£8.94 Million on Consultants. Nine Programmes Still Failing.

Forty-nine consultancy contracts. £8,943,015 of public money. Contract start dates ranging from June 2019 to March 2025, with end dates extending to March 2026 — the earliest predating DHCW's creation, inherited from its predecessor NWIS. Nine major programmes — every one now under Level 3 government intervention. That is the picture that emerges from FOI/5854154, a disclosure that DHCW admitted was incomplete in its first iteration, and provided in full only after multiple requests and a formal complaint.

This is not an estimate or an allegation. It is DHCW's own data, provided under the Freedom of Information Act by DHCW's own information governance team. The spreadsheet was last modified on 14 May 2025 — almost a year ago. Every contract, supplier, value, and date cited below comes directly from that disclosure. Any consultancy contracts entered into since May 2025 are not captured; the true current figure is likely higher.

Download the original DHCW spreadsheet (XLSX, 21KB) — the unmodified FOI disclosure as provided by DHCW.

And the £8.94 million is a floor, not a ceiling.

A note on data quality

The spreadsheet itself raises questions about the rigour of DHCW's record-keeping. One supplier — Capacitas, engaged for £150,000 — is misspelled as "Capasitas." Channel 3 Consulting appears under three different name variants across its five contracts ("Channel 3", "Channel 3 Consultancy", "Channel 3 Consulting"), as does Gartner ("Gartner UK Limited" and "Gartner UK Ltd") and Atos ("ATOS IT Services" and "Atos IT Services"). Anyone analysing the data by supplier name — as the Senedd or Audit Wales might — would undercount the total spend per supplier unless they manually identified and grouped these variants.

Several contracts ran significantly beyond their stated maximum term plus extensions — in one case, a contract with a stated term of 12 months and no extension option ran for 24 months — with no explanation in the register. Trailing whitespace appears in multiple supplier names and contract titles.

This is a register of nearly £9 million in public expenditure, prepared by DHCW's Commercial Services team for a statutory FOI disclosure. The misspellings, inconsistencies, and unexplained overruns are not individually significant. Taken together, they describe an organisation whose internal records are maintained with the same care it applies to delivering its programmes.

The Big Three

Three firms account for more than half of the total consultancy spend: Gartner (£2.07 million), Channel 3 Consulting (£1.53 million), and KPMG (£1.28 million). Between them, they were hired to advise on data strategy, programme design, benefits realisation, and digital transformation. The programme areas they advised are now under Level 3 government intervention.

Gartner: £2,065,900 across 9 contracts

Gartner is the single largest consultancy supplier, with contracts falling into two categories: bespoke strategic consultancy and recurring research/advisory subscriptions.

Bespoke consultancy (£970,000): The most significant engagement was a £720,000 Data Strategy Consultancy (October 2021 to September 2023). This was commissioned to shape how DHCW would use data across NHS Wales. By January 2026, CEO Helen Thomas stated at the public accountability meeting: "We don't have an ROI on all of our investments." The National Data Resource — the flagship data programme — cannot access its own data and has been pushed to a 2030 target. The data strategy that £720,000 was spent developing has not produced a functioning national data capability. [Source: DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, January 2026]

A further £250,000 was paid for "NDR Strategic Delivery Recognition Operational Model" (February 2024 to February 2026) — strategic advice on delivering the very programme that remains under Level 3 intervention and cannot ingest data from the systems it was designed to unify.

Research and advisory subscriptions (£1,095,900): The remaining seven contracts are recurring research subscriptions — a common practice in large organisations seeking external benchmarking and analysis. These include "Research & Analysis" for Executives (£286,200), Finance (£90,800), Operations (£85,200), and People & OD (£90,800) — all running April 2024 to March 2025. Earlier subscriptions include Gartner for Executives and Technical Professionals (£79,200), Gartner for Finance (£187,400), Gartner for HR (£44,500), and a combined Executives, Finance, Technical and HR subscription (£231,800).

