2.34 All advisors were appointed following a competitive tendering process except CCTA. The Agency engaged CCTA without competition because of their earlier experience of working with CCTA and because the cost was below the threshold to which procurement regulations applied.
2.35 Only in the case of the appointment of ASE did the Agency obtain estimates of the charges for various stages of the procurement. ASE estimated the amount of time their consultants would require to complete each stage and from this calculated that their total charge would be £253,905 net of VAT. This was not a firm offer and their actual charges were based on the time their employees worked on the procurement. The out-turn cost of ASE's contribution was £766,000 net of VAT. The Agency were unable to show us correspondence with ASE either explaining cost overruns for identified parcels of work or containing advance estimates of costs of ordered additional work.
2.36 It would have been in the Agency's interests to obtain estimated prices for specific parcels of work from Berwin Leighton, KPMG and Capita. Such information would have assisted the Agency in their budgeting of the procurement and in ensuring that fees were justified.