National Audit Office publishes report on Brexit consultancy expenditure

Well, it looks like today is transparency day in the blog as the NAO has just published a report on the spend by Central Government with consultants for Brexit related matters. Predictably it makes for grim reading and here’s a bit of the press release (the final paragraph):

The NAO found that departments have not met the standards of transparency expected by government when publishing details of contracts for EU Exit consultancy. In December 2017, the Crown Commercial Service issued guidance to encourage greater transparency in government procurement. It recommended that departments publish basic information about the award of contracts within 90 calendar days. However, the NAO found that it has taken on average 119 days for basic details of EU Exit consultancy contracts to be published, compared to 82 days for all consultancy contracts. The NAO also found that in its review of contracts for EU Exit consultancy that some had not been published as recommended, and all that had been published were significantly redacted.

That’s one well buried lede.