Research subscriptions are not inherently wasteful. Many organisations use them. The question is whether an organisation spending over £1 million on recurring Gartner advisory, on top of £970,000 in bespoke Gartner strategy work, can point to a strategic outcome that improved as a result. DHCW has not demonstrated one.

Channel 3 Consulting: £1,530,460 across 5 contracts

Channel 3 Consulting was engaged across several of DHCW's most troubled programme areas.

The largest engagement was the "Initiation of Digital Medicines Transformation Portfolio" at £649,430 (September 2022 to August 2024). This contract covered the early-stage design of the digital medicines programme, which includes electronic prescribing. As of January 2025, EPS had achieved 7% GP adoption — one year after going live across all seven health boards. England completed the same capability over a decade ago. [Source: Senedd Health and Social Care Committee, January 2025]

Channel 3 was also paid £373,530 for "WCCIS Consultancy" (September 2022 to August 2023). WCCIS — the Welsh Community Care Information System — has cost over £42 million across more than a decade, and organisations are now seeking to leave the platform. [Source: DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, January 2026]

A further £300,000 was spent on "Mental Health Discovery" (January 2024 to January 2025). The programme remains in discovery — the earliest phase of a digital programme — one year and £300,000 later.

Two additional contracts — "Strategic Review of Community Solution" (£110,000) and "Powys Cross Border Resource" (£97,500) — round out the portfolio. The strategic review preceded a programme reset. The combined effect: £1.53 million paid to one firm, across programme areas that are all under Level 3 intervention.

KPMG: £1,275,000 across 3 contracts

KPMG was hired for two contracts directly linked to the National Data Resource: "NDR Advanced Analytics" (£600,000, January 2023 to January 2025) and "Benefits Realisation - NDR" (£375,000, October 2021 to December 2023).

The first was supposed to develop analytics capability. The NDR platform cannot access its own data. The second was supposed to identify and track benefits. At the January 2026 accountability meeting, the only quantified benefit DHCW could cite across its entire portfolio — not just the NDR — was £0.5 million in non-cash "equivalent savings" from a single system. [Source: DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, January 2026]

DHCW paid £375,000 for benefits realisation consultancy. The total realised benefit it can point to is £0.5 million.

The consultancy cost alone represents 75% of the only benefit DHCW has ever quantified.

A third KPMG contract — "National Digital Technical Accounting and IFRS Considerations" (£300,000, November 2023 to November 2025) — relates to financial reporting standards. Its outcome is not publicly documented.

The Contract-to-Outcome Map

The following table pairs each major consultancy contract with the publicly documented outcome of the programme area it was engaged to support. Every outcome cited is drawn from DHCW's own public statements, Senedd proceedings, or Welsh Government publications.

Every row in that table follows the same pattern: a substantial contract was awarded, the work was completed or is ongoing, and the programme area it was meant to improve is now under Level 3 government intervention.

The Kainos Dimension: The Millions Not in the Spreadsheet

The £8.94 million figure comes from DHCW's own consultancy register, disclosed under FOI. But it does not capture all external consultancy and contractor spending. The most significant omission is Kainos — the firm that delivered the NHS Wales App (DSPP).

A source with direct knowledge of DHCW operations, who submitted evidence to CareNHS, stated that the DSPP and DMTP (Digital Medicines Transformation Programme) "were being run outside of DHCW" — that DHCW "only hosted the teams, they did not manage them" — and that "most of the work was being delivered by others: Kainos for the app." [Source: Submission to CareNHS, identity protected]

The same source stated that DHCW leadership subsequently "persuaded WG [Welsh Government] to let them take them over" and that "delivery against agreed timelines has stalled for both since." [Source: Submission to CareNHS, identity protected]

This account is consistent with the publicly documented outcome. Nick Wood, Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Wales, described the App at the January 2026 accountability meeting as having been "mired in delay, non-delivery." [Source: DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, January 2026]

A separate anonymous submission to CareNHS alleged that Kainos work was "fully discarded and restarted by permanent staff" in at least one instance. The same submission stated that "significant funding is being directed toward these external resources, while experienced permanent staff are often underutilised." [Source: Anonymous submission to CareNHS. This claim has not been independently verified.]

