Consultants Mr. MacShane To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much was paid to outside consultants and other bodies undertaking work on behalf of his Department in each year since 2000. Mr. Thomas The total spent each year on consultancy contracts by the Department of International Development (DFID) is as follows: ------------------- | |£ million| ------------------- |2000-01|284 | ------------------- |2001-02|273 | ------------------- |2002-03|274 | ------------------- |2003-04|270 | ------------------- |2004-05|276 | ------------------- |2005-06|255 | ------------------- This includes both consultancy to deliver parts of our development programme (as covered in Statistics for International Development), where services are often provided to third parties such as recipient Governments, and consultancy to DFID as an organisation. It does not include all low value contracts issued by DFID departments and overseas offices, of which there are no consolidated records.