Defense Department triples spending on consultants and temporary staff in five years

The Department of Defense spent £525 million on consultants and temporary staff, its annual reports show. reports showed.

Between 2022 and 2023, the department spent £525 million on consultation and temporary staff. This is more than the £152 million spent between 2017 and 2018.

The amount spent by the Department of Defense (MoD) on consulting and temporary staff has been on the rise year-over-year since 2018, with the exception of 2021-22 when £617m was spent on combined services.

This comes amid growing criticism from the MoD for wasteful procurement procedures at a time when troop levels are at their lowest level since the Napoleonic era.

AJAX Armored Car at Lulworth's Multidisciplinary Immersive Military Vehicle Showcase Credit & Copyright: Corporal Rebecca Brown, RLC/British Army.

Last week, a report on defense equipment and support found that the DoD's «dysfunctional» procurement system is «broken» and «urgently» needs to be changed.

Marc François, senior Conservative MP and chair of the subcommittee that led the investigation, said the DoD's procurement approach is «completely broken.»

The report found that the UK procurement system was also over-stratified and 'too cumbersome' and operated within a 'culture that institutionally does not accept individual responsibility'.

In its 2022-2023 Annual Reports and Accounts, the Department of Defense describes consulting services as 'objective advice relating to the strategy, structure, management or operations of an organization to achieve its goals and objectives'.

Private Sector Expertise

It says such advice is time-limited and provided externally when in-house skills are not available, while «temporary staff,» also known as «contingent work,» is described as providing workers to carry out «normal activities or services within the organization.»

In the report, the Department defends the use of talent outsourcing, as it insists that it does not make «economic sense» for the Department of Defense to «keep all the necessary skills within the company at all times.» He added that «access to a certain level of private sector expertise is therefore of lasting value to the Department.»

The Department of Defense says the «increased need» for outsourcing consultants and temporary staff has resulted from a «fundamental change in the way the defense business is conducted.»

«We needed a short-term contract for both independent consulting and specialized skills that cannot currently be found in the permanent workforce,» the post reads.