£160m spent on Brexit consultant contracts

New analysis has found that the government has signed a round of new Brexit contracts with outside consultants worth almost £160 million.

Whitehall has hired companies to carry out consultancy work to prepare for Brexit since the EU referendum in 2016, with ministers prepared to continue drawing on ‘the expert advice’ of a range of specialists.

In February, Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, the professional association for civil servants, called the £104 million the government had spent in contracts for outside help for Brexit as ‘eye watering’.

Data provider Tussell says that the new contracts with consultants could be worth up to a further £159 million.