The Kainos contracts do not appear in the FOI consultancy register. They likely flow through different procurement mechanisms — possibly the Crown Commercial Service Digital Outcomes framework or a direct award route. Their value has not been disclosed. But whatever the figure, it is additional to the £8.94 million.

This matters because the £8.94 million is already a striking number. When the Kainos spending is included — potentially millions more, for work that was in at least one instance discarded entirely — the true scale of external consultancy and contractor spending is substantially larger than even the FOI data reveals.

We note that the Kainos claims from the FOI requester and the anonymous submission have not been independently verified by CareNHS beyond the consistency check against publicly documented programme outcomes. DHCW has been invited to respond.

The Disclosure Gap: £757,000 vs £8.94 Million

DHCW's published annual accounts for 2023/24 disclose approximately £757,000 in consultancy expenditure for that financial year. The FOI response lists £8,943,015 across 49 contracts with start dates from June 2019 to March 2025 and end dates extending to March 2026 — spanning approximately seven years of contract activity.

These are not directly comparable figures — one is a single-year statutory disclosure; the other is a multi-year total. Comparing them as though they were equivalent would be misleading, and we do not do so. But the gap between the two still raises serious transparency questions that a simple time-period adjustment does not resolve.

Even allowing for the multi-year spread, the annual consultancy spend implied by the FOI data significantly exceeds the published £757,000 figure. Forty-nine contracts totalling £8.94 million over approximately seven years implies an average annual spend of roughly £1.3 million — significantly above the disclosed figure — and the actual distribution may be substantially higher in peak years, given that many contracts overlap.

Part of the remaining gap is likely explained by accounting classification. Public sector accounts distinguish between "consultancy," "professional services," and "outsourced services." Contracts that DHCW's own information governance team classified as consultancy in response to an FOI request may be categorised differently in the statutory accounts — spread across budget lines where they are not visible as consultancy to anyone reading the published figures.

However, this explanation — even if it accounts for much of the gap — does not resolve the transparency problem. Here is why:

First, DHCW's own team categorised all 49 contracts as consultancy when responding to the FOI. If the organisation itself considers this work to be consultancy, then the published accounts substantially understate the consultancy figure — however the time period is sliced.

Second, the public had no visibility of the true scale before this FOI disclosure. A member of the Senedd, a journalist, or a member of the public reading DHCW's annual accounts would have seen £757,000 and concluded that external consultancy was a modest expenditure line. The multi-year reality is £8.94 million — and even that understates it, given the Kainos spending and other contracts not captured in the register.

Third, obtaining the full picture required multiple FOI requests and a formal complaint. the FOI requester's initial request received a response that DHCW itself later admitted was incomplete. DHCW interpreted "external consultancy" narrowly, providing only a partial picture. The complete disclosure came only after the requester challenged the initial response and DHCW acknowledged the omission. [Source: FOI/5854154 correspondence, April 2025]

The question is not whether the £757,000 figure in the annual accounts is technically compliant with NHS accounting standards. It may well be. The question is whether an organisation whose own records show £8.94 million in consultancy contracts — plus additional millions on Kainos — while disclosing £757,000 per year in its accounts is providing the Senedd and the Welsh public with a meaningful picture of how their money is being spent.

The Redacted Contract and the CGI Question

One contract in the FOI disclosure is fully redacted: a £450,000 engagement with an unnamed supplier, the purpose of which has been withheld entirely. DHCW applied section 31(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act — the exemption for preventing or detecting crime — stating that the contract "relates to a contract in place to support protecting against criminal acts against DHCW and NHS Wales systems and networks." [Source: FOI/5854154, April 2025]

This is a legitimate exemption and we do not challenge DHCW's right to protect security-sensitive information. The existence of a £450,000 security contract is, however, a matter of public interest. DHCW's cyber security posture has faced repeated questions — the organisation has never published evidence of holding basic security certifications such as Cyber Essentials. A contract of this scale, in an area where DHCW's capability has been publicly questioned, warrants at minimum a category disclosure even if the supplier must remain confidential.

