The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) is unable to provide all of the information requested by the hon. Member in relation to consultancy budgets and expenditure. Due to the NIO's current financial system we are only able to provide budget information for the previous and current financial years, i.e. 2005-06 and 2006-07. Budget information for previous years would have to be gathered manually and would be at disproportionate cost. The following table represents the information held on budgets and expenditure for consultancy costs for the NIO, excluding its agencies and NDPBs.
Budget Spend 2001-02 1— 2,300,656 2002-03 1— 3,600,431 2003-04 1— 4,217,385 2004-05 1— 5,013,939 2005-06 5,584,000 5,157,466 2006-072 5,073,340 2,872,492 1 Not available. 2 Figures supplied for 2006-07 relate to the full year’s budget against the spend as at end of October 2006.