Whitehall spending on management consultants is on the rise again, the government spending watchdog reports.

The findings by the National Audit Office (NAO) reveal that, in the first years of the coalition, spending on consultants and temporary staff fell, but that it resumed in the past four years going from £400m to £600m.

Despite the recent increase, outlays are still far below 2010 levels, when spending amounted to £1.5bn.

The NAO emphasized that the reported amount is smaller than overall spending since it does not include spending on legal and financial advice, outsourcing contracts and running of IT projects, for example.

The auditors criticised the government for its inability to record temporary staff who have been at their posts for long periods of time. The practice is problematic since, as the report also found, specialist staff contracted out by Whitehall was on average paid twice the amount of equivalent rank in-house staff.

Meg Hillier, chair of the public accounts committee, called out some departments for “playing fast and loose with taxpayers’ money”. She also pointed out that with the contracting out of temporary staff, there is inevitably “a loss of skills when their contract ends, perpetuating existing shortages”.

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