Separately, several other contracts in the disclosure have partial redactions — supplier names or contract titles replaced with asterisks — also under section 31(1)(a).

On the subject of CGI — a major IT services firm that delivers work on the National Target Architecture (NTA) programme — DHCW stated in its FOI response: "Digital Health and Care Wales have no contracts with CGI Ltd." [Source: FOI/5854154, April 2025]

This is technically possible if CGI's engagement is structured through a subcontracting arrangement with another prime contractor, or routed through a framework agreement held by another body. But the statement sits awkwardly alongside the publicly documented role CGI plays in NTA delivery — and alongside what CareNHS has been told by people who were there.

An anonymous submission from a senior DHCW staff member describes a substantial CGI presence on DHCW premises in mid-2024. According to this account, a team of CGI consultants — approaching ten in number, including the CEO of CGI's healthcare division — were embedded at DHCW for a period of several weeks. They drew on time from multiple DHCW teams to produce what appeared to be a strategy document or presentation. The source states that the engagement was visibly expensive given the seniority and number of consultants involved.

The output was never shared with the staff who had contributed to it. According to the source, the resulting report was not circulated internally. Requests for access were denied. Staff were unable to determine whether this was because the quality of the work was unacceptable, or because the findings were not to the liking of the CEO and directors. In either case, a significant consultancy engagement — involving the most senior figure in CGI's healthcare practice — produced a deliverable that has been withheld from the organisation's own staff.

This account has not been independently verified. But if accurate, it raises a direct question: how does an engagement of this scale — approaching ten consultants over several weeks, led by a divisional CEO — not appear in a FOI disclosure covering consultancy contracts? Either the contract is held by another body (and DHCW's "no contracts with CGI Ltd" is technically true but substantively misleading), or the FOI disclosure is incomplete.

A separate anonymous submission to CareNHS noted Channel 3 Consulting's involvement in NTA with "lots of £s" and referenced a Tektology contract that does not appear in the FOI disclosure.

Contracts missing from the register: Mozaic

CGI is not the only notable absence. CareNHS has received an anonymous submission from a senior DHCW staff member stating that Mozaic — a management consultancy specialising in organisational change and leadership development (mozaic.net) — was engaged by DHCW on three separate occasions during the period covered by the FOI disclosure. The source states that these engagements were commissioned by Sam Lloyd, Executive Director of Operations.

No Mozaic contract appears anywhere in the 49-contract FOI register. This is either a classification gap — the contracts may be categorised under a heading that fell outside the FOI request's scope — or a further omission of the kind DHCW itself admitted when it acknowledged its first FOI response was incomplete.

The full procurement landscape for external advisory work at DHCW remains opaque. The £8.94 million is the disclosed floor. The CGI engagement, the Mozaic contracts, the Kainos spending, and the Tektology contract all suggest the true figure is substantially higher.

The Rest of the Register

Beyond the three largest suppliers, the remaining contracts paint a picture of an organisation that reached for external advice at every turn.

InForm Solutions was paid £800,000 for a "Commercial Advisor" role spanning 36 months (August 2022 to July 2025), with a 12-month extension option. Three years of commercial advisory, during a period when the organisation's total demonstrated benefit was £0.5 million.

Yolk Recruitment received £510,000 for "Permanent Recruitment" (February 2024 to January 2026). DHCW grew its headcount from approximately 960 to approximately 1,200 — a 25% increase against an NHS Wales average of 2.7% — while every programme failed. A Welsh Government official described this trajectory as "obviously unsustainable." [Source: DHCW Public Accountability Meeting, January 2026]

Deloitte was paid £237,680 across two contracts: Board Development (£140,000) and Strategic Plan consultancy (£97,680). After the board development programme, the Interim Chair admitted the board was informed "late in the day" on critical matters. After the strategic plan consultancy, Senedd committees found DHCW's strategy unclear.

