by reducing this spending by a quarter.

It released figures showing that spending on off-payroll staff - such as consultants, agency staff and interim managers - has ballooned from £610m in 2011/12 to over £1bn in the financial year to April, with the DfT the sixth biggest spender, below bigger-spending departments, of Health and the Home Office. This had returned such expenditure to pre-2010 levels, the think-tank highlights.

The DfT had 617 off-payroll staff  in 2014/15, Policy Exchange said. In a report, it urged the Chancellor in his Spending Review to make departments responsible for payroll "to help them plug gaps in expertise and save money by reducing waste in off-payroll expenditure".