Saturday 23 February 2019 8:59 am | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 12:22 am

Government departments spend more than £100m on Brexit consultant contracts

The UK government has contracted outside help on Brexit in deals worth £107m since the 2016 EU referendum.

The majority of that money has been spent on consultancy work, with more than £90m given to companies specialising in those services ahead of the UK’s exit from the European Union.

There are six companies receiving contracts worth £10m for "Cabinet Office Consultancy Support for EU Exit", analysis from Tussell has claimed.

Boston Consulting Group, PWC and Deloitte, are among the companies with the most valuable contracts in place regarding Brexit.

A government spokesperson claimed it was “standard” that departments draw on external advice from specialists.

Almost half of the contracts awarded were given to firms to conduct research, with 41 in total, although they were of less value.

“Even in the best of circumstances, the civil service alone would never have had sufficient capacity to pull off a project like Brexit in the time available,” said Gus Tugendhat, the founder of Tussell.

“Due to the sheer breadth of issues the government is having to grapple with, it was pragmatic to engage the expertise of consultants – even if it is has led to extra cost for the public sector and a windfall for consulting firms.”

The consultancy contracts run for a year until May 2019 but the government has the option of extending for a further year at the same price, according to letters from the Crown Commercial Service to suppliers.

"The whole of government is preparing for the UK to make an orderly and successful exit from the European Union, and we are equipping ourselves with the right people and the right skills across government to make this happen," a government spokesperson said.

Tamzen Isacsson, the chief executive of the Management Consultancies Association, said: "Brexit has created an unprecedented workload for the UK government with the need to set up and plan new systems to cover border control, trade, agricultural policy and immigration as well as many other complex policy areas."

US-based Boston Consulting Group received five contracts to work with the cabinet office, departments for environment, exiting the EU and business, worth a total of £14.2m.

Meanwhile IT contracts were mostly awarded by the Home Office, which issued four deals relating to EU citizens currently living and working in the UK, with a total value of £10.2m.

There were also contracts awarded to look at the potential impacts Brexit would have on EU children in the UK and vice versa, as well as the farming, tourism and film industries.

The Treasury revealed it has spent more than £4.2bn on Brexit preparations in December.