Margaret Hodge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Attorney General

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Margaret Hodge on 2016-09-02.

To ask the Attorney General, how many times the Law Officers’ Departments have used the services of (a) PwC, (b) Deloitte, (c) Ernst and Young, (d) KPMG and (e) other consulting firms in the last three financial years; and what (i) work was undertaken and (ii) the cost to the public purse was on each such occasion.

Jeremy Wright

The Government Legal Department (GLD) and the Attorney General’s Office have not procured any consultancy advice or support in the last three years.

GLD has used two of the firms specified to provide support to litigation cases involving the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The table below shows the amount spent with PwC and KPMG.

Over the past three financial years Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service (HCMPSI) has spent £47,440 on consultancy services to provide general advice and support to the Chief Inspector and £6,662 to assist with a review of the shape and size of HMCPSI.

The table below sets out payments made for the past three financial years by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to the above firms and the reason for payment. None of these payments were for consultancy services. The SFO have engaged some other firms who provide consultancy services but in all cases this was for forensic accounting or expert witness services in support of our investigations rather than consultancy.

The Deloitte spending related to data recovery. PwC and Ernst & Young expenditure related to payment to an expert witness for an SFO case.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has not incurred any expenditure with PwC, Ernst and Young or KPMG in the last three financial years.

he CPS has incurred expenditure with Deloitte. However, records of each separate engagement are not maintained and the department is therefore unable to confirm the number of times Deloitte’s have been engaged.

Central records of total CPS expenditure are maintained and expenditure with Deloitte’s for each of last financial years is shown in the table below.

Deloitte LLP Milton Keynes

The payments relate to building works and associated services in respect of three offices the CPS has lease agreements on and where Deloitte’s act on behalf of the properties landlords.