2015-2016

Expenditure on consultancy and Temporary Staff
(This section has not been subject to audit)
The MOD and its on-Vote Agencies, Executive Non-Departmental Bodies and other Arms Length Bodies spent
the following on consultancy and temporary staff (also known as Contingent Labour) in 2015-16:
Body (Note 1)
Consultancy
(Note 2)
Contingent Labour
(Note 3)
Main Department £22,350,223 £84,068,975
On-Vote Agencies
Defence Equipment & Support Bespoke Trading Entity £26,031,000 £26,875,000
Defence Electronics & Components Agency Nil £135,335
Executive Non-Departmental Public Bodies
£53,654 £26,213
National Museum of the Royal Navy
National Army Museum £19,000 £62,600
Royal Air Force Museum £47,045 £23,111
Single Source Regulations Office Nil £938,000
Other Bodies
Note 4 Note 4
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
Royal Hospital Chelsea £132,000 £280,000
Reserve Forces and Cadet Associations (RFCA) £117,000 £319,000
Total Expenditure 2015-16 £48,749,922 £112,728,234
Note 1: Expenditure on consultancy and contingent labour incurred by the MOD’s two Trading Funds (the
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and the UK Hydrographic Office) is accounted for outside the
MOD’s Departmental Accounting Boundary and therefore reported separately in the annual report and
accounts of the individual Trading Funds.
Note 2: Consultancy is the provision of objective advice on strategy, structure, management or operations. It
is provided when in-house skills are not available and is time limited. It covers the specialist areas of: finance,
information technology, strategy, legal, property and construction, human resources and training, technical,
marketing and communications, organisation and change management, procurement and programme and
project management.
Note 3: Contingent Labour is the provision of individual temporary workers to cover business-as-usual
or service-delivery activities, mainly under short-term arrangements. It covers the following classes of
worker: temporary (or agency) workers (admin and clerical), interim managers (including senior qualified
professionals) and specialist contractors (normally middle-to-senior grades providing expertise that is not
available in house).
Note 4: MOD funding for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is provided through a Grant in Aid. The
Commission is not required to report the financial contribution the MOD makes towards any requirement
the Commission may have for Consultancy and Contingent Labour, which may also be funded through other
sources.
It does not make economic sense for the MOD to maintain all the specialist skills needed permanently
in house, and access to some level of private-sector expertise is consequently of enduring value to the
Department. This has particularly been the case over the past few years as the Department has been going
through a period of fundamental change in the way defence business is conducted. We have therefore
needed to contract short term both for independent advice and for specialist skills which cannot currently
be found among the permanent workforce, much of the activity being associated with the transformational
programmes across defence arising from the implemention of Lord Levene’s 2011 report on Defence Reform.
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