Consultancy firm run by minister’s ex-colleague given part-time NHP contract

Management consultancy iDevelop was awarded a £114,500 part-time contract, typically two or three days a week, to be “expert adviser” to health minister Lord Markham, the minister in charge of the New Hospitals Programme, and the project’s senior responsible officer, Natalie Forrest.

The contract said it was awarded to a single supplier without competition – this procedure can be used for procurements below the relevant contract value threshold.

The appointment follows the National Audit Office highlighting in a report last month the NHP’s unwelcome dependency and high expenditure on consultancy services.

A government notice published last month after the award of the contract said the iDevelop contract was to provide support for leaders on developing strategic priorities and direction, and helping build a “high-performance team focused on achieving outcomes at pace”.

The firm is run by Nigel Crainey, an executive at London Continental Railways, the organisation which Lord Markham chaired until took on his ministerial role last year.

The consultancy’s website says it helps to enable transformations through “organisation and people solutions” and its services include strategy formulation, organisation design, talent, leadership, bespoke psychological profiling and change management.

Two associate directors are listed on its website, as well as managing director Mr Crainey.

In a Department of Health and Social Care list of ministerial meetings, Mr Crainey and Lord Markham were also shown as meeting for a workshop on the NHP’s standardised hospital design in January.

Lord Markham is listed as having met former Marks and Spencer’s chief executive Steve Rowe five times in the same month to discuss a departmental efficiencies programme. Steve Barclay told The Telegraph the ex-supermarket boss has been commissioned to lead work over this.

Last month’s NAO report said: “Professional and technical consultancy is a normal part of large construction programmes, but NHP has had difficulty staffing its team adequately and has depended more than it wanted to on consultancy services.”

It said there was an estimated £842m consultancy spend between 2023-24 and 2030-31, 75 per cent of its total resource expenditure for those years.

HSJ revealed last month the bulk of NHP consultancy spend had gone on two firms – engineering consultancy Mott Macdonald and KPMG – by May this year at more than £20m each.

Both firms have since won further year-long contracts worth £41.5m for Mott MacDonald as interim delivery partner and £23m for KPMG as interim commercial partner.

The DHSC said: “The [NHP] is a highly complex infrastructure project that requires significant technical expertise. As such, all our technical advisors have been contracted to work on the programme, which is consistent with other major government programmes.

“The hiring process was carried in accordance with usual standards on order for the SRO to support with the strategic priorities and direction for the New Hospital Programme.”

iDevelop had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.