Atos received £207,100 for stakeholder engagement work: a £200,000 "Stakeholder Engagement" contract and a £7,100 "Stakeholder Intelligence" engagement. The stakeholder review found that only 13.3% of respondents spoke highly of DHCW. There is no public evidence that the findings led to significant changes in DHCW's stakeholder approach.

Capasitas was paid £150,000 for "Quality Assurance Automation" over just three months (January to March 2025). That is £50,000 per month. No public outcome has been reported.

Ernst & Young received £135,000 for VAT Advisory Services.

Other contracts include: Circular Resource Specialists (£132,700 for "Carbon Impact on EPS"), Ethical Healthcare (£124,839 for benchmarking), Cwmpas (£100,000 for a Digital Inclusion Review), I&A Analytics (£100,000 for Benefits Realisation), HFMA (£100,000 for Cost Benchmarking), and Alison Watkins Communications (£100,000).

The cumulative picture: an organisation that cannot demonstrate the value of its own programmes paid £8.94 million to external firms for strategy, programme design, and advisory services — across programme areas that are all now under Level 3 government intervention.

What This Means

The £8.94 million is a number that belongs in context.

Against DHCW's total budget: the organisation's annual expenditure exceeds £78 million. The consultancy contracts span multiple years, but even distributed across the period they represent, external consultancy is a material spending category that was effectively invisible in the published accounts.

Against programme outcomes: the major consultancy contracts were concentrated in programme areas — data strategy, digital medicines, community care, benefits realisation, programme office design — that are all now under Level 3 intervention. Not one has been delivered on time or on budget. The only quantified benefit across the entire portfolio is £0.5 million in non-cash "equivalent savings."

Against the disclosure: DHCW published £757,000 per year in consultancy expenditure. The FOI reveals £8.94 million across contracts spanning 2019 to 2026 — substantially more, even allowing for the time-period difference. The Kainos spending — uncaptured even in the FOI data — pushes the real figure higher still. The gap between what the public could see and what was actually being spent is not a rounding error. It is a structural transparency failure.

Against the pattern: this is not a one-off finding. It sits alongside undisclosed programme costs (six of nine Level 3 programmes have never published an expenditure figure), a shadow workforce of 23 off-payroll workers, and salary disclosures that disappear from the accounts without explanation.

the FOI requester, whose FOI requests produced this data, put it succinctly: "They even paid someone to tell them how to run a programme office and then paid someone from an agency on a day rate to run it." [Source: Submission to CareNHS, identity protected]

The pattern is not of an organisation that occasionally needed specialist external advice. It is of an organisation that systematically outsourced its core functions — strategy, programme design, benefits realisation, stakeholder engagement, board development, commercial management — while growing its permanent headcount by 25% and delivering nothing on time.

The Welsh public is paying twice: once for an organisation of 1,200 staff, and again for the consultants brought in to do the work that organisation exists to do.

Right of Reply: CareNHS welcomes a response from DHCW to the matters raised in this article. No response has been received to date. Contact: carenhs@carenhs.org

All contract data cited in this article is sourced from DHCW's FOI response reference FOI/5854154, dated April 2025. Programme outcomes are sourced from DHCW's Public Accountability Meeting of 29 January 2026, Senedd committee proceedings, and Welsh Government written statements. Submissions from the FOI requester and anonymous sources are identified as such and have not been independently verified beyond consistency checks against the public record. Where accounting classification may explain part of the disclosure gap, this is noted.

CareNHS is an independent public accountability campaign focused on NHS Wales digital infrastructure. We welcome corrections and responses from DHCW, the Welsh Government, and any individual or organisation named in this article. Contact: carenhs@carenhs.org

Related pages:

• £207,100 to Hear the Truth — Then They Buried It — DHCW's own stakeholder review: only 13.3% spoke highly
• Nine Programmes, Zero Results — programme-by-programme analysis
• What They Admitted — the CEO's own words at the January 2026 accountability meeting
• Financial Waste — The Evidence — the full financial picture
• Try to Find Who Runs DHCW. You Can't. — the shadow workforce
• 7% After a Year — electronic prescribing, a decade behind England