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The Government spent nearly £60m on consultants during Kristina Moore's time as Chief Minister, it has emerged.
Figures delayed by more than a year shared yesterday showed that £17,868,485 was spent on consultants in from July-December 2022, and £40,026,911 was spent across the whole of 2023.
This means that a total of £57,895,396 has been spent on consultant remuneration since the last election in June 2022.
The figures were revealed in answer to a written questions asked by Deputy Max Andrews – and do not include the cost of interim, agency, and fixed term contract employees.
A breakdown of spend by consultant or company has not been provided.
The long-awaited spending figures were first due to be published in early 2023.
However, due to major issues with the finance part of the Government's new IT system, officials said they would instead be released in May and June.
Pictured: The amount spent on consultants by Government in the second half of 2022.
However, this was then pushed back as resources had to be diverted to deal with the IT problems.
Express was then told that islanders would have to wait until the end of July to discover details about the use of consultants for the second half of 2022 and details of Ministerial travel and expenses from 1st July 2022 to 30th June 2023.
In August 2023, Cabinet Office officials said that islanders would have to wait until September at the earliest.
As a backbencher, Deputy Moore was critical of John Le Fondré’s Government's use of UK consultants.
Following a successful proposition in 2019 by Deputy Kirsten Morel, who later became Deputy Chief in Kristina Moore's Council and remains Economic Development Minister today, the Government agreed to produce bi-annual updates on its consultant spend.
Pictured: More than £40m was spent on consultants during 2023.
The last of those reports, published in February 2023, showed that John Le Fondré’s Government spent more than £100m on consultants, interim staff and agencies in its final year.
Of this figure, around £30m was spent on consultants, while more than £27m was spent on fixed-term contractors and £18m went to healthcare and social workers from agencies.
During his time as Deputy Chief Minister, Deputy Morel said that Ministers were "absolutely committed" to reducing the millions of pounds spent on temporary and locum staff.
However, he could not say the same for consultants – for which he noted there would "always be a need".
Of the main Government schemes, around £22m was spent on consultants for the now-shelved Our Hospital project, while more than £7m went to consultants for the ITS programme – which aims to overhaul the government’s finance, payroll and procurement computer systems.
In February 2023, Deputy Morel said: "On the consultants front, I do know that a lot was spent on the ITS project and the Ministers in charge of that area have been looking at that, and seeking to reduce the spent on consultants for that particular project."
He added that this would include making sure consultants were used "where they are needed" so that they didn't become "relied upon".
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