BBC spends more than £8m on consultants in a year

The BBC spent £8.23 million on consultants in the 12 months to the end of March, equivalent to a whole series of a major BBC One drama such as Spooks.

Despite facing widespread budget cuts across its operation, the corporation spent £769,045 on consultants to assist with "change management".

A further £1.9m went on "strategy" advice, according to figures released under a Freedom of Information Act request and passed to The Guardian.

The majority of money went to Deloitte, which earned just over £3m from the BBC over the 12 months, including £197,649 for "management consultancy" and £498,619 for "change management".

The revelation comes as BBC staff work through the Delivering Quality First programme, which aims to secure broad efficiency savings as the corporation faces a 16% real term cut in its income up to 2017.

However, the hefty £8.23m consultancy bill is actually down on the £10.9m that was spent by the corporation during the previous financial year.

Tracey Morris, the BBC head of sourcing at BBC Procurement, said: "The BBC in common with other large organisations does employ consultants but only when we need specialist advice and resource on projects that are outside of the normal course of our business and where it would not be cost efficient to maintain those specialist skills in-house.

"These costs are declining year on year."

In May, the BBC was criticised for hiring a BBC North executive who had to commute from the US, with MPs saying the move opened the corporation up to "self-inflicted and predictable ridicule".