To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much his Department spent on consultancy fees in each of the last five years. (259779)

[holding answer 27 February 2009]: Details of spend on consultancy for each of the last five years is provided in the following table:

Consultancy has been used across the Department in areas such as finance transformation (introducing the largest IT based resource management system in Europe), modernising our IT infrastructure, implementing Pensions Credit and supporting Pensions Transformation.