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Author: Northern Ireland. Criminal Justice Inspection

Title: The Use of Consultants by the Criminal Justice System

Summary: The use of external consultants is an important source of expertise and experience for the public sector. Effective use of consultants can provide innovative thinking, professional insight and technical skills beyond what is available in many public sector organisations. This can assist with the delivery of complex assignments to time and to established budgets, providing value for the organisations who engage them and ultimately, the end user of the services provided. The best consultancy firms invest heavily in training and the development of their staff. It is right and appropriate that the public sector utilise this experience to the benefit of service delivery. The past decade has been a period of significant change within the criminal justice system, most particularly in terms of the modernisation of the police and the establishment of the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland (PPS). All organisations have experienced the challenge of change to some degree. This has entailed the use of consultants including the greater use of external support under job/staff substitution arrangements. This is only to be expected. It is important that staff substitution continues to be monitored along side spending on consultancy. Consultants are expensive resources and there is a responsibility on agencies to maximise the contribution made by consultancy support and the benefits it provides. There is a need to ensure that their use is planned for and appropriately procured, to ensure value for money. There should be a targeted use of consultancy support based on business need. Their assignments should be managed appropriately and the quality of what they deliver - as with any supplier of goods and services to the public sector - should be rigorously examined. This inspection examined the use of consultants across the criminal justice sector in Northern Ireland. Our inspection found that in general, the use of consultants followed practices similar to those which existed elsewhere in the public sector. Indeed, many of our recommendations repeat the findings of similar reviews undertaken by the Audit offices in Scotland, England andWales and Northern Ireland. While we did not find any major areas of concern around the overall process of procurement, there were some issues around the letting of individual contracts and the need to sharpen practice as a consequence. We did find the need to strengthen the planning and management of consultancy support. In particular, there is a need to widen the pool of suppliers for the justice system as there was evidence of dependence on a relatively small number of key suppliers and barriers to access to new suppliers. We also found the need to strengthen the post-benefit review stage that assesses the value of the support provided. Clarity of information and transparency on the processes followed, would also improve the overall management of consultancy support.

Details: Belfast: Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland, 2010. 54p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 15, 2011 at: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/aa/aa38053b-44bb-4d7e-a72a-166110447208.pdf

Year: 2010

Country: United Kingdom

URL: http://www.cjini.org/CJNI/files/aa/aa38053b-44bb-4d7e-a72a-166110447208.pdf

Shelf Number: 121363

Keywords:
Consultants
Criminal Justice Administration
Criminal Justice Systems (Northern Ireland)